Cleansing of the Sanctuary - 3

Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. (John 2:23)

I am exploring the links between Jesus cleansing the temple and the prophecy of the cleansing of the sanctuary from Daniel 8. Since I am right now living in the time period prophesied in Daniel, I believe that it is very important that I become more aware of the deeper reasons and issues surrounding these experiences in the life of Jesus when he did the same thing on earth.

As I again look at the context surrounding this story I am reminded that the fundamental purpose for everything Jesus did was to induce and encourage belief. Repeatedly throughout this passage this is referred to so it is obvious that God is keenly interested in having us believe in Him. As I have noted before, the whole book of John is mostly about coming into a relationship of belief with God through the teachings and example of Jesus' life and how He related to people. This involved the use of signs to help people to believe the truth about God.

In this story it becomes more evident that there is a class of religious people who resist believing whatever it is that Jesus is trying to get them to believe. It would not be technically accurate to say that they did not believe in God for they were intent on displaying a belief in the existence of God possibly more than anyone else on the planet. They insisted that they were followers and even representatives of God and all of His requirements and spent much of their time and energy devoted to learning and disseminating information about Him. There was no lack of religious activity on their part and God was a constant theme of their language. They certainly believed in God when it came to head knowledge, so obviously Jesus had something very different in mind when He came to invite them to believe.

What I have been increasingly aware of over the past few years is my own need to enter into a much different and deeper kind of belief than this intellectual-heavy religion that marked the religion of the Jews and that pervades most of Christianity today. Even more emotional-oriented churches often fail to really connect the heart properly to the kind of belief that God intended for His children to have though many times they come much closer than the head religion I grew up with. I have been on a personal pursuit of discovering and experiencing the kind of belief and rest that the Bible speaks of repeatedly. I want to know what it really involves, what it looks like, to both understand it, how to enter into it and to be transformed by it.

There is no shortage of counterfeits to keep me distracted in this pursuit and so I need the guidance of the true Spirit of Jesus to find this path for my heart. I have to be reminded over and over to turn away from the grating, abrasive spirit of those who would engage me in arguing or who would lure me into emotionally attractive alternatives that will suck me back into a state of deeper deception once again. I want to find and walk the straighter path of genuine truth that engages fully both my left brain and my right brain emotions. And I want to see the truths in this story that are going to help me do this.

Because this story is couched in the context of our need to believe and the use of signs to further that objective, I realize that the same must be true of the present reality of Jesus currently cleansing the sanctuary as prophesied by Daniel. Whatever that entails, it must be viewed through the lens of our need to believe in God in ways that we are not currently doing. Christianity today largely fails to perceive the danger of perpetuating the same problems of religiosity that the Jews had. But their story is given to us as a warning and everyone who will take the time to perceive these lessons and warnings can avoid repeating those same mistakes. That is what I desire to do.

I don't think I have ever approached the study of the end-time cleansing of the sanctuary before from the angle of my need to believe the real truth about God from the heart. Of course it has usually been taught as a means of trying to get me to believe an intellectual truth as assumed by a certain group of people, but I am again talking about a much deeper level of belief that was obviously missing in the lives of many of those who gave great emphasis to this truth as a doctrine. I am not implying that this is not a factual truth as some try to do. What I am saying is that I think many have missed the much deeper reasons for a cleansing of the sanctuary because they miss those same reasons in their reading of these stories from Jesus' life. And that is precisely what I am seeking to expose and absorb for myself.

Having said all of that, I am perceiving that in whatever ways religion is carried on with a business mentality, it will tend to produce something other than the kind of belief that is needed for properly connecting with God. The main focus of the only words recorded from Jesus in this story had to do with His zeal to dismantle the business model that had taken over and distorted the worship of God in His house. So I think it would be safe to assume that this idea of business and its affect on religious worship, and the belief that Jesus wants us to experience in our relationship to Him, must be mutually exclusive if I am reading this correctly. Jesus seemed to be very intent on removing all of the apparatus that was promoting religion in ways that reflected business principles instead of reflecting the real truth about God.

The fact that His efforts to cleanse the house of God, His dwelling place, of all the business-oriented apparatus and activities met with strong resistance from the very ones who most claimed to represent God is very significant. In fact, what I see in this story is the confrontation between two asserted representatives claiming to reveal the truth about God. On the one hand are the recognized leaders and teachers of religion who claim to speak for and explain what God is really like and on the other hand a single person in direct opposition and contrast to their system who Himself is claiming to be none other that the very God whom they claim to be serving.

This leads one to see something of a tragic humor in this situation. How absurd can it get for a person claiming to represent someone else to come face to face with the person they represent and then argue that their version of what the other is thinking is more accurate than the original person themselves. Here are people claiming to have an accurate knowledge of God in direct confrontation with the God they claim to believe in and represent and yet arguing with Him that their version of what God is like is more accurate than the version being demonstrated by the Son of God who is God Himself.

