Don’t You Know that You Yourselves are God’s Temple?

We are continuing our meditation from yesterday, when Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out the money changers and the sellers of animals. Christ showed love and concern for the poor, the helpless, and those marginalized by society. He would not tolerate the evil injustices happening in the temple courts. Do we, as Christ's representatives, extend the same consideration to the wrongs around us? Sadly, we are often more influenced by the culture around us than by Christ within us. The injustices nearby become normalized. Like those in Jesus' day, who might not have seen the wrongs committed in the temple, we can become desensitized to sin when we live with it all around us and in the media.

The evils in our society become accepted and tolerated only for so long before a day arrives when God will intervene and reveal those hidden acts. He will hold everyone accountable: "The Lord you seek will suddenly come to His temple, the Messenger of the covenant you desire—see, He is coming," says the LORD of Hosts (Malachi 3:1). The Lord is a protector of the vulnerable, including widows, the fatherless, and the innocent (Jeremiah 22:3). When the Day of the Lord arrives, Christ will come with justice.

Because the Lord Jesus is perfect, He could judge the sin in the temple. He not only judged but also showed what true love is in the most powerful way imaginable. He sacrificed His own life as a ransom for ours. God's justice is equally reflected by His mercy and great love for us. Some people are not receptive to the gospel message, perhaps because they lack understanding that God is not always present in a demonstrative way.

People instinctively recognize when something is authentic and genuine. When Jesus spoke the truth, He did so with love, and people responded accordingly. He could say difficult things and still connect with people's hearts because He loved them. Recognizing that our righteousness is nothing and that we all need God's grace, we must have the right heart motives if we want to stand for God's righteousness.

At the core of our lives, each of us has an inner court of the temple of our spirit:

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? (1 Corinthians 3:16).

The Lord Jesus wants to come and clean out and overturn the tables in our hearts, where the love of food, money, or other things is set up as idols. For some, it is about idolizing people or a specific individual, giving them first place in your life rather than worshiping the God who created us. What is the Lord of Love saying to you as you read these words? What cleansing needs to happen?

In cleansing the Temple, Jesus was not only zealous for His Father's house but also for the people affected by the Temple's being turned into a den of thieves. It was not just the dishonest gain and lack of respect that angered Him, but also the fact that people were not experiencing anything that would lead them to the Father. His Father's House was meant to be a house of prayer. He is zealous today, not for stone and mortar—i.e., not for a building made of hands—but for you. Keith Thomas

Taken from the series on the Book of Luke. Click on Study 52. The King Comes to His Temple.