Are You Salty for Christ?
Salt is a common substance found in homes and restaurants. People use salt to flavor food, melt ice, and preserve food. When we eat food that contains a large amount of salt, we find ourselves thirsty and longing for something to drink. When Jesus was preaching the Sermon on the Mount, he used salt as an example of how Christians ought to live. Jesus declared, “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.” (Matthew 5:13). Let’s note a few important truths.
First, believers are to be the salt that preserves. The world around us constantly decays due to the presence and reality of sin that plagues us. The decay continues as people attempt to solve problems separate from Christ and fix issues in the manners of humanity. The Bible states that, “There is a way that seems right to men, but its end is the way of death.” (Proverbs 16:25). Thus, the attempts of people to stop the decay of the world due to sin in their own ability only continues and fuels the decay.
The salty believer should reach into this decaying world and engage it with Jesus. The engagement is a form of preserving for the intent of seeing people respond to the message of hope and true spiritual healing found in Christ. As salt, the Christian ought to engage a decaying world with truth for the purpose of seeing lives changed. When believers refuse to be salt in a decaying world, the decay continues without hope of being stopped. Are you being the salt that presents the cure to the world’s decay?
Second, believers are to be the salt that adds flavor. The ways of the world mirror the bland untasteful food in need of salt for flavor. Believers engage this culture with the flavor of the gospel with the intent of providing purpose and life to people. The follower of Christ should demonstrate the flavor of living for Christ in a community of faith and in the personal character. The life of the believer provides the salt to an unflavored life and offers a satisfaction that fills the longings of the soul. Are you engaging the world in a way that provides salt to a flavorless world?
Third, believers are to be the salt that makes others thirsty. The life believers live ought to be a life desired by others. When Christians live out a salty lifestyle, the world desires what they have. The world becomes thirsty for a relationship with Christ because of the presence and effect of the salt in the world. Is your life salty for Jesus? Is your life making others thirsty for Jesus?
Conclusion, how are you living as salt? Are you engaging culture with the purpose of seeing it preserved so that a response to the gospel can occur? Are you adding the needed flavor to the world that they may receive the needed flavor of the gospel? Are you being the salt that makes people thirsty for Jesus? If you have come to the place where you are no longer salty for Jesus, he waits for you to repent, seek forgiveness, and follow him. You cannot make yourself salty again but Jesus can make you salty for him.
