15 Then they came to Jerusalem. And He entered the temple and began to drive out those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves…17 And He began to teach and say to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a robbers’ den.” Mark 11:15, 17
A lot of people think that Jesus is destroying the temple, that He is sick and tired of the way it is and wants to get rid of it. That is now what we see here. Jesus is cleaning things up, not destroying. He wants to make His Father’s house what it should be.
It is the same way with the church today. Each local church is important to Jesus. He is not out to destroy them, but to turn them into the thing He wants each one to be. How do we know that? Let’s see what happened in the book of Acts, when the first local church was created.
In the first chapter of Acts Jesus tells His disciples that they will receive power in verse eight. Then he is taken into heaven, and they go and hide in the “upper room.” This is not the bunch of world changers we imagine them to be, not yet. This group of misfits that were afraid to talk to anyone about what they knew was accomplishing nothing.
But Jesus was not finished with them then, and He is not done with us or our local church now. His plan, His response, was to pour out power and change this group of people. It is the same now, Jesus is pouring out His power on the local church so that He can use it to change the world.
You may say “but there are too many problems in this church.” The music is too loud, it is not loud enough, the service is too long, the service is too short, and on and on…
None of these problems change the fact the Jesus is using HIS local church to do His will. He went to the temple (which was unimaginably corrupt at that time) to bring it back to His Father, He turned people hiding in a room into world changers. And He has not stopped.
The local church IS important to Jesus!