While this becomes obviously ludicrous when viewed from this perspective, I sense that the same thing must be repeating in some aspect during the end-time cleansing of the sanctuary if this sand-box demonstration is a precursor as I believe it is. I want to ask the question seriously about my own relationship to God as He seeks to once again cleanse the temple during my day. Are my perceptions about God in direct conflict with the real truth about Him? Can I be found to be arguing that God is more like our version of Him than what He is trying to reveal through His Son and His Spirit? This is the unveiling of the spirit of unbelief which is the most dangerous state of mind to have. Just look at the final outcome of the unbelief of the Jews in Christ's day.

I want to come to a much clearer perception of how I may be engaging in a business mentality in my relationship with God. It is unbelief and deception that can keep me from perceiving this accurately. I already know I have far too much infection of the spirit of the Pharisee's and I want to be freed from that spirit completely. But it takes fresh revelations of the truth about God and encounters with His real presence for that light to expose the many lies still lurking in my heart and mind about Him. I want Jesus to come to the temple of my own heart and to reveal the many ways in which I still perceive religion from a business perspective. I want Him to remove the cacophony of the false gods that still carry on business in my own head and that keep me enslaved to a system or mentality that misrepresents God. I want to be free of the spirit behind the money-changers so that I can fully enjoy having Jesus relax and be the sole authority and source of life in my heart temple.

Cleansing of the Sanctuary - 2

I am fascinated by this story as I ponder what must have gone on that day. I wish that there were more details reported but that is not possible to know at this point. I wish I knew the words He said to the money-changers before He poured out their coins and upended their tables. I wonder how the coins were situated before He disrupted them. Were they stacked in neat rows on the tables or were most of them hidden away in large bags so that people would not notice how much they were being skimmed? Was Jesus' actions in pouring out the coins a means of exposing just how much more money there was involved than the public generally realized?

I do notice that it mentions the pouring out of the coins and the overturning of their tables as two separate things. That would seem to suggest that not all of the coins were sitting on the tables. But it also seems that there potentially might have been a considerable amount of resistance to this confrontation or else Jesus caught them so off guard that they did not have time to object before they found themselves totally exposed and publicly ashamed for their oppressive and offensive practices.

As I understand it, the whole concept and justification behind the very existence of money-changers was a scheme to defraud as many as possible to enrich the people in control of temple access. And since every good Jew felt spiritually obligated to come and offer sacrifices in the temple, the Jewish leaders had figured out a number of ways to exploit this sense of devotion and obligation on the part of thousands of people to skim off more and more wealth for themselves. They insisted on inspecting all the animals brought for offerings and would pretend to find something wrong with them even if there was not. They would then use this as an excuse to force the worshiper to exchange their own animal for a different one at of course a very inflated price. But then they would recycle that animal into an upcoming sale in exchange for yet another person's “imperfect” animal.

Likewise, the whole system of money-changing was also a very easy means of “taxing” people in the name of the temple service. Not only were there taxes imposed on people all throughout the country for the purpose of supporting the temple, but when one arrived at the temple to worship and found that they needed to buy an animal to sacrifice, they were forced to convert their currency into a special temple-only currency at a highly inflated rate before they were allowed to procure the necessary things with which they were required to complete their worship. Nearly everyone is aware of how easy it is for money-exchangers to confuse and take advantage of people even in today's world and how useless it is to mount objections. But for all of this to be taking place in the temple area and in the name of worship for God was nearly the height of blasphemy. For the actions and attitudes of these exploiters was directly influencing the opinions and perceptions being formed in the minds and hearts of millions of people about the character of God.

What was clearly taking place in the temple under the name of God was very damaging to God's reputation in the world. This open exploitation and oppression directly caused many people to believe deeply that God was also out to exploit them and take advantage of them just as those who claimed to represent Him were doing. Thus their hearts were becoming cold and hardened against being able to trust Him and were certainly not inclined to love Him. Religion was quickly becoming known only as a means by which to intimidate others for one's own benefit and had little or nothing to do with love. Religion and God were seen as only a means to appease a very selfish and threatening Deity who was little different from the way the pagan gods were viewed in the rest of the world. God's reputation was sinking into the miasma of being just like any other man-invented God and Jesus was very jealous to do something to correct it.

But I still wonder how we may still be indulging today in similar things and attitudes that may have the same effect on God's reputation as the shameless activities that were being carried out in the temple court long ago. It is very easy to restrict commerce in a church building and think that we have avoided the mistakes of the Jews. But is that external carefulness really what Jesus was addressing when He cleansed the temple? Was it the external symptoms of money changing hands or even the fraud and exploitation that Jesus wanted to get rid of or were there much deeper issues involved?

