Cooking is one of my favorite hobbies. Growing up with a dad who was a chef helped ignite a passion in me for food and confidence in the kitchen even as a young girl. I am a rule follower by nature, but when it came to cooking I didn’t have to stick with the rules, so it was a creative outlet for me.
In the kitchen, I get to omit or add ingredients based on how the food looks and tastes, which makes the process fun. But I have always been cautious with salt because if you add too much, there is nothing you can do to fix it. So I have my husband taste test and, more often than not, I have to add more salt. Salt is necessary. You can add all the spices, but it is only once you add salt that you can actually taste all the flavors. Salt enhances the goodness of the dish, which makes you want more of it and leaves you satisfied.
In Matthew 5:13, Jesus says to His followers, “You are the salt of the earth…” (NIV).
Salt served even greater purposes during biblical times and culture than it does today. In Leviticus 2:13 and 2 Chronicles 13:5, we read about the salt of the covenant. Salt was used as a purifier and a preservative. Salt symbolized something as holy, set apart for God. So when Jesus tells this crowd they are the salt of the earth they might have been shocked. He was essentially welcoming them into the covenant community, but He wasn’t talking to the religious elite or priestly class, He was talking to regular, everyday people. And instead of telling them to do certain things to belong, He tells them they already do!
“You are the salt of the earth,” Jesus says. Salt — vital, necessary, acceptable, useful, worthy; this was His promise to the people.
Did you know that salt comes from water? Jesus often refers to Himself as Living Water:
“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink” (John 7:37 NIV). “… but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4: 14 NIV).
So then if we are salt that means we are formed from Jesus and have qualities like Him. It is not in our own power that we can be salt, but it is Christ in us.
If you grew up in church, you may have heard salt used for ministry names. I was in a college Bible study group called SALT, and it was an acronym for Servants After the Living Truth. It was predominantly Indian –American Christian students who gathered together every Thursday night to worship and study Scripture. We even had royal blue t-shirts with a salt shaker graphic. SALT was like church and family time for most of us. SALT provided godly friends and helped me stay firm in my faith — but I don’t think this is what Jesus meant when He called His followers to be salt.
Jesus didn’t declare we are the salt of heaven. We are called to be the salt of the EARTH, set apart as holy to God to preserve and purify the places we step foot each day.
To be salt as Jesus calls us is to go into places that are bland and broken, and make those places beautiful and good.
To be salt is to walk into every room knowing you have a God-given purpose and influence in that room.
To be salt to is shift the atmosphere of the spaces we sit in every day by the way we interact with those in our world. The neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces we walk into should be different because we are there!
How often do we truly live like salt though?
Jesus came to invade our hearts and minds with the Truth and transform the world with the Good News. Jesus came to change everything. Just as the Father sent Jesus into the world, so Jesus sends us (John 17:18 NIV).
But many of us are like me with cooking — overly cautious about putting salt into the pot, afraid of what might happen. So we just gather together with our Christian t-shirts instead of going into the world and bringing Jesus to those who need Him. Instead of being Jesus’s world-changing salt, we have simply become salty — angry, defensive, irritated, and overly sensitive. Too much salt in one dish is not desirable and will only leave a bad taste in someone’s mouth.
Jesus warns us of the danger of a diminished witness. He says if salt loses its saltiness, it’s good for nothing. You might as well throw it out and trample it underfoot (Matthew 5:13). There are so many causes of our diminished witness today: hypocrisy, leadership failures, political idolatry, mistreating people, lack of empathy, and the list goes on.
What if as followers of Jesus made an intentional choice to BE salt? Let’s refuse to be salty, and choose instead to be the salt of the earth, making wherever we go richer, better, and more satisfying because of Jesus in us.
I loved how you weaved this all together. Such inspiring words.
Thanks so much
Both the Oceans and the Dead Sea are Salty, but one is teeming with life and one is dead. The Dead Sea has no outlet so it only takes in. As Christians we need to pour out Love and Give so then as we receive from Jesus’ Living Water we are teeming with life as the oceans not becoming toxic as the Dead Sea.
So true! My family loves salt so when I make dishes for others, I try to pull back on the physical salt I sometimes chicken out when it comes to sharing my faith (spiritual salt).♥️
So often we are all guilty of that!
Amen!! Love that!
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Excellent teaching and well spoken about salt in your life. Even the way you Simi put it into your life as follower of Jesus. We all need more of Jesus in our lives that is more salt. What that the word is. We don’t want to over salt our lives with the word of God trying to cram to much in that we don’t understand stand it. Or especially with someone that is not saved life.Then we could put that person that is not saved of wanting to hear or have anything to do with the word of God. We need to flavour them gently with a gentle bit of more salt of the word of God and not over salt them with it. We don’t want to over power them that they don’t want more flavour and we then put them of. That they don’t want to hear about Jesus from us like a good cooking dish we rouin it. We rouin them. We don’t want to do that with them either. So all we need is to be a tiny bit of salt in our lives that we flavour people in a nice gentle manner with the word of God we’re we go. By the way we live our lives. Especially with the unsaved. So as they will see Jesus in us. Then hopefully want Jesus for themselves. I say Amen to that.
Glad it resonated with you!
Amen.
I love this Daily Devotional because it confirms that I am on track in my life-time journey with the Lord, the Word, God & the Holy Ghost. Thank you so much for providing focus, not in this temporary world, but how to keep my mind, body and soul on eternity.
I am so happy to hear that!
Simi,
This world definitely needs more salt. It has become so divisive, uncaring, & unloving. It only takes a smidge of salt to change the “taste” or atmosphere of a room or person. I am trying daily to add salt to each place I go. Volunteering at Loaves & Fishes gives me the chance to pray for others, provide food & listen to their problems. Working in ICU I make an effort to be empathetic to the patients’ families. I bring meals into their rooms & help with call lights. For one patient, who has dementia, I would go into room & converse with her, hold her hand & just be a comfort to her. Everyone deserves a little love & attention just as Jesus would give.
Blessings 🙂
Love your heart!
This is a beautiful message. But if someone ever puts too much salt in a dish, especially if there is liquid in the dish, just add chunks of a raw, white potato for a few minutes, then take the chunks out. Potatoes draw salt out of liquids! (Just remove the potatoes before they soften too much and release the salt.) … And always remember how Jesus sought solitude during His walk with us. There is such a thing as self preservation in our daily walk. We always need time that’s restorative, so that we don’t get so worn out and trampled under that we can’t witness any longer. … Also, in keeping with your theme of being only a little salty, remember how the love of Jesus tends toward long life in earth (Psalm 1:3). Jesus serves as fresh water, which has even less salt than we have bodily.