Temple Cleansing (Lent 35-2019)

The end of My mission is very near, thought Jesus. And it was such a shame that those to whom He’d been sent didn’t recognize the time of God’s coming to them. They would be missing out on so much peace to be had, if only they accepted His teaching instead of rejecting Him. It was time to clean house and begin His march to the Cross.

Luke 19: 45 When Jesus entered the temple courts, he began to drive out those who were selling. 46 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be a house of prayer’; but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’ ”

The zeal for God’s house consumed Him. He knew the importance of prayer, and He was righteously angered at the way mankind had abused the privilege of coming to God in prayer and worship. What had they done instead? They had turned it into just another commercial enterprise springing from greed. Over money! Choosing money over God! As He drove out the sellers and overturned the tables of the money changers, He knew the point had to be made. This was wrong, wrong, wrong! It was abuse of the poorest—a monetizing of worship and making actual worship of the One True and Sovereign God an afterthought.

Rejection of the Father takes many forms, and this was among the worst because the offense was against God and man and abused the most vulnerable.

The chief priests and teachers of the law took umbrage at this action. How dare He! Just who does He think He is? This man has lost His mind! He is seriously out of control. He needs to be stopped. Oh, and He will be. We’ll see to it, they committed to each other.

Here was the problem though: how to do it. 47 Every day he was teaching at the temple. But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him. 48 Yet they could not find any way to do it, because all the people hung on his words.

He was still too popular with the people who would yet come to His defense, the adversaries concluded. We can’t risk the Romans taking His side. We’ll need to find a way to divide Him from His followers. Let’s wait for the right time.

Think about it:

How is divide-and-conquer still an effective strategy?
Read John 17:20-23. How does unity testify to what is better?

We praise You, God Almighty, for the unity You have in heaven as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. May we be one in purpose and in worship of You so that You will receive all glory! You are God Eternal and we praise You! Amen.

If you’re already signed up on my Home Page sidebar to receive posts, you’ll get the 2019 Lent Devotionals automatically. Or you can “Like” Seminary Gal on Facebook and they’ll be delivered to your Facebook news feed. If you haven’t signed up, today is a great day to do so. Advent and Lenten devotionals remain among my most popular offerings. You don’t want to miss this great look at the Easter story to prepare your heart for Easter! Understanding that prior years’ devotionals remain popular,

Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014.
Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations. We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17.
ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ. It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.
Lent 2018, we explored the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We asked and answered the questions “Why?” from the movie Life of Pi as we discovered the uniqueness of Jesus Christ in a world of many faiths.