House of Prayer

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

HOUSE OF PRAYER

Luke 19:45-46

45 Then he entered the temple area and began driving 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.'" 

NIV

This action of Jesus is explained in more detail in another gospel but the point is the same. They had turned what was supposed to be a spiritual experience into a business. Surely the priests, the teachers of the law or those in charge of the temple were complicit in all the selling of sacrifices in the temple area. It seems that at first this activity may have been started with good intentions, offering various sacrifices for sale to those who came from a great distant to worship at the temple. These people might not have been able to bring their sacrifice that great distant, so it was made available to purchase at the temple. But as always, man in the pursuit of profit, turned it into a big business. Jesus was not happy about it. It might be easy to see this in our churches today, as many of them have turned, what is supposed to be a spiritual experience, into a business. But what about a personal life lesson? What can we glean from this for our own life? Have we turned a spiritual experience into a business? Have we given up on being a house of prayer for the sake of just doing religious activities? If we are living stones, which we are, being built into the temple of God and if we have the indwelling, which we do, of the Holy Spirit, than we should be the temple of God which is a house of prayer. This of course, does not mean we spend all our time asking God for things, but it should mean that we are in constant communication with him. Prayer is far more effective if we listen more than we speak. But the point is we should be a house of prayer, not a house of business. We should be a house of spiritual experiences rather than a house of religious activities. Perhaps when we forgo the spiritual experiences for the religious activities we actually have turned ourselves into that den of robber, robbing others of the truth of God. We need to be that house of prayer.