revive 2010: day 26

Jesus Clears the Temple

¹⁵ When they arrived back in Jerusalem, Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out the people buying and selling animals for sacrifices. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves, ¹⁶ and he stopped everyone from using the Temple as a marketplace. ¹⁷ He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves.”

¹⁸ When the leading priests and teachers of religious law heard what Jesus had done, they began planning how to kill him. But they were afraid of him because the people were so amazed at his teaching.

-mark 11:15-18

Father we thank you for your son Jesus, who reminds us what you spoke through your prophet isaiah:

I will bring them to my holy mountain of Jerusalem
and will fill them with joy in my house of prayer.
I will accept their burnt offerings and sacrifices,
because my Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations.

-isaiah 56:7

Father, as your son Jesus did 2000 years ago, today i come into agreement with your heart and desire, and i am asking that your church at UCSD will once again become first and foremost, a body that prays--that we will be your house of prayer. God i am asking that your church will return back to your original intention and desire. God i'm asking for an aroma to arise from your house once again, one of worship and supplication, a house that calls upon the name of the LORD in desperation.

we thank you for good preaching found in the teaching of your Word, thought-provoking sermons, good speakers, and good music, but God i'm asking that these things will not overshadow your original intent for your house--that your house will remain a place where real heart encounters occur in the place of desperately crying out to you in the place of prayer. God, i'm asking for a genuine need and dependency on you, that we may draw near to you in prayer and touch your heart.

forgive us LORD, for the ways your church has become anything but prayer. forgive us for the ways your temple has become places of showcasing the best worship team, or just a place to run our own ministry programs. forgive us LORD, for the ways your church has failed to remain a place where your people cry out to you in desperation and need for you. forgive us LORD, for the ways church has become anything else other than a place to realize how much we need to depend on you, for you to show up in our lives and in those around us.

without you, LORD, we are nothing. help us to see that statement as no superlative. God, help us to see and realize our need and our depravity without you. help us to realize that we cannot do anything in life, that we cannot live without you. fill us with unction, with fervency, with burning desire to cry out to you in the place of prayer, for the sake of a revival in our own soul and for those around us. come Holy Spirit, send revival to UCSD.