“My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”?
But you have made it a den of robbers.’
Mark 11:17
Yesterday we returned to Jerusalem with Jesus. It is Holy Week, the time between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. Yesterday the group walked past the withered fig tree and got a lesson on prayer. When they got to Jerusalem they went to the Temple and Jesus entered the outer courts. They had become a marketplace, exchanging the money of the foreigners and selling the sacrificial animals needed. We suddenly see a side of Jesus we have not seen before. He upsets tables. He is angry. The Temple is not to be a place of sacrificial relationship but place of prayer and communication.
It is possible today to find most anything in churches — enlightening education, entertaining programs for youth, bookstores, coffee shops, and gyms. All are designed to serve good goals of drawing us closer to the God we worship. I don’t think the problem is the program but the condition of the heart. When we take advantage of the vulnerable, use our gifts for self glorification, or just send kids to be babysat for free, we may have overstepped.
Today let us ask the Holy Spirit to shine his flashlight on our hearts and show us if there is any duplicity and selfishness in our hearts when we go to church. May our churches be a house of prayer for all nations.
On the Way to Wonder 