The Heart of Nicodemus

...this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him." (John 3:2)

The one verse is giving me a lot of clues about various subjects and issues presented in the surrounding context.

This man links Nicodemus with the discussion about how Jesus related to men found in 2:23-25.

Coming by night implies a lot about the feelings and fears of Nicodemus and his concern for what other leaders and people might think about him. It also provided a time when they could speak together privately without interference from others seeking to be around Jesus.

Rabbi reveals a little bit about Nicodemus and his thoughts about Jesus. It was certainly a respectful title and even a compliment bestowed on a quite young and seemingly aspiring new teacher. But on the other hand it also exposes a lack of understanding on the part of Nicodemus as to the true nature of Jesus and His real identity. But we must be very careful to not be harsh in our judgment of Nicodemus on this point for we all struggle to believe the real truth about Jesus just as everyone else did when relating to Him personally when He was here on earth. We must remember that there was very little known history and information about Jesus available for the public at this point in His ministry.

We know... This is a very telling word by which Nicodemus identifies himself with the other leaders of the Jews. Nicodemus, I believe, was thinking strategically by initiating this clandestine encounter with Jesus early on in His ministry. Nicodemus may have really taken a liking to Jesus from a distance and was becoming very concerned that things were suddenly taking a wrong turn that would unduly prejudice other leaders against Jesus and damage His reputation. I am sure that Nicodemus must have felt that he might be able to effect some diplomacy behind the scenes and so he wanted to set up precursors for a potentially wider dialogue in the future to repair some of the damage caused by the recent events in the temple.

You have come from God as a teacher. I am not ready to come down dogmatically on just what this may really mean. I know there is a lot of discussion and opinions about what it means and many of them very well may be accurate. But I think there is room here for multiple understandings that may even overlap. If we are truly honest, most of us can admit that we often have mixed feelings and motives for the things we say and Nicodemus was no exception.

Christians today often make this phrase an opportunity to criticize Nicodemus for calling Jesus only a teacher and not the Son of God. But again, remember that there was still very little to go on at this point in Jesus' ministry to form opinions about His true identity, and from that perspective Nicodemus was actually going much farther than even some of His own disciples may have been ready to do. Very clearly it is in fact true that Jesus was a teacher, for that is what He did much of the time. So we should not rush to judgment in condemning Nicodemus for stating the obvious.

What I do find more curious is the fact that Nicodemus states that we know you are a teacher sent from God. This strongly implies that Nicodemus either directly knew or strongly believed that he was not the only leader who had this opinion about Jesus. It also may be seen that he might have been including many of the common people and their feelings about Jesus, but I think it may apply more to the leadership of the Jews from Nicodemus' perspective.

No one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him. This seems clear to me that Nicodemus is again stating the obvious in some respects. In addition he is also using this as a means of beginning what he hopes can be constructive dialogue for diplomacy. This is one of the hallmarks of effective diplomacy; to establish mutual trust and respect through affirmation and by seeking to use compliments and by attempting to view situations from both sides.

Again, I sense that Nicodemus may have been expressing multiple feelings on his own part. While I fully believe that he was coming to initiate diplomatic dialogue with Jesus which might be seen as more on a professional level, I also believe that Nicodemus felt some of the magnetism of Jesus in his own heart and was drawn to come into closer proximity with this strange new person that had suddenly appeared on the public scene. I believe that he sensed that there might be more to Jesus than what he had seen in public and he wanted to have a chance to explore and test for himself what might be learned about this complex and baffling young teacher.

I really wonder what made the difference between Nicodemus and many of the other leaders who ended up repeatedly rejecting Jesus? It seems clear at the end of the story after Jesus' crucifixion that Nicodemus decided to fully take sides with Jesus against all odds and at the expense of his own career. But between those two points in time there is almost nothing known about how Nicodemus was thinking except for a few interventions that he effected on Jesus' behalf during some of the councils of the ruling body of the Jews determined to destroy Jesus.