I believe that unless we perceive the deeper roots that Jesus wanted to expose and correct that we will always remain in danger of misrepresenting God just as badly as those people Jesus chased out of the temple were doing. We still have means of exploiting other people for our benefit but have possibly made our methods much more subtle so as to mask our real intentions better. Maybe we don't set up a tax table in the lobby of our church or force people to exchange their currency into a specialized money system before they can give their offerings. But do we have other ways of robbing those around us of their assets or gifts given to them of God? Do we have much more subtle ways of taking advantage of the weak and vulnerable? Have we so masked and concealed our forms of exploitation that even we may not be aware of how much we are insulting the reputation of our Father in Heaven?

Making God's house a place of business goes far beyond open exploitation of people financially, doesn't it? I can think of churches where a pastor amasses around him a following of people who hang on his every word and depend on him to help them make even some of the smallest decisions in their lives. Isn't this an exploitive attitude in the name of God.

I know of churches where the teachings are designed to frighten people into submission or people are manipulated in various ways to surrender more and more of their income to enrich the church. That is not to say that people should not be supportive of their local church. But when is the line crossed between willing support of the church and manipulative practices that use pleasure or fear to induce enhanced financial support? There is even a lot of misapplication of Scriptures to induce people to fork over more and more of their income in hopes of their receiving increased blessings from God. This is sometimes referred to as a prosperity gospel. But is God one who can have His blessings purchased at a price? Are we just as effective at turning God's honor and reputation into something more similar to a business transaction than an intimate family relationship?

There is another point that is very easy to miss in this story. In the temple there were several areas that were separated from each other. There were several courtyards and the outer court was the only one where women and foreigners were allowed to enter. This was actually the area that was being filled up and crowded with most of the business activities that Jesus disrupted.

The effect of filling up this courtyard that was designated for gentiles and women meant that there was less and less room for those classes of people to come and worship. The selfish and exploitive presence of all this commerce in the name of God was literally displacing the people already on the fringes making them feel even less important to God. Society already looked down on them as far less valuable than other more eligible worshipers and now they couldn't even physically get access to the only areas allowed for their presence because of the obtrusive presence of those who were merchandising religion.

I have to ponder how we today may be having the same affect on those who are on the margins. I have observed over the years how people sometimes show up at a church unexpectedly and want to worship with us because they had tasted something about God from other sources that made them curious. But after attending for a week or two they were never seen again. I suspect that the attitudes and atmosphere that they found in our church were largely responsible for their not coming back though we are usually quick to blame them for that decision. We like to believe that they were simply not devoted enough or honest enough to hang out with us more permanently. But I strongly believe that the real reason often is that though we think we are generally friendly on the outside, we are so misrepresenting of the Spirit of Jesus that they could not find a place of acceptance and love that they had hoped to discover during their visits.

Church's obsessions with keeping up appearances more than nurturing and protecting the vulnerable and wounded hearts among us is one of the greatest offenses that we commit against the reputation of God in my opinion. Is this how we make religion more like a business enterprise, how we make “doing church” more important to us than the hearts and souls of people? We seem far more interested in keeping track of membership numbers and offering figures than we are in cultivating deep and healing heart connections with people who are weak, fearful or uneducated. We are eager to spend thousands of dollars on large public evangelistic campaigns in order to increase the numbers of our church but as soon as they become members we seem to lose interest in staying connected with them and move on to looking for more inflated numbers. And in all of this we far too often fail to introduce people to a realistic, personal connection with God from their own heart.

Just in the last few months I have chosen to take time to become friends with a person who was not long ago brought into the church through public evangelism. I had noticed that he seemed to be almost lethargic during the Bible study time in church and was not really engaged in an meaningful discussion and was not asking any questions. In fact I could not even observe meaningful discussions taking place anywhere myself. This concerned me and I sensed that he was only hanging on the edge of church membership and likely did not feel very much a part of the congregation. He was showing up each week physically but it appeared to me that no one was paying any attention to listening to his heart or helping him to know God better.

I decided to join the very small class that he had been assigned to for indoctrination and to try to connect with him. Over several months I asked lots of questions about the real meaning of religion and encouraged him and others in the class to think more clearly and to question many of their assumptions. As I did so I began to notice a light beginning to appear in his eyes and he began to come alive. He started asking real questions and was startled to find out that religion was more than just subscribing to a list of doctrines. When I shared with the class the importance of having a personal and intimate relationship with God he began asking how one goes about doing that. We have spent quite some time since then in discussions about how to know God better and I am very excited to see his hunger for God increasing each week.

What really got my attention was what he told me about a week or two ago. He said that before I came to his class that he was seriously questioning why he was even coming to church at all. He said that he felt he had no reason at all to keep coming but for some reason he did anyway. Now that we have begun having serious discussions about questions that he has and have been exploring how to know God more intimately he said that he now feels he has a reason to come to church.

