Good morning!
Welcome to your morning coffee! May our Heavenly Father help us to be fully and eagerly invested in what He is doing in our world. Father, you are doing so many wonder-full, amazing things around us, in us, to us, and through us. Please help us, in prayer, worship, and reading your Word, to see what you are doing, and join in! May we live in away that is full of the flavor of your Kingdom, Father. In the name of Jesus, by the Spirit who fills us, please help us to live our daily lives according you desire, and not our own, until our own matches yours. Amen!
Your Morning Song: "Your Love Is Strong" by Jon Foreman
Your Morning Scripture: Matthew 5:13
You are the salt of the earth,
but if salt has lost its taste,
how shall its saltiness be restored?
It is no longer good for anything
except to be thrown out
and trampled under people's feet.
...
What is salt good for? It can provide flavor. It can preserve things. It can serve as a disinfectant. It is a vital nutrient for someone's diet, especially while exercising. It can even put out a grease fire.
There is a way to misread this verse that is all too common, that to be salt means to be aggressively legalistic (i.e. a know-it-all jerk) when it comes to being a Christian. This kind of salt looks down on unbelievers and rejects them while thanking their caricature of God that He didn't make them like those sinners. And towards other believers, this kind of salt condemns them, making liberal use of the actually rare "heretic!"
This is not salt. This is something else. Whatever this might be, it certainly is not what Jesus is talking about.
Do you know how valuable salt is? The Roman empire used to pay it's soldiers in part, with salt. Because it had so many vital uses in everyday life.
And true salt, that has all the myriad benefits and value of true salt, will have the salty taste. If the salt tastes right, then it can be trusted to do all of the vital things that true salt can do.
How vital am I to the world around me? How vital are you?
Do I, steeped in scripture and prayer, led, fed and filled by the Spirit...
Do I bring flavor? When I am with believers and unbelievers, do I bring the flavor of who God made me to be? God made each one of us full of flavor, that we can, each in our own way, fill our relationships with love and generosity and good humor. We are God's Children and we season living in the this broken world with the good things of God.
Do I preserve? When I am with believer and unbelievers, can I be trusted? Do I preserve the dignity of others? Do I preserve the Word of Truth with others by speaking it gently and plainly? Do I reject gossip? I am dependably present in the suffering of others? Do I check in with others, to see how they're doing? Do I go to Bible Study with my brothers and sisters in Christ? Do I offer to pray for other people, and then actually do it? Am I early to my commitments? Do I seek the earthly, daily good of others over myself? We are God's Children and we preserve and protect what God has called good in this broken world.
Do I disinfect? There are times when I must speak up against something wrong. If a brother or sister stumbles, gently restore them by helping them to see their sin and repent from it. Salt starts quiet, in these small moments when two people can help each other, each the salt for the other, to avoid deeper patterns of sin. But there may come a time when salt must be loud. It is rare. It is deeply difficult, but there may be a time when you have to take a stand for God's Word, for God's Will, and for God's People, and say, "No" or "Stop" or "I will not." Whether in the more common, quiet moment, or in the rare loud, public stand, we must be willing to disinfect and in turn be disinfected of sin (sanctification). We are God's Children and we cannot ignore the horror of sin that broke this world.
Do bring vital nutrients? We are God's Children, filled with the Holy Spirit to overflowing. We ought to be full of the Spirit's fruit (Galatians 5). By our praying for others, worshiping with others, fellowshipping with others, encouraging others, are we bringing the stuffs of eternal, abundant life to others? We ought to be indispensable to each other in our daily lives. Not each of us the best friend of the other (this is impossible). But together, as a church, are we seeking to know and be known by the slice of God's Kingdom we're living in? Do we interact meaningfully with each other, as often as we can, because we eagerly long to love each other? If we're all doing that, then we truly will be living out the sort of nutritious saltiness that Jesus said would be the mark of His disciples "by your love for each other." We are God's Children and we are alive in a way nothing and no one else is in this broken world, and we ought to bring that life everywhere, in everything.
Do I put out grease fires? I can confidently say that the other questions about our saltiness are more than reasonable. But this one? How does this apply? What connection is there between grease fires and our daily living? Just to make sure that we all know, if you're cooking with grease, and it catches on fire, you can't put it out with water. That will make it explode, or at least flare up (tried a small one with my dad as a kid. It was awesome). But if you throw salt on a grease fire, it will smother the flames out.
If I am this kind of salt, then I don't fight fire with fire, anger with anger, rage with rage, bitterness with bitterness. I put fires out. I forgive. I ask for forgiveness. I encourage others to do the same. I encourage peace and reconciliation. And I don't fake it. And I don't give up. And I don't accept the flames. I am wise and not foolish to think that you or I can solve all conflict. But I am an active, salty, force for peace and forgiveness. For we are God's Children in a broken world that does not know peace. But as the salt God desires, we will be peacemakers, peace-bringers, and when we are rejected, we will ourselves still be filled with and guarded by God's peace in Christ Jesus.
How salty are we? I am sure that there are more examples of how we can be salt in the say God desires and has designed. But this is a good start to a conversation that ought to continue. Am I living in obedience to the words of my Lord and Savior? God delights in the flavor of obedience.
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