"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 lampstand, 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" (NKJV).
Earlier this week, a FB image came across my phone that has so resonated with me, something I’ve been thinking about ever since I saw it. I wish that I’d saved it (I didn’t), but it said something like: "Instead of putting Christ back into Christmas, how about putting Christ back into Christians?" Even now, as I’m sitting at my desk on Christmas morning, I want to cry when I think about this. How about putting Christ back into Christians . . . into me . . . into you . . . into the others I know who claim His name? Rather than being so concerned that those around us refuse to change their outlook, their culture, their practices to oblige our beliefs and our comfort, what if we were more concerned about being light and salt, rather than being accommodated?
What is salt and what does it do?
If you’ve cooked at all, you know that salt is called for in many recipes. Often it’s just a pinch or dash, but it helps in so many ways. Salt increases the amount of time it takes for water to boil. It brings out the flavor in other foods. It preserves and enhances. According to one Internet site, salt (combined with water) is absolutely essential for almost all bodily functions, even at a cellular level.
How does salt work? Salt is made up of two elements: sodium and chlorine. Sodium alone is volatile and chlorine is toxic, but combined together (as sodium chloride or salt), they become one of the four main electrolytes that conduct electricity through our bodies and cause our cells to generate muscle contractions and nerve impulses. Salt is basically the power conduit behind the microscopic generators within our bodies.
As Christians, we are the conduit between the Holy Spirit and this world (including all the people in it). While God is obviously powerful enough to do what He wants on His own, He has chosen the Church through which to work out His will in the world. Through prayer and through the operation of the fruit of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer, God has empowered us to be the salt through which He will pour out His love and His blessings. And while God continues on a more impersonal way to bring "rain on the just and the unjust," it is directly through the Church acting as salt in the world that His love, mercy, and grace are poured out on individuals.
What is light and what does it do?
If you’ve ever sat in a dark room and then turned on a light, you know intimately that light brings about an amazing change in the environment. Think about being in a situation where all the light suddenly goes out (a power outrage, walking into a cave, being on an amusement park ride that suddenly goes into the dark). Often even our sense of balance, our sense of orientation, fails when we cannot see what is around us. But once the light is turned on, we are able to see the beauty and the dangers around us.
Often in the early morning or late evening hours, the sun peaks out from the horizon. Storm clouds that looked menacing often moments before are suddenly washed with beautiful lighted colors. That which seemed evil and threatening is changed into beauty beyond imagination with the influence of the light. God’s love, shining through the heart of a believer into another person, can change the course of a life from despair to hope, from impossibility to miracle. This is the power that we hold in our spirits, the very Spirit of the Living God, Who wants, more than anything else, to bring salvation—to bring complete restoration—to each person who was ever born, who will ever live.
When we talk about being salt and light, it is so far more amazing than trying to culturize those around us into some kind of pseudo-Christianity. It is about making such a difference that what is hard becomes soft, what is failure becomes success, what is broken becomes whole, and what is sin becomes righteousness. When we actually allow Christ into our lives, when we become Christ-ones, the miracle of God’s mercy and love becomes real to a dying world, not just in an abstract sense, but in a real sense one-on-one with those around us. When we begin to love as Christ loves, sacrificially, laying down our own comforts, our own cultural expectations, our own demands, our own rights; when we live as Christ lives, putting the lives of others ahead of our own; when we reach out as Christ reaches out, to those who are rejected, those who are angry, those who are addicted, those who are different from us; when we become Christ-ones, we will no longer have to concern ourselves with putting Christ back into Christmas. Christ will be there because we are there. But, to be honest, it will no longer matter because our own focus will be on what Christ really wants . . . for us to reach out to those around us as salt and light . . . in this world to serve, not to be served . . . in this world to love, not to be loved . . . in this world to be Christ-ones in all the fullness and power of the Holy Spirit.
© 2014 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved.
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