SCRIPTURE: MATTHEW 5:13

This metaphor comes from the use of salt in the first century of the middle east. Instead of refrigeration, salt was used to preserve meat and other foods that would quickly spoil in the harsh environmental conditions they lived in.

Similarly, salt is used to describe the ideal character that God wants to see in us. Followers of Christ are called to prevent corruption, renew the world from its perversion, and heal it from wickedness because our society is filled with the ungodly and unjust whose natures are corrupted by the sins they store up in their chests (Psalm 14:3, Romans 8:8). However, the loss of saltiness happens when we fail to take up our cross everyday to follow Christ with our entire being (Luke 14:34-35) and when we fail to be peaceful with one another (Mark 9:50).

So what hinders us from fulfilling this command to be salt in the world? Our inability to remain different from the world through the choices that we make.

We often trade in our role as salt in the world when we settle for things that are convenient or comfortable instead of persevering through what’s difficult and pleasing to God. Being salt isn’t a light switch, it’s something that happens in the heart as we read scripture, spend time with Christ, and long to be humbly obedient to His commandments through our love for Him. When we don’t allow the Spirit to take residency in our being and the entirety of our lives, the distinction between us and the rest of the world blurs and we lose our effectiveness in bringing the Truth into the lives of those around us.

We can’t be children of God one day then that of the devil the next. The gift that God gives is incorruptible. Those that leave were never of God, if they were they would have continued on in Christ. By leaving they made it known that they were never of God to begin with (1 John 2:19).