Monday Holy Week Devo - Cleanse the Temple
Notes
Transcript
12 Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out all the people buying and selling animals for sacrifice. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves.
13 He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves!”
14 The blind and the lame came to him in the Temple, and he healed them.
15 The leading priests and the teachers of religious law saw these wonderful miracles and heard even the children in the Temple shouting, “Praise God for the Son of David.” But the leaders were indignant.
16 They asked Jesus, “Do you hear what these children are saying?” “Yes,” Jesus replied. “Haven’t you ever read the Scriptures? For they say, ‘You have taught children and infants to give you praise.’”
17 Then he returned to Bethany, where he stayed overnight.
12 Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out all the people buying and selling animals for sacrifice. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves.
13 He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves!”
Throughout Jesus days on earth the Temple was a place where people still came to worship and these tables were set up to sell sacrifices and change currency to use temple currency. The relgious system had become that - a system.
It was no longer a place of relationship with the Lord.
Prayer is indicative of RELATIONSHIP or COMMUNION with GOD --- Jesus was pointing out how easily man can become religious even to the point of taking advantage of each other in the name of religion.
Maybe this year with everything going on, it is a time to come back to the discussion - AM I RELIGIOUS, or in RELATIONSHIP with Jesus --- PRAYER will be a TRUE INDICATOR of that reality!
Something else that Jesus is pointing out, is that WORSHIPPING GOD was not intended to do for our own advantages.
Ask this second question today — am I serving God or am I religious because of the advantages it gives me or because I desire a sincere relationship with the LORD!?