Does Your Temple Need Cleaning?

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the seats of them that sold doves,
And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.
Matthew 21:10-13

And the Jews' passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:  And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables;
And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.
John 2:13-16


How do you approach your cleaning duties? For instance do you constantly clean the inside of your car or do you put it off till it is extremely cluttered and grimy? How about your dishes or your house? Do you daily take care of organizing and cleaning or do you let things get completely out of order and than take on that mountain of laundry, dishes, etc ? Obviously, the best approach would be to take care of things when they are more manageable. Taking care of smaller messes assure that they don’t become BIG messes! And we all know how BIG messes seem to only discourage us and cause us to procrastinate the task of  “ cleaning house”.

Jesus knows a few things about cleaning house. He cleansed the temple twice during His ministry. First time was after His first miracle in John 2:18 and the second time was three years later just before He died on the cross for our sin in Matthew 21:17-23. Twice He went into the temple (the house of God) and drove out the money changers. These dishonest merchants were taking advantage of God’s followers and discouraging them from following the pure person of Christ Himself. This stirred up the Lords righteous anger and it motivated Him to CLEAN HOUSE. He sweeps it clean with a WHIP. And we find Him repeating this twice. He knew small messes turn in to big messes which ultimately become unmanageable. So He cleans house again and again!

In this first week of the New Year let me make a practical application.

When we Christians came to Christ in repentance and faith our Lord cleaned our souls and moved into our bodies. He now calls our bodies His temple. But as we live in this dirty and sinful world we allow old sins back into our lives. And if those sins are not daily cleansed they will grow larger and more dominating. Becoming BIG, unmanageable, addictive, out of control issues in our lives.

How is your temple? Have you allowed your house to become a little  unkept, not as clean as it once was. Perhaps it has gone some time without a good cleaning and now it is cluttered and in reality dirtier than you ever would have thought it would have become?

Does your temple need cleansing? Are there some things in your life you know shouldn't be there? Some besetting sins that have taken control? Why not deal with them today?  If you decide to repent and confess your house has become dirty Jesus will help you clean house!  (1st John1:9)


Once you clean house make sure to begin a regiment of regularly keeping the temple cleansed. I am sure you will find it more manageable in the long haul to take care of little messes immediately rather than allowing them to become life threatening!