Being Salt!

"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? It's no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled on by men."

Matthew 5:13


Everytime we visit our local Cracker Barrel restaurant, I order fried okra. Sometimes even with breakfast. It's good...I mean goooood! But fried okra needs salt. So when my server brings the meal, the first thing I do is reach for the salt shaker. I then proceed to provide my bowl of okra with a sufficient dusting of sodium. The salt shaker and the bowl of okra can share the same table, but until the salt leaves the shaker, the okra remains unsalted. I can push the glass salt shaker up against the ceramic bowl of okra, but that still doesn't salt the okra. I can even hold the shaker above the bowl, but until the salt makes contact with the okra, the okra isn't salted! For the salt to do what the salt is intended to do, it must come into contact with the okra. And the same thing is true for the Christian concerning the unbeliever. We must take the Gospel to those that have yet to believe in Christ. Until we make this contact, we are not doing what God has called us to do. It is not enough to live in the same towns or neighborhoods. It is not enough to share schools and workplaces. It is not enough to smile and wave, making acquaintances along our way. We must love them, befriend them, and serve them, all in the name of Jesus. Anything less and we're still in the shaker.