But as I meditate on this passage it seems clear to me that Jesus saw very clearly the heart of Nicodemus and understood that he was being drawn to Jesus emotionally but afraid to be fully transparent at this point. As usual, Jesus responded more to the real heart conversation that was not so obvious in the external words. Whenever Jesus sensed people being drawn to Him by His Father He always spoke to the internal desires in their heart that were usually obscured by the external words and actions. This is why Jesus was so amazingly successful in touching the lives of so many people while at the same time baffling us as to the seeming disconnect between people's questions and His answers.

The closer I come to Jesus and the more in tune I am with His Spirit, the easier it is going to be for me to hear the quiet messages of the Spirit informing me of what is really being said when people talk with me instead of hearing only the external words which may have nothing at all to do with what they want. This is nothing new to me, for I have often done this very same thing with others. My own heart was desperately crying out for understanding and recognition of deep pain or frustration, but I was too afraid to express my real feelings. Instead, I would offer some external discussion in hopes that someone would look past my words and seek to take me to the much deeper pain in my heart that was overwhelming me.

When I am listening to others, it is also sometimes just difficult to avoid the triggers that often distract my heart from really listening to their unspoken conversations and heart-cries. Whenever an unresolved pain of my own gets triggered by words or actions from others, my own prejudices and fears usually fill my consciousness to the exclusion of being able to listen to the still, small voice that is seeking to guide me in a very different direction.

I certainly want to learn the skill of listening better and perceiving more accurately the real messages that come to me from others as Jesus always was able to do. But I realize very well that this is far more than just a learned skill. It requires inner healing from the things that block me from being able to listen effectively and care for others from my heart. Until my own heart experiences true healing and more freedom from my own triggers, I will continue to be prevented from really appreciating the true feelings and needs of others or have much of anything to offer them for relief.

But as Jesus becomes more permanent in living in my own heart and healing my own pain, I will be more available to be a channel of blessing, life and true nurture to others who need His ministry. I can then become a more active agent of grace and will more quickly introduce others who are hurting to the One who knows how to fix every problem and heal every pain. I can become a co-worker with Christ as He seeks to draw all men unto Himself.

Attitudes and Perspective

Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; (John 3:1)

The Jews then said to Him, "What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?" (John 2:18)

It seems nearly unavoidable, according to these verses, that Nicodemus was somehow involved in some way with what had just taken place in Jesus' cleansing of the temple. In stating his credentials it also seems clear that John is linking him in some way with those events and the challenges of the Jews about the authority of Jesus.

If it was “the Jews” that confronted Jesus after the temple cleansing, then a prominent person who is listed both as a Pharisee and as a ruler of the Jews could hardly have been unaware or uninvolved in the enormous tension and controversy swirling around this social upheaval. It is even very possible that Nicodemus may have at least witnessed first hand that event though I would question whether he was directly involved in the confrontation as a protagonist. I say this because of the nature of the attitude displayed by Nicodemus in his conversation with Jesus.

As in all groups of people, there was most likely a wide spectrum of perspectives and opinions about how things should be done among the leadership of the Jews. Some were very technically oriented and were eager to find fault with anyone who might commit an infraction of the rules. Others were very dishonest in heart and were primarily looking for power and position in order to gain control over the lives of others. Many were compromised by the desire for material enrichment and thus felt very threatened by Jesus' actions in the temple, as were all who wanted social and political control over the common people.

But as always, there is a small group of people who are more observant and reserved who prefer to look for a bigger perspective and take more of a long-range approach to situations. These kinds of people tend to be much more mature than most others and want to find the underlying issues that are often obscured in delicate or explosive situations. They like to ponder what is really going on and find ways to resolve conflict through other means rather than direct confrontation. They often tend to try to take a more pragmatic approach to tensions and conflict and sometimes believe that compromise is the best way to move forward.

This is a description of what we today now recognize and label as diplomacy. Diplomats are highly skilled in the art of compromise and of looking at situations from very different perspectives than most other people. Diplomats tend to look for ways of bringing opposing sides together for dialogue and want to find common ground where others believe there is none. Diplomacy certainly has its virtues and benefits, but it also has some serious weaknesses that sometimes makes it incompatible with the principles of the kingdom of heaven. This is what Nicodemus suddenly ran into when he approached Jesus in the spirit of diplomacy.

