“Passion for God’s house burns within me.” John 2:17
Jesus, His mother, and disciples just left Capernaum and were headed to Jerusalem for the annual Passover. As they made their way to the Temple, Jesus walked in to find merchants selling cattle, sheep, and doves for sacrifices and saw money changers behind their counters.
Jesus became so angry He began chasing out the animals turning over tables and scattering the money changers coins all over the floor. “Get these things out of here. Don’t turn my Father’s house into a marketplace.”John 2:16, how dare you come into My Father’s house and use it for your own self-gain.
How dare us enter our Father’s house and use it for our own self-gain. Jesus sees our true intentions for being at church. What is yours, politics, appearance, or true worship? Not only are we to not use the Lord’s house for self-gain, but we are not to use our bodies which are the Temple of the Holy Spirit for ourselves. Our bodies belong to Christ and if we use them carelessly that anger’s the Lord.
Just as Jesus shouted in the Temple to get all that garbage out and not use His Father’s house as a marketplace, He tells us to get the sin out and not use the Holy Spirit’s Temple as a place of gluttony, sexual immorality, lust, hate, greed, etc. Our bodies were bought at a high price and are to be used to bring honor and glory to God not ourselves.
As we clean out our Temple’s for the Holy Spirit to live in, then, as we enter the house of the Lord we will have true worship in our hearts. And that my friend is very pleasing to the Lord!
Two things the Lord takes seriously-His Father’s house and our Temple’s. (Bodies) And we should also take very seriously as followers of Jesus Christ, those two things. Don’t wait to prepare your hearts for worship Sunday morning, prepare your heart every day. Don’t use the Lord’s house as a place to be seen, go to the Father’s house to bring true sacrifices of praise, with an alert and open mind to receive your daily bread, and to worship and fellowship with other believers as one body. Use your body to be a reflection of Christ and His word, not as another moving object that blends in with the world.
Jesus fill each of us with a passion for God that burns within us. Amen
