Salty

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:13-16 ESV).

Mary would tell you that I have a very bad habit of salting everything I eat too much. Whether it is vegetables at a restaurant, or popcorn at the movies, I love to salt my food. It is as much habit as taste that causes me to do it! It does seem to make a difference to me though. Salt has a way of making many things better. Salt is one of the most common compounds found. It is everywhere! The fluid surrounding the fetus is essentially saltwater. The water inside our bodies is as salty as the seas, which is extraordinary considering the human body is 70% water. Each of us contains eight ounces of salt, which is an essential building block of life itself. It regulates heartbeat and nerve impulses, digestion, muscle contraction, and the exchange of water between cells, which helps those cells bring in food and push out waste. Without salt, the body goes into convulsions, paralysis, and death.

Yet, surprisingly, salt is partly poison. It’s made up of two elements, sodium and chlorine. If you put them in your mouth separately, sodium will blow up, and chlorine will turn toxic. But merged into a compound, sodium chloride, the two ingredients sustain and promote life. In terms of quantity, there’s enough salt just in the oceans to cover the whole earth fourteen inches deep. Ironically, we can’t drink from those seas. Like salt in the ancient world, our faith should enhance, preserve and disinfect. But it’s important to realize that faith comes from God, and a little goes a long way. Like salt, faith has two elements: belief and action. On its own, belief can be volatile, especially when clouded by extreme emotion. But, even worse, action has poisonous potential if it’s separated from the dependence on God that’s supposed to be its foundation. Keeping belief and action in balance is essential to truly be a preservative in the world.

Look at the combination of love and truth as an example. Love without truth is unreliable and sometimes blind. In fact, there have been those who were willing to combine the truth of the Gospel with other doctrines in the name of love. On the other hand, truth by itself can be offensive, sometimes even poisonous. Spoken without love, it can turn people away from the gospel. When truth and love are combined in an individual or a church, however, then we have what Jesus called “the salt of the earth,” and we’re able to preserve and bring out the beauty of our faith. How salty are you? What kind of balance do you strike in your life between faith and actions? Or in love and truth? Commit yourself to being balanced… salty!