This made me realize that there are many more in the church who very likely have similar feelings to what he expressed. I fear that our business model approach to conducting church as so skewed people's perceptions of God that very few have any idea of the God's desire to connect with their heart. They are just showing up at church from habit or from fear of being lost or any number of other useless reasons that fail to move them into a real relationship with Him. I feel that we really do need another temple cleansing visit from Jesus. But the people asked to get out of the way this time may be even more surprising than those who were evicted two thousand years ago.

And he said to me, "For two thousand three hundred days; then the sanctuary shall be cleansed." (Daniel 8:14 NKJV)

In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume me." (John 2:14-17 NRSV)

Cleansing of the Sanctuary

As I have been pondering and seeking to understand this more clearly, I suddenly realized that this is very closely connected with a prophecy that has been the cornerstone of the teachings of my church for all of my life. I realize that what I am coming into may be significant insights that can help me unlock much confusion that has swirled around this prophecy for literally several hundred years and certainly during my lifetime.

And he said to me, "For two thousand three hundred days; then the sanctuary shall be cleansed." (Daniel 8:14 NKJV)

And he answered him, "For two thousand three hundred evenings and mornings; then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state." (Daniel 8:14 NRSV)

And he said unto me, Until two thousand and three hundred evenings and mornings: then shall the sanctuary be vindicated. (Daniel 8:14 DBY)

This is such a familiar text that was very early on drilled into my memory repeatedly by teachers and preachers alike. It lies at the very root of my church's identity and existence and has been the basis for much of the belief system that I was raised to trust in. But as with everything else I have been taught in my past I am keen to go back and revisit my roots and the assumptions about all my beliefs to find out the real truth about them. Nearly everything I was taught I have found in need of adjustment and sometimes radical modification. And while many of the basic facts may still be found to be true, the spirit in which they were presented almost always gave them a negative spin that caused me to feel either very afraid or even angry toward God.

Now that my picture of God has undergone radical revision and is constantly being upgraded almost daily, I am finding that reexamination of all my core beliefs and assumptions is turning up surprises at nearly every turn. It is not so much that I am throwing out everything I was taught as much as it is finding the proper context and applications for all of them. The way most of the truthful facts of doctrines were applied for me by my teachers I am finding was often very skewed by their false assumptions about how God feels toward us. Now that I am getting that context corrected I am finding that the true applications and implications of all of these doctrines is radically different than anything I have ever thought about before.

This issue of the cleansing of the sanctuary has usually been closely linked with a doctrine called the investigative judgment believed to be going on right now in heaven. Unfortunately, because most people during my formative years had very dark views of God, this doctrine was most often used to strike terror into the hearts of the young and old alike in the supposition that the more afraid we were of the judgment the more motivation we would have to become perfect in preparation for end-time events and the Second Coming of Jesus.

However, I am now coming to realize that all of these assumptions are based on false premises and therefore everything has to be challenged and reexamined to find out the real truth about them. What I have been discovering is that though most of the facts themselves may still be valid, the way in which they were applied has caused them to become very discredited in the minds and hearts of millions of people who have rejected them altogether because of the false ways in which they were applied. I have chosen not to throw everything out that I was taught but at the same time I am keen to find out the real truth about all of them and place them in the correct relationship they should be placed in to each other.

What I am learning is the everything must be seen in the context of a proper view of the character of God. If I don't get my picture of God improved and aligned with the revelation of Him through the life and example of Jesus, then everything is subject to serious misapplication at best. But the more clearly I perceive the real truth about what God is really like, the easier I find it to understand everything else and how it all fits together in a beautiful mosaic of truth and attraction.

Given this context, I am keen to understand much more clearly what was really going on in the incidents in Jesus' life when He cleansed the temple. Because I am realizing that the more clearly I can understand what He was really trying to convey in those encounters with the false ideas about His Father being perpetrated in the temple, the more I will be able to unmask the false ideas about God in the teachings about the final days of investigative judgment taking place as the sanctuary is again being cleansed even as we speak. If I begin to unmask the lies about God that have filled my heart for so many years I will also be more prepared to embrace the real truth about Him that are to be found in a true understanding of those same doctrines after they have been cleaned of all the false assumptions that have marred them for so long.

I went and collected a number of texts that came to my attention as I began this journey of unpacking this more thoroughly. At this point I am simply going to list them out and then later I want to come back and revisit them much more carefully.

Cleansing #1

In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume me." The Jews then said to him, "What sign can you show us for doing this?" Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." (John 2:14-19 NRSV)

One thing I find interesting is that only in this first cleansing is it mentioned that He made a whip of cords. It is never mentioned in connection with the second cleansing. I wonder if this is a parallel to the two times that Moses was instructed to bring water from the rock in the desert and the differences that were supposed to mark those events?

