Spring Cleaning

¹⁵ So they came to Jerusalem. Then Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. ¹⁶ And He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple. ¹⁷ Then He taught, saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’” - Mark 11:15-17

     If Jesus came into our churches today what would He say about them? A den of _______________. Fill in the blank. Hopefully we would not be a den of thieves, but what would we be a den of? Jesus threw over the tables and seats of those defiling God's house. Would He overthrow the tables of our homecoming dinners? Would He kick over the chairs of members who are inactive? Would He rip coats and ties off of our men and accuse them of show? Would He be pleased to join our worship or would He need to cleanse our temple? A challenging thought. Our churches have become so bogged down with programs and activities that I fear we may be no better than the moneychangers. We have begun making a business out of church. We are so busy "serving" that we don't even know Who we are serving. Don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with outreach and programs and being active in church. It's when our activity becomes our worship that we have a problem. Church is about Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Anything that keeps our focus from that is a table that needs to be overturned. And before anyone gets too busy pointing out the problems in church, the bigger issue is our own temple. 1 Corinthians 6:19a Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit... What needs to be thrown over in your temple? Is the Holy Spirit able to abide in your heart peacefully? What type of "den" are you? Our job starts with allowing Jesus to clean out our temple. Once our temple is clean we can work as a family to clean out our churches and make them the places of worship which God desires. I think a little spring cleaning is needed.