And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. Matthew 21:12-14 ESV
Matthew records this temple cleansing story immediately after the triumphal entry. The crowds have just treated Jesus like the king he is. The excitement was so great that “…when He entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee.”(Matthew 21:10-11 ESV) When Jesus makes an entrance, those who don’t know Him begin to ask, “Who is this?
Now with the full attention of the city, Jesus goes straight into the temple and begins to clean house. He does so quite forcefully. Several thoughts come to mind:
- Jesus thinks that the temple is his house, and that it should be a house dedicated to communion with God.
- When Jesus shows up in his royal role, his first act is to clean house.
- After the cleanup, people started coming to him to receive their healing.
In 1 Corinthians, Paul makes two references to the temple of God. In the first, he refers to the local church: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). In the second, he speaks of the individual believer: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? (1 Corinthians 6:19)
You and I are the temple of God in this hour, both individually and corporately. I believe it’s time for a visitation, a miracle-filled explosion of the Presence in our churches that causes the world around us to come looking and asking, “Who is this?” That visit begins with a housecleaning. Judgement starts at the house of God (1 Peter 4:17).
As we gather as the people of God, it’s not to complain about the world, it’s to present ourselves to him for whatever needs to be done in us. Let’s expect to be changed. Jesus, clean our individual hearts of the mold of greed, pride and hypocrisy. Lord, purge the church from the grungy pretense of showmanship and the cobwebs of petty bickering. Clean house, Lord, it’s miracle time!
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