Matthew 21:13<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd He said to them, \u2018It is written, \u201cMy house shall be called a house of prayer,\u201d but you have made it a \u2018den of thieves.\u2019 \u201c<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the reasons why Jesus was so upset with the moneychangers and business practices in the temple of God was because they had usurped the right function of the church for their personal agenda. The temple of God was set up with a specific set of tasks in mind, but human reasoning had taken over the divine plan; and men were making profit from the program of God. This human interference and disorder grieved and still grieves and angers God\u2019s heart because a crucial function was missing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The scripture Jesus quoted was Isaiah 56:7, \u201cFor My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.\u201d In the divine agenda, the temple is supposed to be a place of prayer for all nations. All nations should be able to pray in the temple of Jehovah, and the temple should offer prayers for all nations. Is that what the Church of God represents today? Are \u201call nations\u201d represented in the Global Church? Do we hear prayers in our churches being offered for the nations? Or has the Church become so busy with her schedule and programs such that praying for the nations can\u2019t fit in anymore? , and I think it\u2019s time we make it right before He brings out His whip. We must restore this crucial part of church life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLord, may I always place the prayers for the nations as a central part of my personal devotional time. And where possible, may I influence others, including churches, to do same. In Jesus name. Amen.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Matthew 21:13 \u201cAnd He said to them, \u2018It is written, \u201cMy house shall be called a house of prayer,\u201d but you have made it a \u2018den of thieves.\u2019 \u201c One of the reasons why Jesus was so upset with the moneychangers and business practices in the temple of God was because they had usurped the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-reflections-from-matthew"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Reflections-from-Matthew.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4232,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4230\/revisions\/4232"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}