Is Your Heart a House of Prayer? - Your Nightly Prayer - March 30th

Greg Grandchamp

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Your Nightly Prayer

Is Your Heart a House of Prayer?
Your Nightly Prayer
by Greg Grandchamp

TONIGHT’S SCRIPTURE

“My house will be called a house of prayer.” - Matthew 21:13

SOMETHING TO PONDER

Many are familiar with the biblical narrative of the “cleansing of the temple” – referring to when Jesus drove out the merchants and moneychangers from the temple courts in Jerusalem. He drove them out, turning over tables and benches and forbidding the sale of any merchandise. This event is recorded in all four gospel accounts, clearly leaving an impression on Jesus' disciples. The three synoptic gospels place the event during the final week before the crucifixion, while John places it early in Jesus' public ministry. Whether it occurred once or twice, as some believe, the purpose and meaning of this powerful, public event remain consistent.

The temple was dedicated as a place for prayer, worship, and encounter with God’s presence. Yet Jesus witnessed that people had turned the temple into a marketplace for profiteering and price-gouging, taking advantage of the poor or people from outside the area. Jesus knew that the religious leaders tolerated the actions because they, too, profited from them. Unafraid, He exposed and challenged their hypocrisy. Then Jesus proclaimed, “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. But you have made it a den of robbers!” (Mark 11:17 / Matthew 21:11-13)

How can we relate Jesus' lesson to our own lives? Since our bodies are now the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19), there is a lesson for us in the cleansing of our temple. The Holy Spirit – the Spirit of truth – now dwells with us, within us. (John 14:17) For that reason, let us each strive to keep our temple clean and clear of distractions – of false idols - knowing the Holy Spirit dwells within us. It is so easy today to let ourselves get wrapped up in the idol of comfort and the endless pursuit of more. We tend to line our bank accounts in the name of security. We often prioritize comfort and pleasure in our lives here on earth over our spiritual lives. We sometimes succumb to the never-ending pursuit of more – more of whatever it is we think we need and don’t have.

Today’s merchants and moneychangers fight for our attention through advertising on all of the devices we stream from and scroll through. We can never escape it, and it distracts us from what is important. Marketing today monetizes our restlessness and our pursuit of more: "Buy this! Go here! Eat and drink these! You must have this! Watch this! You’re not complete unless you do this!" In addition to the marketing machine, we often get too wrapped up in the political ideologies of the day. Or, we simply find ourselves too busy to sit and spend enough time with the Lord. The demands of our jobs, kids, and commitments suck us into the tyranny of the urgent. A.J. Swoboda said, “We have become perhaps the most emotionally exhausted, psychologically overworked, spiritually malnourished people in history.”

The result is an ever-so-slow drifting away from the Lord. At first, we may not even notice the shift. Maybe it’s time we let Jesus overturn our tables and chase out the moneychangers in our lives, expose our own hypocrisy. and allow him to cleanse our temples. Let's pray.

YOUR NIGHTLY PRAYER

Father in Heaven,
Thank you for the example set before me in your word. Help me to learn from Jesus, and allow His lessons to have a significant impact on my life. Father, please show me what distractions I am allowing to come before you. Please show me anyone or anything in my life that I am allowing to sit on your throne in my life, where you rightly belong. And help me to dispel them from my life. And this I pray in Jesus' glorious name.
Amen.

THREE THINGS TO MEDITATE UPON

1. Silence and Solitude – starting each day with prayer and God’s word. If it means getting up before everyone else, so be it – it’s worth it.

2. Practice the Sabbath. On the seventh day, God rested, and so should you. Take time to rest. God commands us to because it's valuable to us.

3. Try to eliminate some of the hurry and busyness in your daily life. Take time to pray over the activities of your days, and ask God to show you what can wait, and when.

Reflect on tonight’s prayer and share how God met you there. Join the Your Nightly Prayer discussion on the Crosswalk Forum.

Grandchamp is an author and speaker. His book, “In Pursuit of Truth, A Journey Begins,” is an easy-to-read narrative that offers answers to the most common questions new believers and non-believers have about Jesus Christ (Amazon.) Greg speaks on living out our faith in our daily lives – and on creating true disciples of Christ.
Greg doesn’t pretend to be a pastor, a theologian, or a Bible expert, but offers the perspective of an everyday guy on the same journey as everyone else – in pursuit of truth.
Greg can be reached by email or on Facebook @ Greg Grandchamp - Author.