A House of Prayer

Daily Reading: Matthew 21

It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers. (Matthew 21.13)

Devotional Thought: Near the end of his life, Jesus went to the temple to pray.  When he got there, he found that prayer - what God wanted most for his house - had been supplanted by profits.  He drove out profiteers to make room for pray-ers.

Consider three levels of meaning in Jesus' statement "My house shall be called a house of prayer":

• The temple, a physical place, is the first level of meaning.  In AD 30 that was the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.  Today, it is the actual location where millions of congregations meet weekly – church buildings in suburban America, rented facilities in our cities, under a tree in Africa...

• This next level is the actual Church itself, the body of Christ.  That can mean the Church Universal or the Local Church.  God’s people should be people of prayer.  Think of it this way: You go to the optometrist for eye exams, and you go to your CPA for accounting work.  You wouldn't expect your optometrist to do your tax returns or your CPA to prescribe glasses.  When you go to The Church, you expect prayer.

• The human heart is the highest level and most basic level of Jesus' statement.  Without prayer taking place in the human heart, then there will be no prayer in the Church.  Oh, there may be prayers – words spoken in the form of prayer – but there will not be prayer!  Praying hearts make a praying church. 

What about you?  Are you doing your part to ensure that God’s house is a house of prayer?  Does prayer start in your own heart and then move through the church in such a way that the physical gathering place in transformed to a place of divine glory?

Prayer: What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!  Help me, Lord, by my own actions and participation to make your house a house of prayer. 

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 90:7-12

7 We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation.

8 You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.

9 All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan.

10 Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.

11 If only we knew the power of your anger! Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.

12 Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.