Fwd: PBPC Daily - Monday of Holy Week

Dear Friends, 

I hope this new day finds you safe and well. As we enter into Holy Week, I encourage you to set aside some time each day to reflect upon the action and teaching of Jesus during these important days in the Passion narrative.

After Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the first thing he did was go to the Temple. According to Matthew 21:12-14:

12 Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves. ¹³He said to them, 'It is written,
"My house shall be called a house of prayer";
   but you are making it a den of robbers.'

14 The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them.

Upon his triumphal entry into the city, the Messiah does not go to the palace or the barracks, the centers of political or military power. Instead, he goes directly to the Temple, the place of worship and spiritual presence.

And what does he do? He turns over the tables of the money changers and drives out the people who have turned this place of worship into a commercial enterprise that takes advantage of the poor and keeps them from free access to God. Selfishness and greed have infested the heart of the city and damaged its relationship to the God it claimed to serve.

Jesus comes to us in peace, but he does not want to leave us in peace just the way we are. Jesus comes to deal with the sin and evil in the heart of each one of us that has damaged the true worship and service of God in our lives. And this "turning over the tables" in our own hearts might be a painful process. How does the Temple of your heart need to be cleansed?

And let us remember what Jesus was willing to do to bring about our cleansing.

Blessings,

Pastor Chris