Cleansing #2

Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer'; but you are making it a den of robbers." The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, "Hosanna to the Son of David," they became angry and said to him, "Do you hear what these are saying?" Jesus said to them, "Yes; have you never read, 'Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise for yourself'?" (Matthew 21:12-16 NRSV)

After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illumined with his glory. And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird. For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality." (Revelation 18:1-3 NAS95)

"And the kings of the earth, who committed acts of immorality and lived sensuously with her, will weep and lament over her when they see the smoke of her burning, standing at a distance because of the fear of her torment, saying, 'Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For in one hour your judgment has come.' And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, because no one buys their cargoes any more-- cargoes of gold and silver and precious stones and... cattle and sheep, and cargoes of horses and chariots and slaves and human lives." (Revelation 18:9-13)

"Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming," says the LORD of hosts. "But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap. He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the LORD offerings in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD as in the days of old and as in former years." (Malachi 3:1-4)

Sinners in Zion are terrified; trembling has seized the godless. "Who among us can live with the consuming fire? Who among us can live with continual burning?" He who walks righteously and speaks with sincerity, he who rejects unjust gain and shakes his hands so that they hold no bribe; he who stops his ears from hearing about bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking upon evil; he will dwell on the heights, his refuge will be the impregnable rock; his bread will be given him, his water will be sure. (Isaiah 33:14-16)

O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on your name. My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips when I think of you on my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night; for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me. But those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth; they shall be given over to the power of the sword, they shall be prey for jackals. But the king shall rejoice in God; all who swear by him shall exult, for the mouths of liars will be stopped. (Psalms 63:1-11 NRSV)

Competing Passions

To those who were selling the doves He said, "Take these things away; stop making My Father's house a place of business." (John 2:16)

Something in this seems to resonate in my heart today. I don't want to use it as a platform from which to criticize or condemn others, but neither do I want to ignore disturbing relevance that this has for the kind of mindsets that are all too familiar in the way we act and treat each other in the house of God. I want to listen to hear any convictions that the Holy Spirit may want to supply so that I am not found among those who need to be escorted out of the house of the Lord by fear of His presence.

This event in Jesus' life and the one very similar to it just before the end of His earthly ministry is seemingly uncharacteristic of what we usually think of how Jesus acted. The normal explanation for this is to assume that He simply made an exception to His normal way of relating to people in these instances and had an outburst of rage in which He acted out of character. This is very much like the kind of thing we might do if pressed beyond our patience and so we assume that God runs out of patience just like we do. But this kind of logic will always lead to faulty and dangerous conclusions about God. We must be extremely careful not to make assumptions about God's actions and motives based on our own ways of acting and feeling because this can cause us to fall into the trap of forming opinions about God based on our sinful ways of thinking instead of learning the real truth about Him from His viewpoint.

Because of this kind of logic I have seen all sorts of damaging outbursts justified in the name of “righteous indignation” which is what it is typically called. But the spirit that motivates such outbursts of anger and actions often involving force or anger against others is almost always radically different than the spirit that motivated Jesus during these times. It is usually a spirit of self-righteousness and false piety and of taking vengeance into one's own hands instead of a legitimate jealousy for the reputation of God. In fact, it is a similar spirit that tripped up Elijah when he moved outside the will of God for him on Mount Carmel and he consequently soon found himself cowering in fear under the threats of a single pagan woman as a result.

When it comes to outbursts of passion and jealousy for the reputation of God, I believe that it is extremely vital that one first be in perfect harmony with the pure love and compassion of God before they can ever be qualified to exercise the kind of open passion demonstrated by Jesus during this event. When humans attempt to exercise passion on God's behalf, they must first be swallowed up and purified by the holy fire of God's unconditional love and have their hearts filled with an attitude of unconditional forgiveness. Otherwise they will quickly become side-tracked by the contamination of an infection from earthly passions in their sinful nature that will distort the exhibition of God's character during such an event.

As a result of the widespread abuse of passion in the name of God, the very idea of passion itself has come to be considered by many to be inherently evil in some way. And it is true that nearly all of human passion has been tainted by our inherent and pervasive presence of selfishness and pride. That is why it is so dangerous to act out our passion or make decisions based on our passion in the name of God. We may have convinced ourselves that God needs our passionate input in order to defend His reputation or to protect His property, but that kind of thinking is not led by the Spirit of Jesus but rises from the spirit of a counterfeiter. It appears to be very pious and religious, but it does not convey an accurate picture of the Father as He would have us to do. Moses found that out after he allowed his own impatient passion to interpose between God's heart and the pictures of Him being molded in the minds of multitudes of people in the desert who looked to Moses as an example of what God was like.

But all of this does not prevent us from ever being able to experience or express the holy and pure, selfless passion of the Father as Jesus demonstrated. In fact, I am fully convinced that God's greatest desire for us is to become so unified with Him that we can all become safe channels of His immense reservoir of passion that flows from deep in His own heart. We were made for passion and it is wrong to make the assumption that just because passion gets us into trouble so often that it is wrong to live passionately. Instead of trying to avoid passion altogether, we need to allow God to transform us and heal us and rewire our minds and hearts so that the powerful currents of pure and holy passion can once again energize the circuits of our lives and bring glory to Him. When that begins to happen we will find ourselves more like Moses when his face literally glowed with the glory of God because of His close association with the passion and beauty of God.

