Wednesday, April 05, 2017

Cleaning House

Image from harrisonvillenaz.org

Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, ‘It is written,“My house shall be called a house of prayer”;but you are making it a den of robbers.’The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them.But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’, they became angry and said to him, ‘Do you hear what these are saying?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Yes; have you never read,“Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise for yourself”?’ He left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.(Matthew 21:12-17)

Have you let something that was once good in your life slowly become bad?  Day by day, you meant to address it and take care of it, but it kept getting away from you, until the day you realized you may have let it go for too long and you believe that now nothing can be done about it.

Jesus addresses this that crept into the Temple.  Once considered the most holy place on earth, little by little, changes were made, and different practices were allowed to enter the holy place and by the time Jesus comes to the temple, He did not recognize it.  It took a lot to make Jesus mad, and for Jesus to come and overthrow the tables of those selling and buying in the temple as He said, "My house shall be called a house of prayer; but you are making it a den of robbers."  It wasn't easy to pray with the sounds of people making deals, and the animals making their natural sounds; God was still present but was made invisible by the human attention to business and money.

During this week as Jesus goes into Jerusalem and takes care of business, so should we.  We must clean house, so to speak, in our hearts, minds, and spirits.  We must make holy again what was once holy.  Time spent with God must return and away from the distractions that have taken that away from us.  We are God's and to God we must return.

PRAYER:  Heavenly Father, let me begin today, right now, making what was holy, holy again in my life.  I need to get my spiritual house in order to serve You and worship You.  May it be so I pray, in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord!

Eradio Valverde