PAUSING
Find a quiet place where you can be alone. Take a few seconds or minutes to pause and be still; to breathe deeply, and to re-center any scattered thoughts or desires onto the presence of God.
PRAYING
Heavenly Father, I invite You to shape my mind, body, and soul with Your words and works. Show me where I'm clinging to comfort and lead me into greater wonder today.
ENCOUNTERING HIS WORD
"When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”.” - John 2:13-17
Contrary to how a lot of us came to know this story, Jesus isn't getting uncharacteristically angry because there's business and money being exchanged in God's house. He was angry because the business was getting in the way of the real business of the house - prayer. And in this particular temple court, the inclusion and space for non-Jews to pray. Jesus disrupts everything that isn't important to make space for what is - intimacy with God.
Notice the last line of this passage? "Zeal for your house will consume me". The house of God during Jesus' time may have been the temple, but today it's the Church (Hebrews 3:6). While the church may be a messy and imperfect local congregation of ordinary and sometimes annoying Christians, Jesus loves and protects His Church fiercely. Do you?
REFLECTING AND PRAYING
What is preventing you from giving yourself afresh to the Church which Jesus so passionately loved? Are those things important? Or are they getting in the way of what really is?
GODS PROMISE
“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?”
- 1 Corinthians 3:16
Find a quiet place where you can be alone. Take a few seconds or minutes to pause and be still; to breathe deeply, and to re-center any scattered thoughts or desires onto the presence of God.
PRAYING
Heavenly Father, I invite You to shape my mind, body, and soul with Your words and works. Show me where I'm clinging to comfort and lead me into greater wonder today.
ENCOUNTERING HIS WORD
"When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”.” - John 2:13-17
Contrary to how a lot of us came to know this story, Jesus isn't getting uncharacteristically angry because there's business and money being exchanged in God's house. He was angry because the business was getting in the way of the real business of the house - prayer. And in this particular temple court, the inclusion and space for non-Jews to pray. Jesus disrupts everything that isn't important to make space for what is - intimacy with God.
Notice the last line of this passage? "Zeal for your house will consume me". The house of God during Jesus' time may have been the temple, but today it's the Church (Hebrews 3:6). While the church may be a messy and imperfect local congregation of ordinary and sometimes annoying Christians, Jesus loves and protects His Church fiercely. Do you?
REFLECTING AND PRAYING
What is preventing you from giving yourself afresh to the Church which Jesus so passionately loved? Are those things important? Or are they getting in the way of what really is?
- Welcome Jesus into your "house" today. Ask that He would mend what is broken, break and overthrow whatever is crowding out Your purpose, and show you anything which needs taking away.
- Pray for God to disrupt the local churches in Chicagoland - in order that our churches might truly be a house of prayer for everyone.
GODS PROMISE
“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?”
- 1 Corinthians 3:16