#DailyDevotion Jesus Is Still Zealous For The Lord’s House Or Why You Suffer As A Christian
Lent Day 19
John 2:17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
Well many well intentioned church goers read this and many have been taught that this means there should be no commerce going on in the Church building. And well, if they are thinking the sanctuary where people pray, worship and are served by God I can go with that. You don’t want people generally selling you stuff during bible study and Sunday School. But I believe the text means something far more drastic in our lives.
St. Paul writes, 1Co 3:16 “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” He writes concerning us, “Eph 2:21-22 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. (22) In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” St Peter also says concerning us, 1Pe 2:5 “are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
Now if zeal for the Father’s house consumes the Lord and you are that house, what does that say concerning what you might expect the Lord to be doing with you? I tell you the truth, Jesus is going to be chasing out all stuff in you that is getting in the way of you communing with your God. He is going to be overturning the tables of the money changers in your heart.
What does this look like in your life? St. Peter writes, 1Pe 1:6-7 “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, (7) so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” He also says, 1Pe 4:12-13 “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. (13) But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”
So the sufferings, the trials, the upended things in our lives is the Lord Jesus Christ having zeal for the temple of God, which is you. Paul reminds us these slight momentary afflictions are preparing us to bear the weight of eternal glory. Our Father is disciplining us, which is never fun, so we may reap a harvest of righteousness when our Lord Jesus Christ is revealed. But when we have these things happen to us, we should not think our Father in heaven has rejected us but quite the opposite. He loves us and loving fathers discipline their children.
We should also remember our Lord Jesus Christ and what he has suffered for us that we might be called the children of God. We need to remember his testing in the wilderness by Satan, his rejection by his people, his suffering in the courts of Annas and Pilate and his crucifixion. He suffered these things to sanctify your own suffering and shame to be used by God to make you whole and undefiled.
Heavenly Father, in the midst of so many trials of life, give us your Spirit that we may remember how zeal for your house consumes you and we are that house, that we may bear with it in the grace our Lord Jesus Christ, in who name we pray. Amen.