Mark Devotionals
[Please read and meditate on the passage before (or after) reading the devotion.]
Reminder: There will be no daily devotion tomorrow, Sunday. Hopefully most of you will be in a House of Worship listening to God yourselves. Go prepared with open hearts, though!
A lot of emphasis has been put on Jesus’ clearing the temple because of what he saw happening there. There were booths set up to change the commonly used Roman money into the Jewish/Temple money required for offering. There were also sales of sacrificial animals/birds for those who came without them. But I believe Jesus’ focus was on what was not happening in the Temple – prayer! Hence his quoting from Isaiah, “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations…” I wonder how passionate we are for our church(es) to be primarily known as a “house of prayer” – and consequently we be known as “people of prayer”. What Jesus did by disrupting the “business proceedings” in a house of worship was more than a “clean-up” job; (after all they would have come back the next day!). Jesus was prophetically showing what would happen to a worship place that did not manifest, or live out its primary reason for existing – worship, and prayer! Are we mindful of this?
Prayer: Father, you have often reminded me of the promise you gave Solomon and the Israelites when they dedicated the Temple: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14). I know it’s not the same for us; yet the challenge is similar for us as well: we who have beautifully created structures we call churches. We too are called to use our “holy” structures for prayer – so that grace would flood down on us and from us to a world of need outside. Give us a passion to be a people of prayer so that your house will be known primarily as a “house of prayer for all nations”. Amen.
