His disciples recalled the words of Scripture,
Zeal for your house will consume me.
The same motive that causes Jesus to drive the money-changers from the temple causes him to purify us as well.
Do you not know that you are the temple of God,
and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
At times our purification from attachment to sin feels like a whip of cords. In those moments we often let ourselves believe that we are loved less. But it precisely because God treasures us so much that he refuses to settle for mediocrity. He refuses to share space in our souls with the money-changers not because he hates us but because he loves us so much that he wants us all to himself. This is, after all, the purpose of a temple.
If anyone destroys God's temple,
God will destroy that person;
for the temple of God, which you are, is holy.
Jesus Christ is our foundation. Zeal for his Father's house consumes his body entirely on the cross down to the very foundation of his obedience to the Father. His zeal which is able to embrace even the cross is the same zeal that transforms and builds the temples of our own lives based on his resurrection.
But he was speaking about the temple of his Body.
Therefore, when he was raised from the dead,
his disciples remembered that he had said this,
and they came to believe the Scripture
and the word Jesus had spoken.
To what degree has this already happened and to what degree do we still need to welcome purification? That is in the hands of Jesus. But fruit is a good sign.
Along both banks of the river, fruit trees of every kind shall grow;
their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail.
Imagine the fruits of the Spirit in our lives, not just on our best days, but also on our worst. Imagine fruit that never fails no matter how the seasons change around us. The world needs our fruit for food and our leaves for medicine. They can't bare too many more winters without them. Let us therefore welcome Jesus. Let us even pray that he make us saints by any means necessary. The potential is too great to ignore.
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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