“Your lives are like salt among the people. But if you, like salt, become bland, how can your ‘saltiness’ be restored? Flavorless salt is good for nothing and will be thrown out and trampled on by others.“Your lives light up the world. For how can you hide a city that stands on a hilltop? And who would light a lamp and then hide it in an obscure place? Instead, it’s placed where everyone in the house can benefit from its light. So don’t hide your light! Let it shine brightly before others, so that your commendable works will shine as light upon them, and then they will give their praise to your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:13-16 TPT
Salt is good for seasoning. But if salt were to lose its flavor, how could it ever be restored? It will never be useful again, not even fit for the soil or the manure pile! If you have ears opened by the Spirit, then hear the meaning of what I have said and apply it to yourselves.” Luke 14:34-35 TPT
In the context of the use of staying salty in these two cases, the Lord’s focus appears to be with regard to endurance in our walk with God even when the challenges of the Christian life are relentless. In Matthew 5:11, He listed some examples of such challenges:
How blessed you are when people insult and persecute you and speak all kinds of cruel lies about you because of your love for me!
In the second example, beginning from Luke 14:26, the emphasis was on the cost of discipleship, the first being the prioritization of relationship.
When you follow me as my disciple, you must put aside your father, your mother, your wife, your sisters, your brothers; it will even seem as though you hate your own life. This is the price you’ll pay to be considered one of my followers. Anyone who comes to me must be willing to share my cross and experience it as his own, or he cannot be considered to be my disciple. So, don’t follow me without considering what it will cost you. For who would construct a house before first sitting down to estimate the cost to complete it? Otherwise he may lay the foundation and not be able to finish. The neighbours will ridicule him, saying, ‘Look at him! He started to build but couldn’t complete it!’
A man’s closest relationship is family, right? You have heard that saying, ‘blood is thicker than water,’ but the principle of discipleship of the Lord trumps that saying! Relationship with Christ takes priority, and more. 1 Corinthians 7:29 reveals that our manner of engagement with the world must now be different, one without anxieties, and giving up any and everything that will cause that.
But more than this, there is an underlying truth presented in these verses that’s not very obvious, and that’s that the believer’s commitment to the Lord’s demands is not just a one-time commitment. He likened it as follows:
- Verse 27 – carrying a cross, not a static matter, but implicit is movement over a distance which requires time;
- Verse 28 – building a tower, a process that takes time;
- Verse 31 – waging a war takes time
These imply commitment over time and often at great expense and difficulty. Verses 33, 35 illustrate the examples of such costs, the giving up of long-loved appetites represented in ungodly habits and modifying or revoking relationships with those whose ways do not align with the Lord’s! Certainly, the hope must be worth it if we are to follow consistently and accurately. Is the promise enough for you to follow through? Selah.
Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash
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