There has been much discussion over the centuries about the motives and attitudes of Nicodemus. Some view him with suspicion and tend to think of Jesus' responses to his words as attacks designed to expose and embarrass Nicodemus. Others take a more benign view and believe that Nicodemus had good intentions but just needed some clarification. Still others might think of Nicodemus as something of a spy trying to entice Jesus into a compromise with the corrupt system of religion which he represented. I suppose there might be a little bit of truth in many of these opinions and we can't know for certain exactly what was going on fully in the heart of Nicodemus. But from the text and from future references to Nicodemus in the Bible we can learn a great deal that can influence our own relationship with God.

Which brings me to see something else that may be significant here. It is very possible that the reason this story has a good bit of ambiguity about the motives of Nicodemus is so that the Holy Spirit can apply principles and truths from this passage to our lives in a wide variety of circumstances. We can see faulty attitudes and beliefs and assumptions within ourselves reflected in the words of Nicodemus and feel the conviction of truth from the Spirit of Jesus in His words of response to Nicodemus. God may have intentionally intended to keep this somewhat vague so that the applications of truth, mercy, love and clarity of God's viewpoints would be more flexible for use by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of anyone reading this story.

What I am seeing though, is that Nicodemus was very likely coming to Jesus in the context of the elevated emotional atmosphere of tension among the leadership of the Jews caused by Jesus' confrontation with them in the temple. It is also interesting and significant to note that Nicodemus was also closely identified as “a man” immediately after John's comments about mankind in the previous verses. I believe that this was very intentional and has been too often overlooked because of the bad placement of the chapter break by translators many centuries after it was originally written.

As I take more time to listen to what is in here I want to explore the connections about signs, belief and authority that seems to be the main themes of John's writing here.

Take These Things Away

...He said, "Take these things away; stop making My Father's house a place of business." (John 2:16)

Why did Jesus say this the way that He did? After all, He also stated very plainly that this was His Father's house, so why was He even bothering to ask people to take their stuff out of the house?

Again, I am looking at this in order to perceive the real significance of this event in order to understand how it applies to my own life and church. What I am noticing here is that God is not going to cleanse His sanctuary without the cooperation of those who constitute that sanctuary. Remember, the church/temple/sanctuary is not really a place or building but is made up of living stones, (1 Peter 2:5) people with open hearts who are allowing God to cleanse them so that He can fully dwell in them collectively. (2 Cor. 6:16) From this perspective it is easier to see how these words can take on much more meaning.

This ties back into the issue of authority and its proper exercise. Just because Jesus is asserting that He has authority to cleanse the temple does not mean that He is going to do it without my involvement. God is not going to cleanse my heart of sin, selfishness and false sources of life (false gods) unless He receives my permission and cooperation. Otherwise the result of this kind of activity would be a condition in my heart that would preclude me from really being able to love God genuinely. Love can only exist in a heart that is free to not love, otherwise it cannot be true love. Freedom of choice and love are inextricably fused together.

I believe that is part of what I am seeing in these words here. Jesus is explaining that He is not going to forcibly and personally remove the obstructions preventing God's presence in my life, the temple of my heart. I may encounter times of intense passion on the part of God that will make my problems unavoidably clear to me, but I still have a choice as to whether I am going to throw out the things that distort my picture of God or whether I am going to cling to them.

Another thing I just noticed about this phrase; Jesus was not trying to force people out of the temple but was insisting that their stuff, their merchandise and their counterfeit activities be removed. After all, the temple's original purpose was to be a place where people could come to meet with God, so it wouldn't make any sense to run the people out of the temple courts – that is, unless they refused to remove the things they had brought in that were not appropriate to be there, things that misrepresented the God of that temple. Then if they refused to be parted from their false ideas, false activities and false affections, then it would only be appropriate for them to leave with the things that they valued the most. Because there is no room in the temple of the heart for false ideas about God linked with false gods who promote those ideas and the true presence of God. These simply cannot coexist together.

