John 2:13-22

Now the Passover of the Jews was approaching, so Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And in the temple He found the people who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting at their tables. He made a whip of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; then to those who sold the doves He said, "Take these things away! Stop making My Father’s house a place of commerce!" His disciples remembered that it is written, “Zeal (love, concern) for your house (and it’s honor) will consume Me.”

When we ask God for truth in our most inward parts…Look out!

Jesus is Truth. And Jesus, in this inward place in us, looks like something. Not always what others might think is Him.

In this passage of Scripture where Jesus makes a whip, overturns the money changer tables, pours out the money, drives out the sheep, oxen, and so on, we see what happens when Truth enters the temple.

We believers in Jesus Christ are the temples. The Father's houses. There is to be no buying or selling of love, provision, or belief. No jars holding coins of resentment, bitterness, envy, or bills of rights. When we choose Jesus, who is Truth, we allow de-construction of the places in our temples built by hurts and wounds. We allow Him to overturn the tables of lies we had been feeding ourselves from. We listen to His words to drive out any provision we barter Him with that would take His place in our hearts.

It is good. He is good.

Jesus’s love and zeal for the Fathers house is jealous and pure. Jesus’s love and zeal for us is jealous and pure. When this radical Truth comes to our temples for a look-see and begins His holy inspection, look out! Look and gaze at Him as He looks in and truth wields his power. Be destroyed and then let the Master Builder rebuild with truth, using mortar of mercy mixed with grace and unadulterated love.

As Barnes' Notes on the Bible says:

“In Jesus this was the great commanding sediment of His life. In us it should also be. In this manifestation of zeal, He began and ended his ministry. In this we should begin and end our lives.”