To Preserve or Not To Preserve

Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Matthew 5:13 (KJV)

It is important to place these verses in context. Jesus had just completed listing the eight qualities that must define the Christian life. Some might feel that they could live out these qualities in isolation, away from the world, but as Jesus continues the Sermon on the Mount He makes it abundantly clear with His comparison of Christians to salt and light that the beatitudes were designed for great impact on those around us. These two metaphors make it clear how we should live our lives in relation to the world.

You, and you alone are the salt of the earth! Jesus is clear in this statement that there is no other option. God has established His Church as the vehicle He will work through to hold back the forces of evil that would drag men’s souls to eternal damnation. Man when left to his own devices does not evolve as the world teaches but rather falls deeper into sin and like rotting flesh begins to putrefy. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and man cannot climb out of the slimy pit that He is in by himself but instead continues to slip deeper and deeper.

God has always had a people. He found Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David men that would listen to His voice and became those of “like precious faith” to stand against the tide of this world. When Jesus came He had a two-fold purpose. On the cross He would become the ultimate sacrifice, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. But His other purpose was to establish His Church. He told Peter in Matthew 16:18, “that upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” The Church is not a building or denomination. It is you! The believer who has surrendered their life to God and been filled with His Spirit will exhibit the transformation that only Jesus can bring to our lives. We have been changed from death to life and that life is vibrant because it contains the breath of God.

It is God’s breath, His life, in you that makes you salt, holding back the decay and preserving a dying world. Jesus in you is the hope of fallen man and the power of God to Salvation. You have been sent, with a purpose, into a fallen world to carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Be the salt.