What was happening in this temple situation was a vivid illustration of what is happening in each one of our own hearts. There is a great deal of business activity going on in our spiritual life that has no place being there. Our ideas about God demanding payment before we can receive forgiveness, our exploitation of the weak, the poor, the ignorant, the fearful are all things that misrepresent God and have no legitimate place in the sanctuary of our heart and mind. Our beliefs in a God who gets mad, who threatens violence and who seems arbitrary at times, all of these and much more are perversions of the real truth about our Father in heaven that bring filth and stench and noise into the temple of our hearts.

Even if all of the facts and symbols that we are using may be things that are religious and were originally designated by God as means of expressing something about Himself, if we have distorted those things into something they were never originally intended for then we have filled the temple with counterfeit ideas and activities that need to all be removed.

But Jesus is here asking me to remove these things. You see, I am the one that ultimately holds the authority in my own house. And as long as I insist that this temple is my house and not God's house, then I will be very reluctant to remove the counterfeit things that are corrupting my temple. These are going to be things that are very familiar to me, that bring me enrichment at the expense of others or that distort the truths of God. But if I refuse to acknowledge the authority of Jesus in this place and refuse to agree to let go of the things that blind me to the real truths about God and how He feels about me and relates to me, then there is going to be a serious problem.

What we have here is a situation of competing claims of authority. Jesus is claiming in essence that He has authority to order the removal of everything that distorts our concepts and feelings about His Father from the house that He says belongs to His Father. On the other side, there are people and false gods asserting that Jesus does not really have legitimate authority to challenge our picture of God, to require that false ideas, misrepresentations and religious distortions must leave. Instead of welcoming the new light that is presenting itself and admitting that our ideas are faulty and sinful, we may choose to argue and debate and quibble and resist the passionate love that is impossible to ignore.

The Jews then said to Him, "What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?" Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." (John 2:18-19)

This now begins to unravel some of the mystery of why Jesus answered this question the way that He did. The Jews believed that as keepers of the truth about God that they were the ones who should be considered as the authorities to be recognized on the temple grounds. On the other hand, Jesus was asserting that as the true Son of the owner of this temple that He had more legitimate authority than they and that, in fact, they had come to be seen by God as embezzlers and usurpers of the rightful authority of God in the minds of His people. So what was happening here was that there were two competing claims of authority, but only one of them could be right.

The Jewish leaders were living in fear of losing influence and control over the minds of the common people. They were afraid of losing strategic advantages that they had been carving out for themselves in their various schemes of personal enrichment at the expense of religious worshipers. They were in fear of being exposed as frauds and opportunists and they were scrambling to keep up the appearances of religious piety and social control that they had worked for so many years to construct in the minds of the public.

What this turned into was a confrontation about who owned this temple and therefore who had legitimate rights to be recognized as the established authority here. The very same confrontation takes place in our own hearts on a regular basis.

I am very familiar with the suggestions of false gods that constantly assert their ideas to me on a regular basis. Many of them sound very religious and feel quite legitimate, but their claims of authority in my heart must be challenged by One who is greater than my heart. (1 John 3:20) But ultimately it is up to my own power of choice as to whether I am going to acknowledge and embrace Jesus' new claims of authority over what is true and what is not true about the beliefs that fill the libraries of my mind and heart. This is not just a one time event but is something that must be repeated again and again. As I find new lies about God exposed by the increasing light of His presence and self-revelation, I am challenged repeatedly to “take these things away”.

I do not want my heart, my sanctuary that is designed for God to dwell in, to continue to be a place of business. I do not want my life to reflect the lies about God that have corrupted me for so many years. I want Jesus to come in and keep exposing the false ideas about Him and about reality and to cleanse me from all unrighteousness. I choose to give Him full authority, because He has demonstrated the basis of His authority by raising up His own temple in glory and triumphant love after I helped to destroy it.

What I have recently been learning is that the true message of the cross is very different than what I have been taught in the past. The real message that the cross reveals is that there is absolutely nothing that I can possibly do that can ever be so horrible or disgusting or revolting or painful that might cause God to stop loving me or even can lessen His passion for me in the slightest degree. I am coming to perceive, even though still dimly, that God's love and forgiveness and heart towards me is unconditionally permanent and passionate. If I am ever lost for eternity, it will never be in the slightest way God's fault for not doing everything possible to change my mind about His love for me.

