Do we know what God wants His house to look like?

“It doesn’t say that it has to be a megachurch, although it can be,” said Jess Shao on Friday at the Burning Hearts Conference.

“If it’s His house, we have to pay attention to what He desires for it,” said the director of the Forerunner Leadership Institute in Taiwan. “It’s about us aligning with Him.”

“We can have plans, visions and objectives for our ministries,” he added, “but we’ve got to remind ourselves that it’s His house.”

Prayer is central to the Church’s existence – things are birthed and they continue because of prayer. “Breakthroughs come when you know it’s about prayer and not about smart strategies that you come up with.”

Shao emphasised that God’s Word will be fulfilled.

“…these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” (Isaiah 56:7 ESV)

“But it shall be a house of prayer for all nations,” said Shao.

The words “shall be” tell us that God has a specific destiny planned out for His people. “Of all things that a Church can be, it cannot be severed from its primary calling and reason for existence”, he explained.

WHAT CONDITION IS HIS HOUSE IN?

Hundreds of years after Isaiah’s prophetic voice, Jesus arrived on the scene.

“Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. ‘It is written,’ he said to them, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a den of robbers.” (Matthew 21:12-13)

“The people knew him as a carpenter’s son, but Jesus knew that he was the Father’s son,” said Shao.

Knowing his identity as a Son in the House, Jesus rose in holy anger and confronted the chaotic condition in the temple – it wasn’t fulfilling their function.

Instead of being known for prayer, the people had turned God’s house into a marketplace with corrupt businesses, completely ignoring instruction from Scripture.

What about us today? 

“We may not be doing those things that Jesus saw, but I want us to imagine – what if the Messiah walked into our context and observed what we’re doing?” asked Shao.

He may not necessarily be mad, but if the yardstick was God’s design for His house, how would we fare?

Shao got the audience to ponder: If God walked into our churches today, would he question if we knew our reason of existence or would he say to us: “You’ve got it, you’ve got Isaiah 56.”

GET ALIGNED WITH GOD’S PLANS FOR HIS HOUSE

“Pay attention and let the prophetic voice of Isaiah speak to us,” said Shao.

In the same manner, pay attention to Jesus’ confrontation in the temple and let it speak to us.

“Rebuke is not meant to shame you, it’s meant to align you,” Shao said, drawing out a loving lesson from Jesus’ act of clearing the temple.

When Jesus cleared the temple courts, he did it with a fiery passion to realign those in his Father’s house. “It’s not meant to disqualify you, but to pull you back (to your purpose).”

“Do you know that God’s Church is to be known as a house of prayer for all nations?”

Shao’s encouragement to us is not to miss or ignore God’s heart for His house.

Visions, objectives and missional goals… let these things fall into place, but let the functional reality of the Church – a house of prayer for the nations – be established.

Speaking to the leaders among the audience, Shao reminded them that their responsibility is to capture what is on God’s heart, speak it and lead its birthing into reality.

“When we’re aligned with Him, we become a pathway for what’s on His heart to flow.”