The House of Prayer

Matt. 21:12-14  Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out the merchants and their customers.  He knocked over the tables of the money changers and stalls of those selling doves.  He said, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a place of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves!”

I have often thought about these verses and wondered whether or not the things we do in church really please the Lord.  We may not set up shop and do business in church, but do we make it a house of prayer?  Often prayer together is more of a formality in a program than the heart of the program.

We have done away with our altars and rarely call people together around one to pray.  We focus our attention on performances and preaching and call it church. We tolerate prayer and grumble when we have to stand for too long while others pray for us.  We rarely have anyone encourage us to get on our knees and would not think of doing it ourselves because of what others may think.

I am convinced that part of the reason why so many churches have problems and struggles is because they have forgotten how to pray and have neglected to make it the heart of what they do.  If we are too busy to pray, we are way too busy!  We won’t pray much at home if we don’t learn how to pray at church and we won’t pray at church if we don’t pray at home.

Isn’t it about time that we change our ways and once again return to our knees?  Nothing is going to change in the church, our homes, or the world until we do.