Zeal

John 2:14-17 (NIV)
¹⁴ In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money.
¹⁵ So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.
¹⁶ To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!"
¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me."

We are prone to drift from the things of God. If we are not careful about little accommodations and “improvements” over time, we can find ourselves quite distant from our starting place before we know it. This is what happened here. The beauty and reverence of the temple became marred with the common things of man. They had lost the true sense of the Holy and traded it for the business of the marketplace. Instead of a place to leave behind the things of man and to enter into the things of God, they brought the house of God into the commonplace. Their actions reflected the heart.

It is for the heart Jesus comes. His zeal is for us. We are the house that consumes Him. His zeal is such that He gave His life that we would be with Him. He desires that everyone would come, that not one would be lost.