That was not what I originally intended to think about when I started pondering this text. But having said all that, I realize that I need to have my own heart purified from all selfishness, pride and self-righteousness so that God can use me more effectively and safely to express the pent-up passion needed to clarify the real truth about His character. It is very clear that God's reputation has been maligned and distorted terribly and that He needs people who are willing to be filled with both the truth about Him and with His Spirit which can energize them with the same passion for His reputation that Jesus demonstrated in this encounter in God's house.

What originally caught my attention in this story was a sincere desire to know what it was about the people and activities going on in the temple that elicited such a response from Jesus. I am fully aware of how most people have come to reason this out, but I am highly suspicious of the accuracy of those conclusions given the outcome of their tactics to correct similar problems today. What I too often see is a spirit of sternness and hostility in the church towards anyone who makes too much noise or toward children who move around too much or towards anything that disturbs or challenges our formalism and so-called reverence.

It disturbs my heart to see the antagonism and harshness in the spirit of many Christians towards others who act differently than they think should happen in the house of God. The way this is often dealt with is to employ threats or veiled insinuations about God's anger against anyone who disturbs our version of what should go on in church. There is no shortage of horror stories about force and violence and bigotry being exercised against others who inadvertently offend some “saint” in the church who views themselves as God's appointed watchmen to keep sin out of the church. And this ugliness is usually perpetrated in the name of following the example of Jesus in cleansing the temple. But was this the example and spirit that Jesus engaged in when He did this strange act that day? Or was something very different going on here that we almost always completely miss in this story?

A great deal of discussion and debate is carried out over the details of what Jesus did or did not do during these encounters in the temple. Did He actually hit anyone or did He just threaten them? Did He lose control of Himself in His zeal or was this a calculated fit of rage that He couldn't control until after He cooled down? All sorts of speculations are carried on – but for what purpose? Are we trying to get into the head of Jesus and really understand what motivated Him or are we trying to come up with a formula that we might be able to follow in order to justify our own outbursts or prejudice against others?

I am not very confident that I have a very satisfactory answer to all of these questions yet. I am quite sure that most of the explanations I have heard are far from satisfactory, but having said that I still want to move much closer to understanding the real reasons and motives that filled the mind and heart of Jesus to take such bold moves in the face of such intimidating odds and fierce opposition. And maybe that is leading me to uncover my own true desires. For what Jesus demonstrated on these occasions was a spirit of boldness in its pure and holy form, a demonstration of boldness that is both safe and needed to reveal the real truth about God's heart of passion. This is in contrast to the kind of boldness born of self-righteous, self-justifying religious pride and prejudice.

I remember the prayer of the early Christians when faced by the intimidations of these same Jewish leaders just a few years after this event. When Peter and John were confronted in this same temple for causing a disruption to the status quo by bringing in a leaping, dancing, hollering, former lame man who had just been healed of life-long disability, they returned to their fellow believers and all realized that what they were really facing was a strong pressure to become afraid. Their real problem was not the potential violence that was threatened against them, it was succumbing to the fear itself that was their greatest danger. For it is fear that is the most powerful weapon of the enemy to steal away the boldness and peace that God intends should fill our lives as we live to demonstrate the real truth about Him in a world of deceptions and lies about Him.

As those early believers listened to the account of Peter and John they felt the old stirrings of fear rising up in their hearts attempting to neutralize all the joy and passion and courage that they had so recently received from the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. They were determined not to be sucked back into that prison of fear from which they had only recently escaped and so they all turned to God collectively and cried out to Him for one thing in particular – boldness. In their prayer they started out by focusing on the real truth about God that Satan was attempting to obscure in their minds through fear. Then they reminded themselves of what God had done in the past and of His Word in the Scriptures to get a proper perspective on reality. After setting this context firmly in their minds and hearts they then relayed to Him their current dilemma and asked for one thing only. That one thing was not deliverance from prison or persecution or anything else but freedom from fear itself. In essence they said, “God they're trying to make us afraid again! Give us boldness to speak the real truth about You no matter what happens.”

And the result of that prayer was a fresh infusion of power, boldness and love from the throne of heaven that filled them even more with the Spirit like that seen in Jesus. And this was the very same spirit that Jesus demonstrated in the temple when He chased out all those who were so terribly misrepresenting the truth about God. (Isn't it interesting that this kind of event was never carried out in the temple by any of His disciples in later years.) But it is vital to understand that Jesus was not acting in anger against people as we so often suppose but was angry about the misrepresentations and distortions of what God was like being carried out in the name of God in His house by those claiming to represent God.