This is the basis upon which Jesus claims to have authority in my heart and life. He will never force me to give up my claims of authority, but He will expose the false nature of those claims and give me repeated opportunities to lay them aside and allow Him to take up residence on the throne of my heart. As I surrender to His love and become captured by His passion and beauty, I will become more eager to continue to surrender even more fully and to fall into that love that is beyond comprehension.

Consuming Passion

His disciples remembered that it was written, "ZEAL FOR YOUR HOUSE WILL CONSUME ME." (John 2:17)

This is the verse that presents itself for my attention this morning. What comes up in my mind are questions about this zeal, this passion and how I should understand it correctly. I like another rendition of this verse that I found which seems to put it more succinctly.

And it came to the minds of the disciples that the Writings say, I am on fire with passion for your house. (John 2:17 BBE)

This event and the similar one like it near the end of Jesus' ministry has been used as justification for all sorts of attitudes and actions throughout history that have almost nothing to do with the kind of passion that was really in the heart of Jesus. People tend to only look at these stories on the surface and immediately jump to conclusions and make assumptions about what they may be justify or encourage by Jesus' example. Many times a person's anger and even violence is excused by pointing to these actions of Jesus when in fact these displays of selfishness have nothing to do with the kind of jealousy for His Father's reputation that motivated the heart of Jesus.

But what also came to my attention this morning was the fact that this intensity, this zeal, this passion seemed to become most obvious in the life of Jesus under certain circumstances. And in this case it was when He was in the temple which was supposed to be the house on earth belonging to God, the Father of Jesus and to Jesus Himself since He too was God. So in effect, it might be seen that when Jesus came to His own family's house on earth as a representative of humanity He could rightfully be expecting to find God's presence there in that house.

With this expectation in mind, when Jesus found instead a counterfeit system of religion firmly entrenched in the very house where He should have been able to find God's sweet presence and love, He became very jealous and passionate about this terrible slander against His family reputation and was moved to try to restore a better picture of God in the house of His Father. What He wanted to do was to reunite God's house with God's presence. And God's presence itself is the nuclear core, the very center of passionate love, the great source from which all other passions find their origin.

This concept of God as the originator and center of all passion has been something relatively new in my awareness. But the more I study about this the clearer this truth becomes. As I have unmasked the many false assumptions about passion and the misinterpretations of what is called God's “wrath”, it has become much more clear to me that humans have distorted the messages God wanted to pass down to us in the Scriptures about God's passion.

A principle that I have come to observe in the Bible is that the closer we get to God's presence the more intense will be our emotions. Passion itself seems to me to simply be an intensification of emotions, something like an accelerator, a booster, an amplifier. It is not necessarily an identifier of the nature of the root emotion or attitude which it amplifies, it simply intensifies whatever is already there.

It is like greatly increasing the light on an object making it much more clearly seen for what it really is.

It is like turning up the volume on a quiet sound so that everyone can clearly hear what it really sounds like.

It is like adding a power booster to a moving object to accelerate its movement in a certain direction. It does not change the direction of the object but only increases its speed in whatever direction it is already traveling.

Our confusion about passion often comes from observing its effects when it has been applied to human motives, human cravings of the flesh that are amplified and intensified by passion.

When sexual desires are suddenly intensified by great passion a person often feels driven to acts of violence against others. But this only reflects the basic selfishness that already controls the life.

When anger and desires for revenge are amplified by passion, violence is usually the result and wars break out in attempts to control or destroy all who are in opposition.

When greed is amplified by passion, honesty, integrity and compassion for others can quickly evaporate in the rush to enrich one's self at the expense of others.

Because most of the examples of passion are in the realm of intensifying human, sinful desires, some have come to view passion itself with suspicion, believing that it is itself sinful. But this is a mistake and sets us up to misunderstand the passion of God. It also prevents us from being able to properly appreciate many of the actions of Jesus when fueled by the passion of heaven.

