My house shall be called a house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves. Matthew 21:13.
A house of prayer is nothing less than a place set aside for the purpose of communing with God. Spiritually, our bodies are the temple of God (I Corinthians 3:16). We commune with God via His Spirit that dwells in us. The evidence of that communion is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. (Galatians 5:22-23) The question then would be, do I have that evidence? If not, why not?
I find it interesting that it was the religious folks that made God's house a den of thieves, rendering it useless as a house of prayer. I think Christians should take note of this and examine ourselves closely. We need to ask hard questions. Do I have love like Jesus does? Do I have joy, real joy? Do I have peace that passes all understanding? And on down the list. I believe the most frequent thief in our temples is not "obvious sin". Consider. Do thieves operate that way? Rather, I believe the most common thief comes disguised in a cloak of "good" that supports religious practices. Wasn't that the case in the temple? Those money changers were simply trying to make it easier for the folks to make their sacrifices. How thoughtful.
Do you find that you hate mankind rather than love? Perhaps your religion and good intentions are unknowingly creating a judgemental spirit rather than a God-driven passion to love sinners into His kingdom.
When you dig deep into your heart and soul, is there a pool of misery rather than a fountain of living water and joy? Perhaps again, strict adherence to seemingly sound scriptural teachings are clogging up the works. Jesus is freedom and inexplicable joy.
Has peace escaped you? Maybe religion has stolen your hope for the miraculous to impact your life daily.
Do you tend to be impatient? Harsh? Have a hard time doing good for those who don't deserve it? Is your faith limitless? Why not? Are you too proud of and busy practing your high moral standards to experience God's power? Do you have temperance in ALL things?
These are hard, hard questions and I suspect that each and every one of us can stand a clean-up and tune-up in this area. Sometimes it can be painful to take that honest look but just imagine if our "temples" operated the way God intends them to operate? Could people then say of the us that these Christians turned the world upside down? I suspect so. Let's get honest and get to God's business. I want to pray a simple yet challenging prayer asking God to reveal the areas in my temple that steal from his house of prayer. Will you join me?
