In the temple courts, Jesus saw people buy and sell bleating animals and exchange money. The place of prayer and worship became like a busy shopping mall. No one was focused on God. Indignant, Jesus drove them out and overturned their tables and benches. The temple should be a house of prayer. It should be a place where people could meet God through prayer and receive his forgiveness, spiritual healing, and direction. But they made it a den of robbers by cluttering up their hearts with busyness and sin. When the temple was cleared and restored through Jesus, the blind and lame came to the temple and received God's healing mercy. Children praised the Lord. We believers are now God's temple in Jesus (Eph 2:21-22). God's temple is also a community of believers where people receive God's healing mercy, praise God, and serve his life-giving work together. To maintain God's house as it should be, we need to keep cleansing our hearts that can be easily corrupted by earthly activities.

Jesus cursed a fruitless fig tree which withered immediately to teach the power of faith to his disciples. If we have faith without doubt and pray to God, he will move even a mountain-like problem for us.


Application: Dear Lord, cleanse my heart to be your house so that you may dwell in me and I may bear fruit by faith and prayer.
One Word: God's house is in us