Making People Thirst - Salt pt. 3

An old farmer was in a west Texas church when the guest preacher was preaching and carrying on. The preacher yelled out, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” After the service was over the preacher was in the back of the church when the old farmer came up to him and said, “You were wrong!” The preacher was a bit startled and taken back and then said to the farmer, “How so?” The farmer looked the preacher in the eye and said, “You can make a horse drink…feed the horse salt!”

We like to eat Chinese food. About two hours after I eat and get home, I find that I get thirsty and need some…a great deal of water…Soy Sauce is filled with salt. Look at verse 50 of Mark 9…“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other.” Being at peace with each other is something this world thirsts for beyond measure.

When Jesus was on the Cross, he had been beaten, he had a crown of thorns pressed into his skull, and they had driven nails in his hands and feet. The blood and sweat were dripping off him.

God turns his eye away from Jesus, His Son, in order to pay the price for my sin. Jesus calls out, “I thirst.” I am sure he was dry mouth, but I also see a new view of what Jesus thirty for…Jesus thirst for his Father in heaven.

When our two month old, Nicholas Mark, died in January, I learned a new aspect of thirst. I will always thirst for Nicholas as my son until the day I see him again in Heaven. Jesus was thirsty for His heavenly Father.

When we are the salt of the earth, people should see our lives preserve others, bring heighten taste to daily living and cause people to THIRST for Jesus.

Let me ask you, “Do people thirst for Jesus when you are around?” Does your family, friends, and relationships say, “I want what they have.” The Apostle Paul put it this way:

1 Corinthians 9:19-23, “Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. ²⁰ To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. ²¹ To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. ²² To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. ²³ I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”

Do people thirst for God because of you, so that the lost can be won to Jesus?

It is my prayer to be so salty for Jesus, that others that I have the honor of knowing and meeting, thirst for Jesus. Would you join me in Preserving, Enhancing Flavor, and Causing Thirst because we are the salt of the earth? You know I love ya, Don

Enhancing the Flavor of Life - Salt pt. 2

Mark 9:50…“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”

A baked potato with butter, sour cream, pepper, and “SALT.” The salt is the essence of the taste and heightens the tastes of the other flavors. This is why we have salt and pepper shakers on our tables…we want to enhance the taste.

Sodium is an extremely active element found naturally only in combined form; it always links itself to another element. Chlorine, on the other hand, is the poisonous gas that gives bleach its offensive odor. When sodium and chlorine are combined, the result is sodium chloride--common table salt--the substance we use to preserve meat and bring out its flavor. Love and truth can be like sodium and chlorine. Love without truth is flighty, sometimes blind, willing to combine with various doctrines. On the other hand, truth by itself can be offensive, sometimes even poisonous. Spoken without love, it can turn people away from the gospel. Truth without love divides marriages, destroys parenting skills, and diminishes life.

Yet, when truth and love are combined, much like salt and chlorine, in an individual or a church, we have what Jesus called "the salt of the earth," and we're able to bring taste to our culture and bring out the beauty of our faith. Look Mark 10:2-9:

“Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” “What did Moses command you?” he replied. They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.” “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,”

Jesus replied. “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”

What is Jesus teaching us about marriage and divorce? … Jesus is tough and teaches us that marriage is not about lust. Lust of control, lust of power, lust of fleshly desires and sex, but marriage is about keeping your word and living as a united couple for the purpose of mutual edification.” Thus, married Christians should make a difference in the “flavor of the world we live in, just as salt changes meat’s flavor.”

A Christ-follower’s marriage should be above and beyond the world’s view of marriage. It is our calling to unite together and grow together as a couple, as possible parents, and ultimately in serving God and His people. God allowed divorce as a concession to the people’s sinfulness.

It is important to always be reminded…Sinfulness reduces a person ability to live a God like life...much like water will delude salt.

Let me ask you, “Do you bring taste in the life you live?” Do the people around you say, “I know the essence of Jesus because of you.”? Other than your mother, your spouse knows you better than anyone else…does your spouse see you and know that you bring a flavor filled taste to the world and to your home?

Hebrews 13:1-5, “Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. ² Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. ³ Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. ⁴ Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. ⁵ Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

Do you bring taste into your world?

Striving to do my best to bring taste into the lives I am blessed to meet! You know I love ya, Don

Preserving Life - Salt pt. 1

Mark 9:43-48. “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where ‘the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched’.”

Jesus is passionate about being a source of preservation to right living that He teaches that it would be better for mutilation, then to allow for the sin to continue and loose it all just so that wrong living might NOT continue. Jesus also gives us that “how to” in his teaching.

Look at how Jesus addresses the “causes”: If your hand causes, if your foot causes, if eye causes…Jesus is a tough man on sin and is not willing to compromise on sin. One might ask, “How can I be tough on sin?” The answer is look at the “causes” of sin and remove them. You may have to remove them to the extreme of complete separation. Thus, in order to preserve…one must be tough on sin and be willing to take the steps to remove the causes.

Let me ask you…are you preserving the lives around you? Are you tough on your own sin? If you are series about preserving the lives around you, … then your are not living in sin, you are not allowing your friends to twist the time you are together into a time of sin or compromised living. A Jesus perspective in a Christ-Follower is to be tough on sin and preserve the innocence, the right living, the holy essence of being a believer.

Here is the question? Are you preserving the people around you? If you are, then your family, your friends, and your relationships say, “I am a better person because you are in it.

The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 12:9-13, “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.”

This is what is means to be salt that preserves. Doing my best to be a source of preservation! You know I love ya, Don