20 AUG 23 Monday: A Closer Walk Devotional
“He said to them, The Scriptures declare, My Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have turned it into a den of thieves.” Mark 11:17
At the beginning of this passage, Jesus curses a fig tree for not producing fruit even though it is not in season. It seems strange except that the fig tree represents Israel and the life that they were living. For all extensive purposes, the fig tree looked great on the outside, but it lacked fruit. When people are healthy and faithful, there will always be fruit regardless of the season.
If you have no fruit in your life, the root cause is often unfaithfulness and/or worldliness. Jesus shows this when he enters the temple and becomes angry at what was being done. The leadership created a marketplace within the temple to make themselves wealthy. He exposed their lack of trust and dependence on God for their lives and their dissatisfaction with the level of material status they were enjoying. They had become a fruitless and faithless people.
Their pursuit of wealth created a stumbling block for those that came to pray and worship. The temple was made for the people of God to pray and worship, not to conduct business. The church today and individual Christians are the stones of God’s temple and our lives are made for his purposes, not our own. God expects that we are faithful, fruitful, and making a clear path for those to connect with the Lord.
Does Jesus need to clear out the Church today?
Reading Plan: Psalm 106:1-18; 2 Sam. 17:24-18:8; Acts 22:30-23:11; Mark 11:12-26
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