May 2

When Jesus Got Angry

Today’s Scripture Readings: Psalm 64:1-10;Judges 15:1-16:31;John 2:1-25;Proverbs 14:17-19

Today’s Scripture Focus:  John 2

So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money  changers and overturned their tables.  To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” (John 2:15-16 TNIV). 

Zeal for his Father’s house consumed Jesus as he overturned tables and chased out the moneychangers from the temple. Jesus was filled with righteous indignation.

The temple was to be a place of worship and prayer. It had become a smelly, noisy marketplace. The true purpose of the temple was being lost in the confusion created by sheep and cattle and doves and money exchange.

It was also an evidence of a lost sense of mission as it was the court of the gentiles that was being used for this purpose. This was to be a house of prayer for all nations, as Isaiah said.

Places of worship too easily lose their sense of purpose, their sense of mission. They become places where our personal comfort and convenience is more important than prayer, worship and witness.

Likewise, each of us is a “temple of the Holy Spirit.” We too need to be careful to guard our life’s mission and purposes. We dare not get too busy with other things so that we forget the real reason we are created: to bring glory to God.

Perhaps it is time to clear the temple of our lives of things that hinder and distract. Indeed it is time to return to God’s purposes for us.

Dear Heavenly Father, may my heart be stirred to whole-heartedly pursue your purposes for my life. Make me a passionate worshipper, a powerful pray-er. Let me bring you glory in all I do. Amen.