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Articles, Studies, & Prophetic Words
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A House OF Prayer
Tracy M. Schellhorn
03-06-05
"For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the
peoples." – Isaiah 56:7
This is the scripture Jesus quoted when He cleaned out the
temple. It amazes me how He knows and means every small line of
scripture. Everything He releases to us and through us counts.
ALL God's words contain power. We can often overlook scripture
or words and directives from the Lord, but He remembers them
all. With every word, He releases power.
The Lord is saying to His Church right now to believe and
receive. We must not forget what He has said. In so doing, we
can cease from our striving and enter the rest of the Lord. What
has God said in His scriptures, and what has God spoken to your
heart?
Jesus chose this seemingly obscure line in Isaiah from the
many writings of the prophets and used it to clear out the
temple. In like manner, He is using it today to clean out His
temple.
All the "stuff" in His temple must go. The temple is a holy
abode for God. It's a meeting place like the tent of meeting.
Moses had to go to a special place to meet with God. Now,
through the power and presence of Holy Spirit, we can meet with
Him right where we are in the temple(s) He has built without
hands. We, like Mary, can sit at the feet of Jesus.
The holiness of the temple should not be defiled by things
that cheapen the anointing:
• THE EASY WAY OUT – Instead of bringing their own sacrifices
with them as they went up to Jerusalem to worship, the people
began buying a sacrifice at the temple. It made it so much
easier.
However, the anointing cannot be bought, and true worship
requires sacrifice of our ease and comfort. We offer a sacrifice
of praise, because we give Him praise even in the hard times,
even when we don't feel like it. Choosing the easy way out is a
mindset Jesus is clearing out of His temple. You can be your own
temple – a temple for your own worship, pleasure and abode
(making yourself your own god), but to be His temple, we must do
things His way.
I want His presence. I cannot exist without my daily bread –
sweet communion with my Lord. I don't want to be my own god nor
to fashion a god with my own hands. I want to serve the living
God of eternity. The God who with one word brings forth life.
So, Lord, I pray that you enter Your temple in my heart and
remove the mindsets and temptations to take the easy way out.
Not my will but Thine be done.
The holiness of the temple should not be defiled by things
that cheapen the anointing:
• THE EASY WAY OUT – Instead of bringing their own sacrifices
with them as they went up to Jerusalem to worship, the people
began buying a sacrifice at the temple. It made it so much
easier.
However, the anointing cannot be bought, and true worship
requires sacrifice of our ease and comfort. We offer a sacrifice
of praise, because we give Him praise even in the hard times,
even when we don't feel like it. Choosing the easy way out is a
mindset Jesus is clearing out of His temple. You can be your own
temple – a temple for your own worship, pleasure and abode
(making yourself your own god), but to be His temple, we must do
things His way.
I want His presence. I cannot exist without my daily bread –
sweet communion with my Lord. I don't want to be my own god nor
to fashion a god with my own hands. I want to serve the living
God of eternity. The God who with one word brings forth life.
So, Lord, I pray that you enter Your temple in my heart and
remove the mindsets and temptations to take the easy way out.
Not my will but Thine be done.
• THE BUYERS & THE SELLERS – Without a market for it in the
hearts of the people, as we addressed above, the merchants would
have had no place, but when we seek the easy way out, we find a
hoard of buyers and sellers ready and waiting to sell us a bill
of goods. Maybe we've even been a buyer or seller.
When we are enablers and support others in finding the easy way
out, we become the merchants in the temple, willing to buy and
trade men's souls for our own "profit." There can be neither
buyers in the House of the Lord, nor any sellers either. The
only thing to be bought was paid for 2,000 years ago with a
price too high for any of us.
Only the blood of Jesus could pay the price for our redemption,
the cost of our temple, and no one else has anything to sell.
He's the Seller, and He's the Buyer. He sold all that He had,
and He bought us with a price. All other negotiations outside
that settled purchasing agreement must stop.
Lord, I pray that the merchandising that takes place in my heart
and mind reducing You to works and acts and subjecting Your
directives to the rationalizations of my mind be driven far from
this temple. Make me holy, even as you are holy.
• PALATABILITY – The money changers made the whole process of
the temple marketplace palatable. They converted the different
currencies into those accepted by the merchants and facilitated
the process of many peoples and tongues all participating in the
antics of the trading. So, too, there are voices within us that
rationalize and reason why certain things in our lives are
acceptable -- the philosophies of men.
This logic facilitates the "exchange of goods" in our temple
hearts. We are convinced by our mindsets, background,
understanding or companions that what we are doing is
acceptable. The moneychangers in our personal temples ease the
process of taking the easy way out and relying on anything but
the blood of Jesus for our right standing.
What have you exchanged for the truth? What compromise(s) have
been accepted and moralized by the thinking of the
moneychangers?
In all of the Gospel accounts of Jesus cleansing the temple, the
money changers are mentioned. Jesus overturned their thinking
and poured out their coins. The things they placed value in –
their ethics, morality, ritual, denominational upbringing,
baptism, philosophy, etc. – were poured out as worthless. He
found no value in their man-made systems and loathed their
making palatable to the people the things that God hated.
"What companionship hath light with darkness?" (2 Corinthians
6:14) We cannot exchange A truth for THE Truth. Jesus will
overturn the philosophies of men and drive them out of His
temple.
Your temple can contain any philosophy you want, but if you are
to be HIS temple, you must allow Him to cleanse the philosophies
that compromise the truth.
We can see that each anomaly in the temple enables the other.
If it were not in the hearts of the people to find an easy way
out, there would have be no market for the traders who offer a
sacrifice other than the One prescribed by God. The "easy way
out" mentality and the offerings or choices of the traders give
way to the convincing words of the money changers. We can hear
what our tickling ears long to hear. (2 Timothy 4:3)
If we want something justified, there's always someone, be it
man or spirit, who will give us the justification we desire. Sin
comes about when we are enticed by the lusts of our own hearts.
(James 1:14)
I'm not talking here about sin-consciousness. We have enough of
that in the Church. I'm talking about God-consciousness. God is
coming swiftly to His temple (Malachi 3:1), and He is coming
like a refiner's fire!
As Jesus came to the temple in Jerusalem, so He is coming to the
temple of our hearts. He has declared that His house shall be a
House of prayer. He will clear out everything that stands in the
way of that edict.
We can cooperate with Him and say, "Yes, Lord, have Your way"
and become the spotless, blemish-free Bride of Christ, or we can
be stiff-necked as with Jerusalem, and find that we are nothing
but a heap of stones piled one on top of another without the
Spirit of the Living God inhabiting us.
Who do we want to be?
Lord, I want to be Your House of prayer. Lord, cleanse Your
temple, and teach me how to pray.
Please forward this to anyone you believe may benefit from
today's study. Shalom!
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