Monday, September 6, 2021
A Place for Everyone
“Then Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out the people selling animals for sacrifices” (Luke 19:45 NLT).
If you want to get someone’s attention, turn a table over. In Westerns, of course, this always happens in a saloon. Cowboys are playing a card game, they get into an altercation, one of them turns over a table, and everyone runs for cover.
When Jesus walked into the temple in Jerusalem, He overturned some tables too. Why? Because the people were being taken advantage of. Their sacrificial animals were rejected for so-called flaws, so they had to purchase different animals at an inflated price.
This angered Jesus, because God welcomes all people into His house. Even though the Jews are God’s covenant people, it’s also true that God desires a relationship with all people.
God said, “I will also bless the foreigners who commit themselves to the Lord, who serve him and love his name. . . . I will bring them to my holy mountain of Jerusalem and will fill them with joy in my house of prayer. I will accept their burnt offerings and sacrifices, because my Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations” (Isaiah 56:6-7 NLT).
So Jesus was saying, “You’ve taken My Father’s house, which is a house of prayer, and you’ve turned it into a den of thieves.” They were keeping people from worshiping God.
This can happen in the church today. Maybe a nonbeliever attends a church service for the first time and looks a little different than everyone else. And maybe it makes people uncomfortable. But hold on. Let’s understand what the church is.
The church is a place for us to worship God. It’s a place for us to hear the Word of God and to discover, develop, and use our spiritual gifts.
The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints. And it should always be a place where people can meet God.
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