There are two other places in the Bible that come to mind as I think about this principle of passion. There are many more I know, but two stand out right now. One is found in Revelation 14 where it points out that those who reject the truth about God will suffer fiery torment in the presence of the angels and the Lamb. This is one of the most misunderstood verses in the Bible because of the false assumptions about God that people bring to this text.

If one starts with the false assumption that God gets mad, runs out of patience and is ready to punish and reek revenge against those who spurn His advances of love, then this text will be assumed to mean that God is intentionally hurting everyone who will not agree with Him. This is the view of nearly the whole world today and reinforces a picture of God worse than the devil himself.

But when this verse is carefully viewed through the lens of a better understanding of God's character and attitudes towards sinners which is based only on real love, it can be seen that it is talking about the danger of being exposed to pure love when it is mingled with intense passion. For it is not God who is torturing these people in His presence but it is their own conscience that torments them when faced with the irreconcilable conflict between pure love and entrenched resistance to love that has been stored in their own hearts. When enough power and resistance meet there is always heat and fire produced as a result.

On the other hand, God's passion which amplifies our awareness of His unbelievable love for us can have the opposite effect if we have previously let go of the lies about Him in our hearts put there by the distortions of His enemy. When we allow God to bring us into full harmony with His love and let go of all resistance to His grace, that same passion that induces unimaginable pain and torment for the rejectors of mercy becomes the greatest motivation for joy, pleasure and excitement for the saved. The Bible says that they will shine as the stars of the sky. This is a result of the passion of God flowing through a life and heart that has been brought back into full synchronization with the passionate heart of God who is love.

The other incident that I see in the life of Jesus where I sense this same passion flashing out of His heart was when He was anointed with perfume at Simon's feast. In John 12:7 Jesus' response to selfish criticism by some of the disciples was to instantly exclaim, “Leave her alone!!!” I see in this story the same kind of passion that came to the defense and protection of an extremely sensitive heart that had come to know God's heart in ways that none of the others in the room had yet experienced.

Passion is consuming, no doubt as this text states. But the fuel that passion ignites when it comes will determine the outcome and nature of what happens next.

When sinful desires are mingled with passion, then what will ensue will be the amplification of sin and its results.

When pure love is ignited by the intensifier of passion, what will be demonstrated is a revelation about the heart of God that may often be unfamiliar to most of us.

We confuse God's passion with the more familiar human examples of sinful passion because we almost never see the pure and holy passion of God in our experience. But this is, in fact, the very thing that we need the most and at a deep level really crave to experience. This is what we were originally designed for and what will cause us to thrive and come to be fully alive.

Personal Cleansing

What lessons can I absorb from what I have learned so far from Jesus' house-cleaning exercise?

The Passover – be more aware of the significance of the symbols about truth that God has given me. The more I understand the true meaning of these symbols the more aware I can be of how to more effectively respond and relate to my heavenly Father and to my Savior.

Animals and moneychangers in the temple – be willing to allow Jesus to expose the things in my own heart and belief system that are out of place or don't belong in my life altogether. Instead of resisting His exposing light in my life I can choose to confess and acknowledge that He is right and that my life needs a good clean-out before I can better enjoy His presence within me.

The temple is the Father's house – I need to be much more aware and sensitive of God's ownership and subsequent rights as my Creator and Redeemer and Lord of all of my life, body and spirit. It is failure to truly appreciate God's rights to His own property that causes much of the confusion and resistance in my heart. Especially do I need to be aware that the cravings for love and affection in my heart were put there by God to be connected to His heart and presence more than anything else. It will only be through the experience of being ravished by the extravagant love of my God can I ever feel fully satisfied and fulfilled.

Not only is my place supposed to belong to God, but there is time that also belongs to God. Belonging is another word for holy. I am to be part of a holy people just as the Sabbath is to be a holy time. The more I learn about the real nature of holiness and its true definitions and meanings the easier it is going to be for me to have a meaningful and intimate relationship with my Lover.

