My blog title is the title of a melancholy hit song by the Carpenters. It goes along with people\u2019s moods that are the lowest on Mondays. They are those who grieve the loss of their weekends and the carefree feelings that accompany those days. Psychologists say that it\u2019s difficult to transition away from leisure and personal time back into obligations and a routine of responsibility.
Today is Holy Monday of Holy Week. At the heart of our faith is the passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. This week, I’ll be purposely blogging to remind us of what this week looked like. We read those stories in the Bible. We hear many messages about the events, but do we sincerely ponder ALL that Jesus accomplished in this one week?
He was on purpose with every act, healing, and teaching. When Jesus stepped up to be willing to come to earth \u2013 He became a flesh and blood earthling like you and me. If Mondays are tough for the working class in our day, imagine what Jesus must have thought on this Monday. Yesterday He heard high praises from the crowds. He witnessed palms branches being waved in His honor. He heard the crowds\u2019 acclamations: \u201cHosanna to our King\u201d!
But this is Monday. If ever someone could be singing \u201cRainy Days and Mondays\u201d, it could have been Jesus. \u201cTake me back to the applause and cries of love!\u201d But Jesus had a mission to fulfill. This week\u2019s assignment was on purpose.
If we knew it was our final week of life, wouldn\u2019t we be taking care of \u201cloose ends\u201d, giving family and friends some of our wisdom from life, encouraging and giving clear thought-out messages to encourage them to carry on? If He knew He would soon lay down His life for us, then wouldn\u2019t He make sure that everything He did was on purpose and used as visual references for us to follow?
On Palm Sunday, the crowds cheered for Him but He knew it would be the toughest week of His 33 years of life. He knew the cheering crowds would become jeering crowds. According to Matthew 21, Mark 11 and Luke 19, on this Monday, Jesus came upon the shameful, greedy practices at the Temple. He was disgusted to see that His Father\u2019s House of Prayer was being abused.
Cleansing the Temple was a scene of chaos, but those who had needs knew what the Temple was for. First, the blind and lame came when they heard Jesus was in the Temple. As the children saw Jesus, they began to shout again, \u201cHosanna, to the Son of David.\u201d
I sense that God is cleansing the temple again today. He is setting things straight and getting His house in order. It really isn’t about the building. It is about His Body \u2013 THE CHURCH \u2013 being set right. Jesus will soon come back for His bride without a spot or wrinkle or blemish. He cares more about us than He does brick and mortar.
Today I take this message personally. It is taking this cleansing of the temple as cleansing of my temple. \u201cDo you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own.\u201d (1 Corinthians 10:19)
I pray that my words awaken you with the desire to consider Christ\u2019s journey to Calvary throughout this week and mostly, I pray our hearts are open to THE ONE \u2013 who loved us enough to give His all for us. On this Holy Monday, He cleansed the temple. The Lord cares about the \u201cstuff\u201d that has cluttered up our hearts. It\u2019s time to get the temple squeaky clean! This Monday of Holy Week is a good day for cleaning house!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My blog title is the title of a melancholy hit song by the Carpenters. It goes along with people\u2019s moods that are the lowest on Mondays. They are those who grieve the loss of their weekends and the carefree feelings that accompany those days. Psychologists say that it\u2019s difficult to transition away from leisure and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23383],"tags":[1210,1769,3354,40,749,23378,16991,12842,23379,3347],"class_list":["post-15877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holy-monday","tag-blog","tag-christian","tag-holy-monday","tag-inspiration","tag-jesus","tag-monday","tag-monday-of-holy-week","tag-money-changers","tag-rainy-days-and-mondays","tag-temple"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15880,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15877\/revisions\/15880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}