It has been some time since I have posted to this blog. Although life
has been busy, I would blame my absence upon something much more
significant----wandering aimlessly in the wilderness. I’m certain that for all
of us, we have at one time or another found ourselves there. For whatever
reason, God allows us to experience the harsh conditions of desert living to
help in fulfilling His purposes in our lives. In my case, the painful journey
of my soul over the last few months has resulted in a glorious resurrection of
passion and love for Christ. This past weekend, I experienced my eleventh
silent prayer retreat. As is my custom, I’ve learned not to have any particular
agenda to fulfill; rather, I simply knew I wanted to meet with the Lord.
During my first day of retreat, I was directed to read Mark 11:15-18
concerning Jesus’ cleansing of the temple. At first glance, I pictured myself
there with the Lord. I saw His face in expectation to worship the Father in the
temple and then, suddenly it turned angry as He was greeted with the unholy
activities taking place in the temple courts. With a righteous indignation, I
pictured Jesus grabbing a whip, snapping items off of the tables and
overturning them as He proclaimed, “This is a house of prayer!” That’s right Jesus!
Get those people out of the temple who profane it by using it for the purpose
of lesser things….oops! At that point, there were only two people I pictured in
the temple: Jesus and myself. The bible tells us that we are the temple
of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16, 6:19). If we consider that
thought for a moment, we have to ask ourselves, “If we’re the temple, then what
is the temple’s purpose?” The Old Testament imagery allows us to understand
that the temple was the place where God dwelt among His people. As believers, we
understand that particular dynamic of Christ dwelling within us; however, do we
ever consider the other function of being the temple? The temple was also the
place of worship. When Jesus came to the temple that day, it wasn’t for the
recognition that God was dwelling there. Instead, Jesus came to make it his
place of worship and prayer. Yet, he discovered that the activities taking
place within the temple was anything but glorifying God.
I wonder how many of us have a temple full of merchandise that doesn’t
belong. How many times do you suppose the Lord examines His temple and sees
only that we have made it into a den of
thieves that steal from the purpose of our lives in worshiping Him? We are created to worship the Lord----but what
have we made of it? When Jesus entered the temple that day it still appeared to
be the temple. All of the elements of Jewish worship were present, sacrifices
were being made, and people were even engaged in worshipful activities; yet,
the other things taking place in the temple is what drew the Lord’s attention.
Jesus could have dismissed the buying and selling going on in the temple by
recognizing that there were some areas of the temple that was experiencing
genuine worship---but He didn’t! In fact, he accused the entire temple as being
a “den of robbers” that stole from
the true essence of what the temple was intended for.
As I reflected upon those thoughts, it became clear to me that I had
things within my temple that hindered my worship of the Lord. These things go
beyond the issue of “sin” and touch the happenings of everyday life. Believe it
or not, our lives are not our own. We were not created to decide what we want
to do with our lives. We were created for worshiping the Lord and anything else
that falls short of that in our lives profanes His temple. In essence, anything
in my life that would compete with my worship of God is nothing more than
robbing God of the glory that is rightfully His. I discovered that I have a
temple that is cluttered with worthless things that steal from God. I believe
that if we were honest with ourselves, we might all discover areas of our
temple that fall short of truly being a house of worship. It would be wise for
us to understand that anything in our lives that cause us to be distracted from
our relationship with Christ and anything that would cheapen our existence in
glorifying Him is what Jesus desires to cleanse from our lives. When we allow
Christ to overturn the tables in our lives and reveal all that does not belong
in His temple, we will finally begin to live in that way that God intended us
to live for Him.
