When Jesus entered into Jerusalem it was a parade atmosphere. It was a great celebration! People sang, and shouted and just made a big fuss about Jesus’ coming into the city. It’s a little like that when Jesus comes into our lives. It’s a great time. We’re excited and enthusiastic. We sing like we’ve not sung before. We just savor the great sense of forgiveness and feel closer to God than we’ve ever been. But then, He starts to fool around with the things we worship.
The first thing that Jesus did after His triumphal entry into Jerusalem was to drive out all the money changers from the temple. He went straight to the heart of the city—the temple—and began throwing things out. He does the same with us, going right to the center of our souls. He overturns, renovates, and rearranges our lives. He says, “Your life is a den of iniquity. I want to make it into a house of prayer.”
Hugh Martin in “The Parables of the Gospels” tells the story of a rather rough, uncultured man who fell in love with a beautiful vase in a shop window. He bought the vase and put it on the mantelpiece in his room. There it became a kind of judgment on its surroundings. He had to clean up the room to make it worthy of the vase. The curtains looked dingy beside it. The old chair with the stuffing coming out of the seat would not do. The wallpaper and the paint needed renewing. Gradually the whole room was transformed.
That’s what happens when Christ enters a life.
Chuck
“And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer…’” Matthew 21:12-13