The Sermon and The Salt

The Sermon on the Mount is pretty radical! I encourage everyone who follows this simple blog to read it again and again. For me, it cuts through much of the self-righteous disguise I've made of Christianity and shreds it into practical truth that must be lived to be authentic. Did you ever think about that? That truth must be lived in order for it to be authentic. Anything less is "faith without works". "It's not what you believe that counts; it's what you believe enough to do."

"You are the salt of the earth" (Matt. 5:13). I've heard a lot of explanations for salt - "it's a preservative, and Christians help to preserve godliness and righteousness in the world"; or, "it's a seasoning, and Christians 'season' the world with the gospel". Today, as I thought about this verse, the Lord gave me a much simpler explanation: whatever salt touches, it changes. And although that's a simpler idea, the radical conviction it brought to me was a lot stronger and condemning (not in a bad way) than the other explanations. I couldn't side-step it as easily as I could the others. The "lighter" explanations don't require as much of me as this simple truth does.

Does my "saltiness" change what it encounters? Salt makes other things taste saltier (never the other way around; if I put salt on french fries, the salt doesn't taste more like potatoes). Is my life so saturated with Jesus that everything I touch is more like Him? Am I so salted with Jesus that others "taste and see that the Lord is good"? Lord, increase my saltiness.