House of Prayer

Every so often I get a double dose, perhaps it can even be considered a double portion. Today was one of those days. Two very different tools which I use focused on the story in several of the Gospels, of Jesus driving the money changers and sellers from the Temple. As Jesus angrily drives them out and flips over their tables scattering the contents of their first century food trucks, He yells, “Is it not written: My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a den of thieves!” (Mark 11:17)

Then in I Corinthians 6, Paul admonishes his readers: Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?

Jesus is as passionate about purity in us as living temples as He was about the Temple in Jerusalem! Whoa! Just stop there for a minute.

Who, or what, am I allowing in my life, in my heart, that is distracting me from Jesus? Keeping me from worship? Stopping me from loving my neighbor? It can be big and apparent or extremely subtle. It can be a full blown addiction or a gossipy, judging heart. It can be public or private. It can be an attitude, including an attitude of “I just don’t get anything from…”. Fill in the blank: going to church services, hanging out with people I don’t know well, being inconvenienced, sharing my hard earned resources. We all know what we would fill that blank with. Some of us can fill that blank with several things. Me. I’m “some of us”.

So the question is, I guess, am I willing to allow Jesus to drive out my favorite courtyard food trucks, my favorite excuses, my favorite distractions?

He might anyway. He loves me that much.