A House of Prayer

We keep our focus on the things of God, on what is important to Him, as we recognize the power and the opportunity of approaching Him in prayer. Matthew 18 says:
18 Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
19 Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven.
20 For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them."

There is great power as God's people come together in prayer, calling upon the very power of heaven and asking Him to express His love and nature toward us.  As we gather in the name of Jesus, we can have great confidence in Him.  One of the great messages of the Easter season is that Christ came to earth - He died so that the barriers might be taken away and that we might come to know Him and communicate with Him.  He invites us to come into the house of prayer and meet with Him.

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We are continuing our walk through the events of Holy Week, that week leading up to the death of
Jesus, and we read this account in Matthew 21, after the record of the triumphal entry:
10 And when He had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, "Who is this?"
11 So the multitudes said, "This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee."
12 Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.
13 And He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a 'den of thieves.' "

Here Jesus is refining the spiritual practice of the people. The people in the temple had become off-track, and Jesus showed them what pleased, and pleases Him.  We are so prone to get our priorities out of place, and we may be too consumed with the practice of faith, even the erroneous kind, and miss the simple devotion that we are called to have with our Savior.

Benjamin Rogovy is a Seattle man who collected over $7 million dollars from 125,000 consumers through his for-profit company, Christian Prayer Center. According to Christian Today, he charged between $9 and $35 for prayers. He attracted customers through creating fake religious leaders and false testimonials. Rogovy, will pay back up to $7.75 million to around 165,000 customers who were victims of his deception across the several businesses he ran, according to Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson.

Rogovy violated the state Consumer Protection Act and the Charitable Solicitations Act, which forbid businesses making false claims and prohibit churches and charities from using misleading or deceptive statements.

The so-called "Center" created a fake religious leader, Pastor John Carlson, claiming that he solely ran the sites.

The site would send weekly inspirational emails under his name, and even created a fake LinkedIn profile, describing him as "Senior Pastor, Christian Prayer Centre, January 2009 – present." They also used the name Pastor Eric Johnston to sign correspondence.

According to the Washington State Attorney General's office, "Neither of these people exist."

The website also had "fictitious testimonials from consumers using stock photos that claimed they successfully prayed to avoid home foreclosure, deliver a healthy baby, win the lottery, obtain negative results of an HIV test and put cancer into remission."

The article says that consumers who bought prayer services from CPC between July 1, 2011 and June 30, 2015 are able to receive a full refund and are able to file a complaint to the Washington State Attorney General's office until June 11, 2016.

There are some lessons to be learned here:  first of all, we're reminded that people will use ministry as a means of making money.  This is an extreme example of someone profiting from the practice of faith, but we can exercise discernment regarding ministry with which we are looking to get involved.  In Jesus' time, there were no doubt those that were taking advantage of people of faith - there were the money changers in the Temple who were called "thieves" by our Lord.   So we have to guard against those who would take advantage of us, even using seemingly spiritual activities.

But, we have to also recognize that the enemy will deceive us to the point where we get off track in our devotion to Christ.  If Jesus is calling us to approach Him with seriousness and surrender, with an attitude of humility and prayer, then we can view that as a holy calling and opportunity.  We have to guard against taking our Christian walk for granted.  The pursuit of Jesus is centered on our love for Him, which grows as we communicate with the Savior.

And, we have to make sure that we are not stealing time from Him and passion from our relationship by being consumed with the things of this world.  We certainly don't want to be characterized as "thieves" who are not giving the Lord the glory due His name.