Remembering the Real Jesus - Living a Passion-Filled Life

CONSIDER THIS

It was Passover week — the highlight of the Jewish calendar. People traveled for days to celebrate in Jerusalem, the festivities centering around the Temple where people came to worship God and make sacrifices.

When Jesus entered the outer courtyard of the Temple, He discovered that merchants and moneychangers were ripping off the people, selling animals for sacrifices at crazy inflated prices. Instead of a safe haven, the area had been turned into a flea market. Jesus couldn’t help but notice their disrespect and greed. He saw the floor carpeted with manure. It stunk in more ways than one. This was His Father’s house!

How did Jesus respond? In the midst of all the stench and commotion, Jesus was in control of Himself, not reacting in a blind rage. As His passion begins to rise, He takes time to make a whip and then “chases them out of the Temple, stampeding the sheep and cattle, upending the tables of the money-changers, spilling coins left and right. He tells the guys selling doves, “Get your things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a shopping mall!” (John 2:15-16 MSG)

The One who turned the place upside down for making a mockery out of sacrificial worship later offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice. The coins now scattered and rolling all over the courtyard floor were painfully insufficient funds to pay the debt for their sins. The payment for their sacrificial offering was pumping in the veins of the One overturning those tables. “For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb” (1 Peter 1:18-19)

Jesus had a passionate love for His Father, our Most High God. He is passionate about you. He came to speak truth with passion and zeal because He was locked into His Father’s purposes. We can do the same. We need to be gripped with the passion that gripped His life. We need to remember the real Jesus — and be just like Him!

Men’s Breakfast Study Guide PDF