Salt • Devotion 4

Salt Makes Things sweeter
Joanna Montgomery

When I was young, my mother was making oatmeal and added sugar to it. I tasted it and said, “It doesn’t taste right, I think it needs more sugar.” She said, “No, it has enough sugar, what it needs to make it sweeter, is salt.” I thought salt would make it taste terrible; however, after she added a bit of salt, the oatmeal was so much better!

Matthew 5:13 states, “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.” Christians who walk with Christ are to be the salt that makes life in this world better.

The world wants us to accept people for what and who they want to be, which sounds sweet. Just as more sugar in the oatmeal would have made it inedible, loving and accepting others for who and what they want to be is hopeless. Christ teaches us to love people out of their fallen state. We are salt providing real truth and real love. People need to be lovingly told their eternity is hopeless without Christ. Being who and what they want to be is a path to loneliness, despair, and loss. Accepting Christ and repenting of sin is the only true path to happiness and love. As the salt of the Earth, we must pour out the truth of the Gospel into the world.

Salt does no good sitting in a container on our counter, it must be added to food to make a difference. Romans 10:14 states, “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?”

As salt, we verbally share Christ with others to be flavor added to life; not the whole container of salt at once, which is not good either. Lovingly shared truth is the way people will hear they are lost and learn how to be saved. Share the truth of the Gospel in love for others to desire hope in Christ. If this is too hard for you (and it is hard), ask the Holy Spirit to speak through you. He will!

Christ did not just let people continue down a path of destruction. Even Nicodemus, who was a righteous Jewish leader of the day, was told he had to be born again in order to have eternity in Heaven. He had to believe Christ was sent as his Savior, turn away from his sin, and allow God to save him. His righteousness only made his life seem good, but he needed the salt of truth Christ provided.

We must share the Gospel of Christ, verbally and through our actions. In this way, we will be salt that adds the flavor of truth.