Day 23 - Tuesday, November 3rd
LIFE Journal
This Week's Memory Verse
I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With Him at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure. Psalm 16:8-9
Devotional
The next day after Jesus rode in on a donkey, we see a side of Christ that was rarely displayed throughout the gospel accounts of his life. After leaving Bethany and entering into the town of Jerusalem, Jesus made his way to the temple, a place where Jews and Gentiles would gather in worship of the one true God. Passover was approaching, an important Jewish holiday, that served as a time to reflect and remind the people of God of how he sent an angel to protect the homes of the Jews in Egypt when he took the lives of the Egyptian’s first born. The people were once slaves and that incident was part of his divine plan to set them free.
Freedom would come again, once and for all in the next few days through the death of a first born son, Jesus, but in the meantime, Jerusalem was bustling with visitors coming to pay the customary temple tax and purchase sacrificial animals. People were coming from all over and so foreign money would need to be exchanged to that which was accepted by the temple. Moneychangers set up shop right in the court where gentiles, that is those who were not Jewish, were allowed to come and worship. Their practices were more corrupt than a back alley deal. They extorted those who simply came to celebrate this festival of remembrance. Jesus saw what was going on and responded to how His Father’s house was being treated:
On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’ Mark 11:15-17 NIV
What was it that set Jesus off in that moment? Was it merely the fact that people were taking advantage of others in such a holy place? Scholars vary on exactly what they believe all this means, but many think that in part Jesus was making a statement against those who were creating a roadblock to worship and doing it in the name of the Lord. When the so called “religious” ones start setting up shop in the place where people were supposed to be free to come and worship and extorting those with sincere hearts, Jesus needed to clean house.
Awful things have been done in the name of religion throughout history and this cleansing that took place the day after Palm Sunday was really a picture of what Jesus had came to do. Jesus is in the business of flipping tables on the self-righteous “religious” people who use their power or position to keep people from coming to the altar. He had come back for control of his house. Religion available for the select few was on its way out and true relationship with the Savior would soon be available to all come the end of the week.
Think On This Verse:
This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever. But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless. “‘Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the Lord. Jeremiah 7:3-11 NIV
Ask and Answer:
We may not understand the customs and significance of the temple. But, Jesus came to clean up the ways in which his house had been misused. He came to clear the path for all to be able to come to him: Jew or Gentile, rich or poor, free or slave. Are there ways in which you are keeping others from coming to him? Are there places in your heart where you’ve set out a table that keeps others from freely worshipping? In a nation that is struggling right now with race relations and political dissensions, we as believers must make sure our own hearts are not keeping out others from relationship in the name of religion.
Freedom would come again, once and for all in the next few days through the death of a first born son, Jesus, but in the meantime, Jerusalem was bustling with visitors coming to pay the customary temple tax and purchase sacrificial animals. People were coming from all over and so foreign money would need to be exchanged to that which was accepted by the temple. Moneychangers set up shop right in the court where gentiles, that is those who were not Jewish, were allowed to come and worship. Their practices were more corrupt than a back alley deal. They extorted those who simply came to celebrate this festival of remembrance. Jesus saw what was going on and responded to how His Father’s house was being treated:
On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’ Mark 11:15-17 NIV
What was it that set Jesus off in that moment? Was it merely the fact that people were taking advantage of others in such a holy place? Scholars vary on exactly what they believe all this means, but many think that in part Jesus was making a statement against those who were creating a roadblock to worship and doing it in the name of the Lord. When the so called “religious” ones start setting up shop in the place where people were supposed to be free to come and worship and extorting those with sincere hearts, Jesus needed to clean house.
Awful things have been done in the name of religion throughout history and this cleansing that took place the day after Palm Sunday was really a picture of what Jesus had came to do. Jesus is in the business of flipping tables on the self-righteous “religious” people who use their power or position to keep people from coming to the altar. He had come back for control of his house. Religion available for the select few was on its way out and true relationship with the Savior would soon be available to all come the end of the week.
Think On This Verse:
This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever. But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless. “‘Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the Lord. Jeremiah 7:3-11 NIV
Ask and Answer:
We may not understand the customs and significance of the temple. But, Jesus came to clean up the ways in which his house had been misused. He came to clear the path for all to be able to come to him: Jew or Gentile, rich or poor, free or slave. Are there ways in which you are keeping others from coming to him? Are there places in your heart where you’ve set out a table that keeps others from freely worshipping? In a nation that is struggling right now with race relations and political dissensions, we as believers must make sure our own hearts are not keeping out others from relationship in the name of religion.
Prayer
Father, show me the ways in which I have created a roadblock to worship, whether it be in my greed, my position, my prejudices, or my self-righteous pride. Open up my eyes to the ways you desire to clean your dwelling place in my heart. Help me to draw others into your presence through my life. In your name, Amen.