Stop making My Father's house a place of business – because religion has turned true spirituality and intimacy with God into something tragically demeaning and enslaving. I must come to recognize the many ways in which my thinking and beliefs and practices still are contaminated with false ideas that make merchandise of the free grace of God. All forms of manipulation, control, exploitation and force are reflections of a counterfeit religion that uses the principles of business instead of the principles of family. The more I learn about the difference between the right way to live as family verses the efficient and profitable way to operate a business, the sooner I will be able to discern the ways of God and be able to draw closer to Him.

I am unavoidably living in the great time of the final cleansing of the sanctuary as prophesied in Daniel 8:14 whether I want to believe that or not. So it is simply for my own benefit that I take this seriously and allow God to teach and mentor me as to what should be happening in my heart as I live through this experience. Part of my education and training is to expose myself to the examples that He provided for me to study in the Bible so I can better understand what He really wants to do in my life and in all those around me who are willing to be cleansed His way.

One thing He has been teaching me over the past few years is that I need to avoid drawing conclusions of fear from the teachings about the great cleansing of the sanctuary. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV) Whenever I tap into fear to motivate or control others or even myself, I am moving away from the pure ways of God and begin to adulterate my temple with corrupt views and representations of God and His ways.

I have much more to learn from these stories and I want to remain open to assimilating them into my life. Especially this problem of having a spirit of business mingled with religion instead of relating to God and to others with His Spirit of love, faith and hope. I have so much to yet unlearn as well as to learn, and I have to trust God to continue to clean out my temple of false ideas and practices that misrepresent Him. I want to see His face and His ways much more clearly. I want my church family to come to know and experience these things more deeply. I choose to allow God access to transform my life, my friends and family and His body here on earth into a sanctuary where it is safe for Him to relax and hang out and live and enjoy each other's company. I want my home and my heart to be a safe place for God to fellowship with me and my friend's all the time.

God, have full access to my temple in every respect. Sweep away all my resistance to you and cause me to rejoice, even at the painful things that must happen to clean out all the garbage, the manure and the false ideas about you that have ruined your property. I open myself up to you and ask your Spirit to blow through and cleanse me in every way so that Your presence and joy and loveliness become the dominate thing that people see and hear and smell and sense when they observe my life and spirit.

Cleansing of the Sanctuary - 4

And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; and to those who were selling the doves He said, "Take these things away; stop making My Father's house a place of business." (John 2:14-16)

What was it that Jesus cleansed out of the temple?

What was the real problem with the “business” going on there?

The things that were all being sold in the temple were the very symbols that God had appointed to represent His ultimate Gift for the redemption of mankind. Therefore, what was really going on was that religious people were taking the very things that were supposed to represent God's free gift of grace to sinners and turning them into merchandise, a way to not just make money for themselves but even as a means to exploit the poor and needy – the very people that needed God's free gifts the most.

In symbolic language, these Jews had hijacked the very heart of the symbol of God's plan of salvation and distorted the picture of God that the sanctuary service and symbols were supposed to reveal to sinners. What was now being presented instead of the truth about God's free grace, mercy and love for sinners was a picture of a god who demanded ever-increasing payments before a person could satisfy His demands for sacrifice. This was creating a picture of a god more intent on appeasement of his anger, greed or other human-like emotions instead of a revealing of a loving Father deeply involved in reaching out to rebellious and confused children to draw them back to a correct view of Him through love and compassion.

So in light of this activity of God's symbols being misappropriated and held hostage for payment by religious people claiming to represent God in the world, it is no wonder that Jesus felt compelled to dismantle this system of blasphemy against God's name and reputation and to try to restore the temple to a condition closer to its original intent.

But there was still one missing element for this to be a success. Jesus did not choose to stay in the temple indefinitely after cleansing it to keep it under His guardianship. This is because the temple largely represents the heart of each individual that God is seeking to save. And when it comes to people, God is absolutely intent on always respecting their freedom to choose whom they are going to submit their lives to as the authority to govern in their heart. So although He can come in and sweep away the lies about God and introduce us to a better view of God than before, it is always up to us – the keepers of the temple grounds – as to whether He is invited to stay and fill the temple with His presence or whether we will ignore His cleansing or even resent it and thus create an atmosphere that will allow the former demons to come back in with even greater force and with darker deceptions than before.

"Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came'; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation." (Matthew 12:43-45)

Indeed, this is exactly what happened with the Jews as a unique people chosen to represent God to the world. After the repeated offers of Jesus to move in to their lives, to be embraced as their God, their

Bridegroom and their Savior were rejected and snubbed, they went on to seal their divorce from God as a nation and ultimately were recognized by God as a nation beyond hope. While any individual Jews were still free to repent and change their minds about God and turn to Him for salvation, as a chosen nation God was forced by their resistance to Him to acknowledge and confirm their rejection of His advances and His desire for the kind of relationship He had sought to cultivate for many centuries with them. Indeed, their latter condition really did end up much worse than their former.

But this is not just an interesting insight into the fate of the Jews as a chosen nation of God. It has even more significance and impact on those today who claim to be God's chosen people during the time prophesied as the great and last time of cleansing of a much more important sanctuary in the last days. Daniel 8:14 is a word of God that cannot be ignored except at the peril of our souls. The cleansing process is going on even right now and the offer is being made once again to all who claim to be God's people to enter into an intimacy with God that the Jews rejected in Jesus' day. Now the focus of attention has shifted from the Jews and their choices about how to view God, to those of us today who claim, like the Jews, to be the chosen children of God on earth.

If we think this temple cleansing experience that took place in Jesus' time has little or nothing to do with us, we are in the gravest danger of repeating their fatal mistake of resenting God's efforts to expose the lies about Him that fill the temple of our own minds and hearts. Most of us are immersed in a religion riddled with subtle and not so subtle lies about God that we do not view as lies but as fundamental truths. But just because we have believed ideas for all of our lives and our church might reinforce them with repeated assertions of sincerity does not make them gospel truth.

We are experiencing the very same problem as demonstrated in the hijacked temple of Jesus day. We are dealing with many of the truthful facts about God and religion just as they were dealing with the true symbols that God had appointed to represent the truths about Himself and His plan of salvation. These Jews were not trying to introduce new elements into the worship service – except for the presence of money and moneychangers, which was definitely bringing into God's house an evil spirit of mammon. But nevertheless, the way in which they were abusing and misapplying and distorting those symbols resulted in tragically distorting the very truths about God that those symbols were originally intended to convey.

So too, we are not immune to making the exact same mistakes today in the way in which we handle the doctrines of truth that are supposed to reveal the heart of the Father to us. In misapplying and twisting and allowing false spirits in our presentation of facts about God, we end up producing the same affect of distorting God's reputation and confusing the hearts of millions with our counterfeit ideas about God that we present in all sincerity.

Even beyond this initial problem that we find ourselves in of confusion about the real truth about God, we are also in danger of not responding properly even after God reveals the real truth about Him to our minds. As is seen in the demonstration of Jesus in the Jew's day, God can come in and expose our mistaken notions about reality and about God by showing us the real truth and sweeping away the lies about Him from our minds. But if we do not embrace those truths and allow them to permeate not only our minds but sink deeply into our hearts as well, we are in danger of attempting to keep a clean house without inviting the Holy Spirit to occupy it and prevent reentry of even worse spirits of deception to return and make us more deceived and hardened than before.

I believe that it is vitally important for us to perceive the lessons about our relationship to God in these stories of Jesus cleansing the temple. That is because it is unavoidably true that we really are living in the time of the great cleansing of the sanctuary and that we are all involved in this ongoing event. We are all faced with the choice of how we are going to relate to the cleansing process of Jesus in our lives, especially in how we choose to act and think after His initial cleanup in our minds.

Am I willing to keep on inviting Him back in to continue to clean house?

Am I willing to keep having more lies exposed and request that He not stop cleaning my heart?

Am I willing to let go of the resentment that will naturally spring up whenever I have been exposed?

Am I willing to confess and agree with Him that many things I have assumed about God are actually lies and need to be relinquished?

Am I ready to invite Jesus to be the permanent caretaker of my temple and to live in me and cleanse me from all unrighteousness?

Am I willing to agree that this temple really belongs to Him and is not my house after all?