Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of thieves.”
Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them.
Matthew 21:12-14
“Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them.”(v.14) This is such a familiar story, but I never paid attention to the verse that followed the dramatic clearing of the temple until I heard a Bill Johnson teaching about the passage. He made a point to say that before Jesus could heal the blind and the lame, “He had to clear out the thieves. He didn't want to release blessing and share the glory with a defiled system of thievery. Jesus drove out this spirit, and when He did, another one was able to manifest.” This statement drew me up short. It was not the focus of Bill's message, but it was the message God had for me. It turned on that proverbial light bulb in my head. I had been struggling with this reality; that even though many us love God and want to follow Him with all of our hearts, souls and might, we often get stuck in patterns of doubt, fear, pride, unforgiveness and assorted other sins. I'd been asking God, “Why is this so?” If we profess to trust you, know you and have faith in you, how can this condition be more the norm than the exception? Why do we get so stuck?
God used Bill to draw me to this passage to answer my question.
From this this passage, God reminded me that because of the work of Jesus, we are the temples that house the living God now. He lives in our hearts. But we all have places, or dens in our hearts where we allow thieves to take up residence. Most of these thieves enter our hearts from past woundings. For some of us, we gave these thieves a home in our hearts so long ago, that we're hardly aware of the space that these invaders have taken over. We've gotten so used to operating on the limited free space that's available in our hearts, that we don't have any idea what the full joy and freedom that Jesus won for us, really feels like. Think of your computer's hard drive; when it's full of junk and short of space, it doesn't operate very well. That's what out hearts are like too. We house junk in them (opposing spirits or thieves) and limit Jesus' ability to work in our lives. And that's why we're stuck. James also describes this principle when he says “... he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man...” Just like the clearing of the temple story in the book of Matthew, we need to clear out the opposing spirits in our hearts to keep from being stuck or “tossed about”. We need to make room for Jesus to work. Then a spirit of healing can be manifested and our faith can move forward. We need the truth of the gospel to expose and penetrate those pockets in our hearts where thieves hide out and steal from us. God wants us to reclaim those areas for Him so that we can be free to live out the lives He planned for us. He's calling us to a personal temple clearing!
Dear Jesus, expose those areas of our hearts that we have given over to the enemy. Just like You “cleared the temple”, help us to “clear out” our hearts so that we can boldly and honestly proclaim that we “Love You with ALL of our hearts, ALL of our souls and ALL of our might. AMEN
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