YOU ARE SALT & LIGHT

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? It’s no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. -Matthew 5:13-15 CSB

I was a young college student when I made a friend who appeared to have everything—beauty, grades, achievements, wealth. Everything I felt that I didn’t. Still, we grew close. So, when she disappeared for three days and didn’t answer my calls, I naturally grew alarmed. When she surprisingly surfaced on the third day, I learned she had been at a party where most everyone had taken drugs to stay awake. She said, “There was so much love. There was so much joy. There was so much peace that I was blown away.” And with that, she pulled out this little flower. “I loved it so much, Chris, that I didn’t want you to miss out on the experience that I had, so I saved you half a tablet.” 

I kindly declined her offer, but I was rattled. I had only given my life fully to Jesus a couple years before, and I couldn’t help but think, This girl loves you so much, that she didn’t want you to miss out on the love and joy and peace from a drug. And you, Christine, have the Holy Spirit of God living on the inside of you, who is the source of love and joy and peace. Christine, you were too embarrassed to talk about God, because you thought she doesn’t need him, when the one thing that she needs the most is God.

Afterward, I wept. I promised God I would never allow anyone’s passion about anything—drugs, money, success or even a cause—to be more passionate than my love for him and my willingness to go and tell people who he is. 

Why is it that we easily recognize people whose lives are messed up as those who need to be found but fail to recognize that even those who seem to have it all together are lost too? Doesn’t God want us to understand that lost people look like all people? 

Since that day, I have never forgotten that there is a God-shaped vacuum in every human heart that only Jesus can fill, and everyone needs to hear about him. 

PRAYER

God, help me to be salt and light everywhere I go to everyone I meet. Help me to look and to see…the broken and the lost... no matter how they appear. Help me to feel compassion and courage to reach out and pull someone close today. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

Adapted from 20/20: Seen.Chosen.Sent by Christine Caine. Copyright © 2019 by Christine Caine. Reprinted with permission of Lifeway Women. All rights reserved.