Dear Friends
A while ago I was giving thought and prayer to these words from Jesus.
Mat 5:13 You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its savor, with what shall it be salted? It is no longer good for anything, but to be thrown out and to be trodden underfoot by men.
Usually when we hear this passage we focus on the qualities of salt. Here are the usual preaching points: We are the salt, and the world needs our "flavor and preservation." But the Holy Spirit was drawing my attention to the salt shaker of the organized church as well. We need to know, the shaker is made for the salt, not the other way around! God is bringing a "shake up" to the shaker, trying to get the salt loosened up and out of the shaker, and into the world where it belongs.
Here are some thoughts on salt and shakers.
1. Salt has one purpose: to give flavor to food. Salt NEVER serves its purpose staying in the shaker. The purpose of the Christian life is found when "shaken out" to flavor the world. Too often the highest vision of ministry given to Christians is to be on the church platform, rather than changing the flavor of the world.
2. Shakers have one purpose: to shake salt onto food in a beneficial manner. But we tend to value the shaker rather than the salt. We focus on them. We like big ones, pretty ones, crystal ones, expensive ones, or name brand ones. However, this is completely unimportant. In fact, it is a useless diversion. The essential question is, "how does the food taste when I salt it?" Remember, shakers don't create salt, but they can spoil it. Same with the church.
3. Salt loses it's savor when it is kept in a container too long. It's best sprinkled out fresh! In the church we often hold back the "fresh" converts, afraid of their "raw" qualities. "You are not mature, you are not ready. You need training first." Excuse me? Salt thats not mature? How stupid can we be! "Raw" Christianity in the church brings the best flavor to worldly friends.
4. Salt clumps and spoils when left in the container too long. Staying in church too long is not beneficial to believers. Eventually believers think their purpose IS the container! They clump together, and compete for position in the shaker.
Church fights and cliques are caused by believers who have not been shaken for a long long time!
5. Salt is a preservative, it doesn't need preservation. Often we say "they are new believers, they need protection". This is "low-salt" thinking. New believers were living in the world when they got saved. They overcame the world in their decision for Christ. They are bona-fide salt already! They don't suddenly need protection from the world by being kept in a shaker! They need encouragement, not seclusion. Jesus saved them and He will keep them! New believers need to be savor to their unsaved friends immediately.
Their preservation power will come out!
6. We fill the shaker to put salt on the food, we don't salt the food to fill the shaker. In church our goals are often backwards. We usually do outreach to fill the church shaker. The church has lost it's savor and is trampled underfoot. Genuine saltiness wants to be shaken out and Trust Jesus to refill our shaker.
7. When the holes are plugged, we change shakers. One of the reason Christians "church hop" is because they are not "released". They are looking for a shaker with holes.
8. A shaker with no holes is really a jar.
A church with no holes gets left on the shelf by the "Master Chef"
Blessings
Terry Somerville
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