Jesus loved those people He chased out of the temple just as much as He loved His own disciples. Until we factor that into the picture we will not be able to comprehend what was really going on here. It was not hatred or anger as we think of it or bitterness or prejudice that motivated Jesus to act as He did but was a desire to restore the Spirit of God into the house of God. And what was the spirit that was missing in the temple that needed to be returned? Well, take a look at the context and the implications.

Carefully consider the words of Jesus during this event. Take these things away; stop making My Father's house a place of business." This idea of business has deep implications that go far beyond just buying and selling merchandise in a physical house of worship. That view has been used to condemn many people for doing all sorts of things in a church building, but that is still not really getting to the root issue. We can easily condemn others for doing what we consider improper activities in a church building while at the very same time demonstrating the very spirit that Jesus was trying to expel from the house of God.

This attitude or mentality of business that had become so prevalent in the temple that Jesus wanted to expel is far more subtle many times than the open demonstrations of it in Jesus' day. It can be seen in the way people treat each other in the church using policy rules or legalistic attitudes to discourage and manipulate those around them. It is seen in the subtle or not so subtle power struggles that go on all the time in the body of Christ. It can be seen in the callousness we often have toward the pain and problems of the weak or the abused among us while over-emphasizing an intellectual religion. It is even described in the book of Revelation quite clearly in chapter 18 that climaxes with a description of the merchandising of men's souls.

The very way that most churches are structured corporately lends itself to a business mentality much more than the family atmosphere that Jesus intended should pervade His house. We like to give much lip service to pretending that we are all living like family, but not far underneath most people know that this is often only a ruse, a pretension to make us more attractive to drawing others under our control. But what we are too often seeking are positions of influence and recognition more than increased opportunities for genuinely and selflessly serving others in love and humility. I am afraid that if Jesus were to show up in our churches today that He would be just as resented and unwelcome as He was in the temple 2000 years ago. We may be using His name and singing His praises with our mouths, but what is the real condition of our hearts?

This is something I want to think about more. I feel impressed that there is much, much more to this story than what I have seen so far. I want to listen to the deeper messages that I sense the Spirit has for me as I allow Him to unpack this passage to me more thoroughly.

Seeing the Kingdom

Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. (John 2:23)

Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3)

I am intent on getting much deeper into the significance of this part of my Bible. I feel compelled to find the real truth about these issues and most importantly experiencing them for myself. Every time I take the time to dwell on these passages and listen to the impressions of the Holy Spirit I feel I get a little bit more, but I also feel that the container just keeps getting deeper. I have never felt like I really broke through the lid completely so I can see more clearly the deeper reservoir inside these chapters that can energize and motivate me the way I want to live. I hear the words and I keep putting pieces together but it only makes me hungry for much more.

Clearly this is a passage that is more direct about addressing the condition of the heart much more than just a mental religious experience. That is why I am here immersing myself in this passage, because I am increasingly hungry for a much deeper heart experience. I have lived in a head religion for all of my life but it has only been a few years since I even became aware of the reality of my own heart and have begun to address this part of me. I am so thankful that God is in charge of this process and is making me hungry to have a real heart-based relationship with Him. I am simply expressing the desires that He is feeding into my soul and asking for more real spiritual food and more heart training.

But truth is not only a heart experience though that must be the primary base of function for it to be authentic. God designed for us to use both our left and right brain, both our intellect and our heart in our relationship with Him. And just because I have lived around people who have over-emphasized head knowledge for most of my life does not mean that I should walk away from that part of it too far. Much information that is needed by my heart and emotions to properly connect with God has to come through my left brain first because it is in the form of words which have to be processed by the left brain. There are other ways my right brain can receive directly, but words have to be interpreted through the left brain and then made accessible to the right for interpretation into deep feelings and spiritual insights and the transformation of gut-level beliefs.

What I am seeing in these two verses this morning is right along these lines. There are two parallel kingdoms happening at the same time and depending on which one we belong to will depend greatly as to the meaning that we place on key words in this passage. It is very clear that John keeps repeating certain words that seem very important for him. Signs, authority, belief and now this idea of seeing. In these two verses most of these show up together though not necessarily using those words.

The Jews were living under the more familiar kingdom of externally-based religion that nearly all of us find ourselves living under today. The new kingdom that Jesus came to reveal more clearly was a kingdom based solidly in the heart, not on external control of men's minds and external beliefs. Because of the stark contrast between these two kingdoms the associated assumptions about the meanings of these words can be subtly but significantly different. I cannot assume that the first thing that pops into my mind when I read these passages is necessarily what Jesus or John had in mind when they presented them originally. I need the Holy Spirit to guide and instruct me from the context of the Word of God to unlock the deeper meanings and open the doors that prevent me from entering into a much deeper experience with my God in this new kingdom.

