Faith Capsule: As a temple of God, your inside gets attention of God more than your outside?

Matthew 23

Warning in the word of God is written, “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) You are a temple of God. How are you keeping the temple of God?
Jesus needed to clean inside of the temple because inside gets His attention more than outside. Bible recorded, “Then He went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in it, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house is a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’” (Luke 19:45-46) Obviously, God will never look from outside to inside but rather conducts examination from the inside to the outside. How clean are you?
As a temple of God, how clean is your inside compared to your outside? It is important to know that what you present on the outside world is not as important to God compared to what you carry in the inside. The Pharisees were one of the major sects among the Jews during the days of the New Testament. Pharisees, meaning separated ones, believed that religious rituals and separation from sinners were the way to please God. To the Pharisees, matters such as the laws of tithing and ritual purity were very important than keeping clean from inside conduct before God. Jesus referred to them as hypocrites. Word of Jesus was recorded in Matthew 23:25, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence.” As a temple of God, there is a need to take a close look from inside to know if you are a Pharisee of the modern day. Are you one of those who want to shine on the outside while the inside is dull and cannot be presented before God? Interestingly, man can be deceived because man looks from the outside, but God cannot be cannot be deceived because God looks from the inside. Dubious and wicked activities of hypocrites can possibly get away for long, but God’s time will expose hypocrites at appointed time of God. It is important to know that God looks from the inside not from outside.
At the time Jesus went into the temple to clean, nothing on the outside could impress Him enough not to start cleaning from the inside. Today, no man’s title will be enough to impress Jesus. As a believer, do not be deceived by your title. Man can be decorated with title, but it is task rooted in man’s heart and engaged that will impress God. Be clean from inside to answer as house of prayer to God not as a den of thieves.

Prayer for today: Ask for the grace of God to clean you up to become a house of prayer.