Salt Of The Earth

Salt Seasons

So salt preserves, but what else does it do? Salt seasons. It can take something that is tasteless and makes it delicious. This is even mentioned in the bible in Job 6:6:

"Can something tasteless be eaten without salt, Or is there any taste in the white of an egg?”

So if salt is something that can bring seasoning to food, we can understand that we as Christians can bring seasoning to life. By sharing our faith with others, we can show them that there can be so much more joy in their lives when they know who Christ is and walk in His power. The world is generally enhanced when we put on our Jesus glasses; that is when we see the world and everything in it through the eyes of Jesus. But how can they know what it is going to be like, if we aren’t living that out in front of them. If your whole life you only ate tasteless things, without any seasonings, wouldn’t you just assume that’s how all food is? When somebody told you different, you probably wouldn’t believe them.

Talk about Sam I Am

Now I’m not suggesting that anybody here follow somebody around through the rain, on a train, fall into a boat, sink it and keep hammering away with the bible until somebody finally caves in. But the illustration in this book is very valid. The cat doesn’t know how good green eggs and ham really are until he tries them - after all, he’s never had them before.

When we look at the world around us, we see a whole bunch of people who do not know who Christ is. A lot of times they have some pretty strong pre-formed beliefs about who he is through the actions they see portrayed in the lives of their followers. Which is why I always come back to the old adage that actions speak louder than words. If we really want people to know who Christ is, we really need to live lives like Christ. Helping out the needy, the sick; caring for people that the world has turned their back on. Being there for our friends and family. Living out a Christ-like character. No, not just because people are watching you. Because that is what Jesus asks of us. But even when you think people aren’t watching you, most of the time they are and your life is witnessing to them.

So salt can season food, right? But how many of you have put too much salt on your food? Not a very good taste, right? I remember back at some summer camps and youth weekends I went to where it was a well known practical joke to loosen the tops of the salt shakers on the tables when nobody was looking. Then when your fellow campers would come in for a meal, they would go to shake some salt on their food and the lid of the salt-shaker would come off dumping a whole pile of salt on their food. Now, I would have never dreamed of doing something like that! But the question here is - do you think that somebody sitting there with a whole heap of salt on their eggs would go ahead and eat it that way? No way! We all know that too much salt ruins the taste of our food.

In the same way, we as Christians shouldn’t be oversalt-ing. We shouldn’t be trying so hard to get somebody to come to Christ that we end up pushing them away. When we are doing this, we are generally doing it in our own power anyways instead of the power of the spirit. I can remember a specific period in my life when I was in the Army. It was actually the last time I was in Germany. I was young and single then and really far away from the path God had laid before me. I still very much had the thirst for Jesus, but I would drink the world’s water instead and be quenched for short periods of time. There was one person in particular that just kept hammering away at me about Jesus this - Jesus that. Come to church, do this do that. It drove me nuts. Not only did it annoy me, but it had the exact opposite effect of what he was really trying to do. It drove me even further away from where deep inside I really wanted to be. I have no doubt that the guy had some great intentions, but he was just throwing way too much salt my way.