John seems to be implying here that when the kingdom of God shows up there will be signs that can be seen or observed by those not yet in that kingdom. Whatever these are, they can be cause for those who are honest of heart to be able to believe in such as way as to be able to enter into that kingdom by faith. In doing so one comes under the full authority of the head of that kingdom which means that they surrender all other claims of authority over their life. Again, what is meant by believing carries different meanings depending on which kingdom provides the definitions. What keeps becoming more clear to me is that this belief spoken of here is far deeper than just an intellectual belief or an assent to factual truth or doctrines no matter how sincere or intense that may be. I see no reference to Jesus trying to get anyone in this story to believe any doctrines so that they can join His kingdom. I see Him trying to get people to wake up at the heart level and enter into a much deeper level of belief than even that which I have ever experienced myself.

I am not trying to write these things as a means of making myself an authority on these subjects but as a way of processing through my own search for a deeper understanding and experience in this kingdom myself. It is more of a dialogue between my mind, my heart and the mind of God asking Him to release my soul perceptions to be able to encounter Him at a much deeper level than ever before. I crave to have consistent belief like that described in this passage – genuine, authentic, life-changing belief that is rooted deeply in the gut-level feelings and emotions, in the heart and soul of my existence. I want to perceive the signs of this kingdom which still seem like a mystery to me. The very fact that they feel like a mystery clues me in that I am not yet fully integrated into this kingdom. I do not want to pretend that I have all the answers about this because that only pushes me back into the counterfeit kingdom of logical, intellectual religion which has never satisfied the deeper longings of my soul. I want to have a belief experience that is founded much deeper than simply good explanations for words and religious phrases strung together to prove a theological position. I want to know deeply what it is like to believe with all my heart and soul and spirit without reservation.

This issue of authority is a key one in my own life. Just the word by itself is enough to elicit a reaction deep down inside my gut, a reaction that can many times be even felt at the physical level. Because I am keenly aware that anything that triggers such an automatic reaction is always a symptom of an unresolved false belief buried deep in old memory containers, I continue to pray for release from these deep, hidden lies. I realize that God needs to take me back to those memories and unmask those deeply embedded lies and expose them for what they really are before I can be freed of them. Ignoring them, suppressing them or denying them will never give me the freedom that I long for. I have to have the Spirit of God take me through an effective healing experience where I face them head-on and receive the healing freedom from their grip and the liberating truth from God's Spirit in my soul.

I have received bits and pieces of this healing over time and have found much more peace in recent years than I ever knew in my earlier years. But I am also frighteningly aware that there is still a deep reservoir of pent up pain that still remains buried very deep that could sabotage me at any time. It still causes me deep fears at times and makes me keenly aware that I am very vulnerable to acting in ways that will bring much shame on the reputation of God, not to mention my own reputation. That is the part that really frightens me the most. It is bad enough that I can easily embarrass myself by the stupid things I am all too capable of doing in life. But the more I come to admire and appreciate the real truth about how good God is, the more fear I have that people will be misled in their opinions about Him by seeing the inconsistencies in my life because of these deeply hidden lies in my heart causing me to have a public meltdown in ways I shudder to even imagine.

I pray earnestly that God will provide the means and circumstances and community needed to take me on this healing journey soon. I know that the fear that will be stirred up inside of me if I were to face these dark places in my heart will be far greater than anything I can handle alone. That is why I need much closer connections with others in the body of Christ who might be willing to lend me their joy capacity when I come to that time of healing for my soul. I have no idea when or where or how it will take place, but I have no doubt that it must take place or I cannot myself fully enter into this kingdom that Jesus talked about with Nicodemus.

In fact, I can really identify with the frustration and questions posed by Nicodemus to Jesus. Nicodemus also came from a similar background of intellectual religion just as I have. He was living under very similar assumptions about the meanings of words and had similar priorities in life that most people have being raised in the kingdom of religion as we know it. So the confusion that he was going through in this chapter is very relevant to what I have been feeling for many years. There is nothing in this passage that indicates that he was able to fully grasp it anytime soon after this encounter with Jesus. It was only after the death of Jesus on the cross that he is mentioned again and then it becomes clear that the truths implanted by Jesus in this discussion had finally taken root and produced outward fruit resulting in his taking sides openly with the disciples of Jesus.

I have spent many more years than even Nicodemus pondering these words of Jesus about this alternative kingdom that seems so strange and different from anything I am familiar with. So it would stand to reason that enough time has passed that I should now be ready to step more fully into that kingdom and begin to live in it more openly myself. For I know that it is only by living within this real kingdom that is rooted firmly in a heart connection with God that I can truly thrive and enjoy complete fulfillment and peace.

So I choose to sit at the feet of Jesus for as long as it takes to get my dense heart and mind to absorb the real truth about these words. I want to see the signs of this kingdom for myself. I want to live under this authority with joyful abandon. I want to see with new eyes and to believe with all my heart and mind. I want to be fully absorbed and swallowed up in the passion of God that I have caught a glimpse of over the past few years, this passion that is the very atmosphere that pervades this kingdom of love and grace.