Become Salt and Light

Become Salt and Light!

We’ll go to a Scripture that talks about that in Mathew 5: 13-16
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“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lamp stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

What does salt look like? Salt has two commonly understood properties. In days gone by, before refrigerators, they used to pat down meat with salt as a way of preserving the meat and stopping it from spoiling. Salt also provides flavor. Salt actually doesn’t just add flavoring but accentuates the existing flavor in food.
What does light do? In society, the world that we live in is fast losing its morals; it’s fast declining and becoming more and more wretched. At the moment, it’s considered a sin and unhealthy for a pedophile to have sex with a child. However, a time might be coming in the federal courts in America where this will be looked at and accepted as a natural inclination of a man.

Gay and lesbian couples can now legally marry, according to the 2015 Supreme Court decision. For 2000 years since Christ, marriage was accepted as a practice between a male and a female. However, now, homosexual marriage is accepted as the norm and approved by the Supreme Court in the U.S. Talk is rumbling of legalizing marriage between people in a threesome relationship of mixed genders.

The perversions of society are growing steadily and steadily worse. As Christians, our job is to be the preserver of society. When people are discussing subjects and asking our opinions, we can respond with kindness and understanding. We can tell them that we believe that marriage is between a male and a female and that we love and have compassion for people who are gay. They should have some other label instead of calling the relationship marriage because marriage is between a manand a woman. You have to understand and know about these issues and be prepared to lovingly share in the times that we live in.

People want to know if it’s okay to spend 30 minutes on Facebook while they are at work and on company time. Your coworkers need to see that you don’t do that; they need to see that you are working when you’re on company time. Let them see that the only time you check your Facebook and interact with others is on your break.

However, someone who is salt wouldn’t spend a lot of time on Facebook during their break. They would instead talk to other staff and interact with them, engaging them in friendly conversation. People are looking to us for a standard. They are not looking to us to be judged; they are not coming to us to hear our decision or our critiques on certain topics. They are looking to us to set a standard just like a child knows what limits and lines to cross with their parents.

When parents set clear boundaries, the child feels comfortable and at ease and knows not to cross those boundaries. The same is true with society. Our society needs standards, and when these standards are taken away, people are unhappy. People assume that a life of debauchery and a life of sin is more enjoyable, but they don’t realize that the laws and standards that society has keep the peace, joy and order reigning.

People need to know that we need standards, and we need to stick to our word. That doesn’t mean that we have to be completely intolerant and judgmental. For instance, I have three gay friends and four lesbian friends at the moment. They all know they are loved by me, and each of them has a Christian faith. A couple of them live together and plan to marry. How do I communicate to them as the “salt” in society? They understand that I love them, but they understand that I don’t believe their lifestyle is okay. Even so, they know I love and accept them. They see my compassion and love every time we meet. In fact, some of them say that I’m one of their favorite people. I think that Jesus demonstrated that he was the friend of sinners, so he was in trouble with the Pharisees for hanging out with sinners — tax-collectors or the equivalent of today’s pedophiles.

Publicans, people running bars, prostitutes and sinners of all sorts congregated around Jesus. Jesus loved them and showed them love. That’s one aspect of salt as a preserver.
The other aspect of salt is to give something flavor, to make it taste just right. To many people of the world, Christians seem rigid, full of rules, boring, religious and hard to get along with.

Instead, these are ways to describe something that’s full of flavor. We should be known for love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, self-control and compassion. That’s the flavor — that’s what we need to demonstrate and not just talk about. When people are in a stressful situation, we need to bring peace to that situation. When people are upset, we need to bring joy; when people are out of control, we need to bring order; when people don’t have their needs met, we need to bring goodness and kindness and compassion.

We need to be the “glue” that holds society together. Many hospitals, programs for orphans, community outreaches, missionary endeavors and more are done by Christian people. This is an example of the flavor, the way the Christian church in the West can flavor the East. In the impoverished nations, they can come and fulfill the needs of their community through love and care.
We need to be like a pleasant aroma. When a woman wearing a nice perfume walks past a man, he is attracted to her because of the perfume. Women also appreciate a nice cologne on a man. When a woman walks past with a nice perfume on, other women recognize it and wonder what it is, wishing that they had some for themselves. We need to be like that perfume. We need to be something that the world is jealous of and that attracts them to us.

As I began this book, we just endured the terrorist attack in Paris in November 2015. We need to be the voice of reason and of peace; we need to bring comfort; we don’t need to be stressed or worried. Instead, we need to be people that are self-assured and that bring reason and strength and support to challenging situations.

We need to demonstrate Jesus Christ. Many people can’t reflect him because they don’t know who he is. They don’t understand who Jesus was. They don’t understand or know Jesus. In order to be successful at being a flavor, in order to bring flavor and saltiness to the world, we need to understand who Jesus was. We need to understand that he was someone remarkably different from what people believe. I have a book called “Finding Intimacy with Jesus Made Simple” that addresses the life of Jesus and what sort of person he is. I’ve got another book called “Jesus Speaking Today” that further goes into the life of Jesus. It would help you to buy those books so that you could have a clear understanding of who Jesus is!

You need to understand what being salt is and who Jesus really was — how he reacted and how he positioned himself and demonstrated ‘the love of the Father’ to the people on the earth. He didn’t just die on the cross, but he laid down his life every day and gave of himself. He went out of his way every day to fulfill the needs of the people that came to him. He was able to meet the financial needs of people who came to him for money. He had rich people giving him money all the time and was always giving away money. Judas was in charge of the money because someone had to be treasurer and look after the funds that came in. As fast as it came in, it flowed out again. I’ll leave you to read these other two books of mine so that you can understand who Jesus was. In that way, you can better demonstrate him.

This writing was a chapter out of Influencing your world for Christ, a book by Matthew Robert Payne