Do you ever feel like the things that you do don’t amount to much? Do you think that you aren’t making much difference in this world? Do you get discouraged and wonder, “What’s the use?”

A familiar incident from the life of Christ might help. John records the account of Jesus cleansing the temple of the moneychangers in John chapter 2. This was, obviously, very early in the “public ministry” of Jesus. Matthew, Mark and Luke all tell about Jesus cleansing the temple in the last chapters of their gospels - just before Jesus was crucified. Is there a contradiction here? No, it seems clear that Jesus did this twice.

Armed with this understanding, we might ask, “What’s the use?” He cleansed the temple once, and the moneychangers just came right back. We might be tempted to think, “Why bother?” The first answer to this question is: you do what’s right because it IS right! No matter how little the result you might see from your effort, you must keep on doing what is right. Jesus understood this, and so must we.

Also, we notice that this work of cleansing the temple did have a positive influence - if not on the moneychangers, at least on the disciples of Jesus. “…his disciples remembered that it was written, ‘the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up’” (John 2:17). They were there. They saw this and were impressed by it. When we stand up for what it right, others will see it, and our example will have a positive effect on some.

Finally, we challenge the whole notion that doing right “doesn’t do any good.” In the case of Jesus cleansing the temple, it did good in the near term. The temple was free, at least for a time, of the corrupt moneychangers. Yes, it had to be done again later. But for that moment it helped. When we do good, it helps. And we should never “be weary in well doing” (Gal. 6:9), but rather be “steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:58).

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