Worth Your Salt

Over the years, I have heard this verse described in multiple ways. Using salt as the focus, I have heard our lives are to be like salt that enhances the taste of food; therefore, we are to live to enhance the lives of others. Or we are to be the salt that preserves the ways of God in society, and we should be like salt in making others thirst for Jesus. Recently I heard the background of the phrase “worth your salt.”

Consider this verse, Jesus says, “Ye are the salt of the earth.” He is making a point that we are here for a purpose. Our lives are to make a difference in the world like salt does to food.

In Jesus' time, salt was a very valuable possession. In fact, history records that, at times, Roman soldiers might receive their pay in salt. To be 'worth one's salt' is to be worth one's pay. Our word salary derives from the Latin word for salt. So, just as salt is valuable and precious, so are the lives for which Jesus died.

To be worth your salt means to be worth what you are being paid. Are you worth your salt? Or maybe think about it this way; “Are you worth what has been paid for you?” As believers knowing that our life has been bought and paid for through the bloody, painful death of Jesus, are we living a life that is thankful and worthy of the price that has been paid?

Maybe today, maybe every day when you see a saltshaker, you can pause just a moment and let this phrase sink in; “Worth your salt? Today, let me live a life that is worth it.”

Reflective Questions

1. What can I do today to be “worth my salt?” for Jesus?
2. Have I reflected today on the cost Jesus willingly paid for me?”
3. How can I talk about what Jesus has done for me with someone today?

Memory Verse

You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. Matthew 5:13 (NKJV)

Prayer

Dear God, thank you for dying on the cross for me. I know that I am not worth that cost. All I can do is say thank you. Help me to live every day in a way that is thankful and worthy of the price that was paid. Remind me every time I see a saltshaker to ask myself, “Am I worth my salt?”

Related Scriptures

Mark 9:50; Luke 14:34; Hebrews 10:29; Colossians 4:6