monday.

today we're reading John 2:12-17

read today's text

It's Monday. You wake up to the sound of birds chirping and a bustling city center. Why? It's the first day of Passover in the greatest city in Judea. You had just witnessed what you believe to be the Messiah enter into the city yesterday, and are overjoyed. As you step out of your house you begin to notice some commotion around the temple. The man you saw yesterday triumphantly riding on a donkey (LOL) is now causing outrage in the temple courts. Is this really happening?

Welcome back to the 21st century. 

Jesus in this story sets a really unique precedent for the future of the Church. So often we see this text used to justify the feeling of anger. However, I think this means more than that. So often we see people take Christianity and the name of Jesus and twist it to make their own idea of freedom; taking the freedom that the Lord grants us and running with it. This cheapens and dilutes the Gospel into something that is made for our own pursuit rather than glorifying the Father and to those who celebrate their freedom in Christ intentionally:

it hurts.

For someone like myself that has truly been transformed by the Gospel, all I want is for people to know Jesus. Yet when people claim to know Jesus but not respect the Lord; when people claim to live by His freedom but refuse to honor Him: it angers me just as Jesus was angered in the temple. 

pause to read Galatians 5:13-18

read this text

Galatians 5 talks about living a free life motivated by the Spirit. We, as disciples of Jesus, cannot live a life of freedom motivated by our personal desires and pursuits.  Even so, we cannot use Jesus to pursue our own flesh-led desires. By doing so we are cheapening the gift of freedom through Christ Jesus and we are reciprocating to the Father that we don't care about the transformative power of His presence. 

It's like receiving a gift and stuffing it away. 

The love that the Lord has for us is a love that is like none other. He strives and pursues us in every way possible so that we may experience life with him. Although we will never be able to reciprocate the gift of eternal life, we as Christians ought to respect and pursue the Lord consistently and intentionally.

What does this look like?

When we honor our freedom in Christ, we respect and honor the Lord.
We honor the Lord inside the church building and out. 
We respect the church and respect its members, for it is the body of Christ. 
We start to act more like Jesus and less like the world.
We start to look more like Jesus and less like the world. 
We start to look less like the vendors in the temple and more like an angry Jesus in the temple. 
​Why?

Our passion for the Lord comes out of our freedom from sin.