DAD'S RAMBLINGS -- THE HOUSE OF PRAYER

DAD'S RAMBLINGS – THE HOUSE OF PRAYER

"The He taught, saying to them, 'Is it not written, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations"? But you have made it a "den of thieves."'" (Mark 11:17)

Again, Jesus used an incident as a teaching point. The incident was the cleansing of the Temple of the merchants and money-changers. They were misusing and abusing the Temple for their own gain and profit. The sellers of the animals were taking advantage of the people who came to worship. And the money-changers were defrauding people. The whole scene was a sorry mess. Jesus was moved to righteous anger when He saw the abuses taking place.

The Temple was meant to be a place where people could meet and worship God. But these scoundrels had turned it into a commercial enterprise. Jesus quoted Isaiah who wrote: "My house shall be a house of prayer for all nations" (Isaiah 56:7).

God's Word makes it plain that prayer is a priority. Jesus often talked about prayer. One of the strongest statements Jesus made was "men ought always to pray and not lose heart" (Luke 18:1). Jesus took time out of His busy schedule to go to a secluded place to pray. Prayer was a priority for the early Believers as "they continued daily in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers" (Acts 2:42), and the record shows that in the early days of the Church, they prayed a lot. They called special prayer meetings when some of them were thrown in jail for preaching the Gospel.

The Apostle Paul picked up this theme when he wrote, "Pray without ceasing (I Thessalonians 5:17), and "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God" (Philippians 4:6). Paul understood the necessity of prayer, and often he prayed for others or asked prayer for himself, as in his comment to the church at Thessalonika, "we pray always for you" (II Thessalonians 1:11), or his request for prayer from the believers at Thessalonika, "Brothers, pray for us" (I Thessalonians 5:25; II Thessalonians 3:1). In a letter to the young preacher, Timothy, he said, "I desire therefore that the men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting" (I Timothy 2:8).

So I must ask the question. If praying is a priority in God's sight, if Jesus taught much about prayer, if the early church prayed a lot, and the Apostle Paul stressed it, why is it such a low priority on our part? I understand that prayer is not always easy. But it should be a priority – both on a personal level and on a congregational level.

Let us make it our goal to make our personal temple a house of prayer, and the place where we come together in corporate to worship to be a house of prayer.

Love, Dad