We are really important to Jesus. It is kind of intimidating actually. We are more important to him than we are to ourselves. He makes us holy. Would we even choose this for ourselves?
We are afraid to get too close to holiness. We rightly sense that it is set apart from the mundane, the ordinary, and the secular. It can have no contact with the profane. We see that holy things are misused at great peril.
If anyone destroys God’s temple,
God will destroy that person;
When holy things are diverted from their intended purpose the LORD does not sit idly by.
He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves,
as well as the money-changers seated there.
He made a whip out of cords
and drove them all out of the temple area
The temple is holy, the place where God dwells with man. And we are the living stones of that temple (cf. 1 Pet. 2:5). We are dwelling places for God because of the Holy Spirit he gives us. "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God" (cf. 1 Cor. 6:19)?
But we forget this exulted status we have. We do forget our identity, our purpose. We are meant to be dwelling places of God in the Holy Spirit (cf. Eph. 2:22). Our lives are meant to glorify and point toward the one who dwells within us. They are meant to allow his light to shine forth. In reality, our temples are crowded with merchants and money-changers. We are crowded with the minutia and details which, while not in themselves evil, are serious problems when they distract us from our true purpose, living for the praise of His glory (cf. Eph. 1:12).
Jesus does not take this lightly.
“Take these out of here,
and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.”
His disciples recalled the words of Scripture,
Zeal for your house will consume me.
Just as water flows from the temple and gives life all along the river banks so too is life-giving water meant to flow from each of us. "Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them" (cf. Joh. 7:38).
If we're dry this morning, if we feel like deserts more than rivers, and if the branches of our trees are barren of fruit Jesus invites us to return to him, the source of the living water.
The waters of the river gladden the city of God, the holy dwelling of the Most High!
They flow from us when we believe because they first flow to us from Jesus himself. Jesus asks for water from us as he does the Samaritan woman. Yet with her and with us the request is predicated on us first coming to to receive the living water of which he is the only source.
Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water" (cf. Joh. 4:10). Only Jesus can give water like this because "whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (cf. Joh. 4:14). This water pours forth from his side on the cross. It is the Holy Spirit (cf. Joh. 7:39).
And so we come full circle. We drink this life-giving water in baptism and are filled with the Spirit of God. We are made temples of the living God. That means that water should flow forth from us. Nothing is lacking. Jesus is within us offering us the water. May Jesus by zealous for our hearts today. May he cast out from us all the things which distract us from living our true purpose.
There is a stream whose runlets gladden the city of God,
the holy dwelling of the Most High.
God is in its midst; it shall not be disturbed;
God will help it at the break of dawn.
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