Salty Disciples

May 12, 2015

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness… It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless.”  (Matthew 5:13 NIV/NLT)

When Jesus told His disciples that they were the salt of the earth there are several ways to interpret and apply this metaphor.  We find a clue to my favorite interpretation when we realize that the word “salary” is made up of two root words: “salt” and “money.”

Twenty centuries ago the Roman Empire wanted to control the population of the world.  They knew that no human being can live without salt. So, they controlled the salt of the world. They actually paid their slaves in cubes of salt.  This is where we get the expression that a person is ‘not worth his or her salt.’

This means Jesus taught that secular people do not have life.  His disciples have life and they are the way the secular people of this world can find that life.

Years ago a missionary statesman said when missionaries live in a compound in a foreign country with a fortress mentality they are like manure: they stink!  It’s only when God spreads them around that they do a little good.  Similarly, when the followers of Jesus meet together they are like salt in a saltshaker.  The only way they can have a salty influence is to come out of the saltshaker.

One way our Lord brings us out of the saltshaker is where we make a living.  Be challenged by the reality that your workplace can be God’s way of placing you next to secular people who need life.  Realize that you are not only there to make a living…

You are there because they need the salty impact of your life.   

Dick Woodward, (21 March 2012)

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Letting the Light shine

March 20, 2015

“…  I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.”   (John 9:39)

Jesus claimed that He is the light of the world.  He also commissioned His followers with the exhortation that we are the light of the world.  From the verses above we learn that the light of which our Lord speaks is a very strange quality of light.  It makes it possible for those who are blind to see and it reveals the blindness of those who think they see.

When I was a child I lived near coal mines.  One day a terrible explosion rocked a coal mine where 20 miners were trapped and isolated for three days in a small pocket of that mine.  When they were rescued there was great jubilation and celebration among the rescued miners and those who had broken through to them.  The celebration grew quiet when one of the rescued miners asked the question: “Why didn’t you guys bring any lights?” The rescuers had actually brought many lights.  The miner who asked the question had been blinded by the flash when the explosion happened.  He had been blind for three days, but in the pitch black darkness of the mine he didn’t know he was blind until the light came.

The light that Jesus is – and the light He tells us that we are – has that purpose and function.  It reveals the spiritual blindness of those who think they see and it gives sight to those who know they are spiritually blind.  Jesus told us we are that light.  Are you willing to let the light of Jesus shine through you?

Dick Woodward, 21 May 2010

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The Best Kept Secret of Spiritual Power

January 31, 2014

“…He gives power to the weak…” (Isaiah 40:29)

There are many ways to be powerful.  We can be physically powerful, intellectually powerful, or we can be spiritually powerful like the prophet who speaks for God with the energizing anointing of the Holy Spirit upon his words.  Often preachers seek out those who preach with great spiritual power trying to discover their secret.  Their pursuit of spiritual power is often accompanied by a frantic attempt to strengthen their own spiritual life.

As one of the most spiritually powerful people who ever lived, the Apostle Paul shared the best kept secret of spiritual power when he wrote: “When I am weak then I am strong.”  (2 Corinthians 12:10) He preceded that by claiming God told him:“My strength is made perfect in (your) weakness.” It is in this context that Paul told the Corinthian Church he was with them in great weakness.  He also challenged them to take a good look at their church because if they did they would realize: “God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty…” (1Corinthians 1:27)

Jesus taught that the first attitude we need to be salt and light is to be poor in spirit.  This means among other things that we are in touch with our spiritual weakness.  After we realize that we can’t do the work of God in our own power and offer ourselves as a conduit of what God wants to be and do through us, then God gives spiritual power to us in our weakness.

God gives power to the weak. We don’t find spiritual power by trying to make ourselves strong, but by confessing and accepting our weakness.

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Posted by Dick Woodward