Be Salt
Table salt, sodium chloride, is a naturally occurring mineral essential for life. Salt is one of the most widely used and oldest forms of food seasoning. Saltiness is one of the five basic human tastes in addition to sweetness, sourness, bitterness, and umami.
Salt also plays a crucial role in maintaining human health. It is the main source of sodium and chloride ions in the human diet. Sodium is essential for nerve and muscle function, is involved in the regulation of fluids in the body, and plays a role in the body’s control of blood pressure and volume.
Chloride ions serve as important electrolytes by regulating blood pH and pressure. Electrolytes are compounds, often salts, which dissociate into their ionic components in solvents like water. Chloride is also a crucial component in the production of stomach acid. We secrete salt when sweating and need to replenish the lost ions through our diet.
All animals require some salt to survive.
We consume foods that naturally contain salt or add salt as a seasoning. However, some terrestrial animals have diets deficient in salt. These animals must seek supplemental salt sources. Farm animals such as horses and cattle require access to salt blocks. Wild mammals and birds are known to aggregate at natural mineral deposits known as salt licks where they can ingest the essential sodium and chloride minerals they need to survive.
We live in an environment that shows that the earth needs salt - not only naturally - but supernaturally, i.e. spiritually.
When we live as the salt He says we are, we will be used by Him to meet the earth's needs, just as salt has mutilfacted ways of blessing humanity and creation.
In a world that so desparately needs flavor, preservation, balance, and healing ... BE SALT!
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet" (Matthew 5:13, ESV).
The Three Generation Principle
3 generation principle
It begins in Genesis 19-35 with the story of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. There you find the story of Abraham’s conversion, Isaac’s blessings as a result of being raised in the home of Abraham, and Jacob’s deception of Isaac and his subsequent conversion at Bethel.
The next time you find the principle of The Three Generations is in Judges 2:7-10.
There was a generation (1st Generation) that saw and experienced the move of God.
Then there was a generation (2nd Generation) that saw the move of God but never experienced the move of God.
Then there was a generation (3rd Generation) that neither saw nor experienced the move of God.
- The first generation knew the Lord of the work.
- The second generation knew the work of the Lord.
- The third generation knew neither the Lord of the work or the work of the Lord.
- The first generation were strong believers.
- The second generation were weak believers.
- The third generation are unbelievers.
Be sure you pass down your faith. Every generation needs to experience God for themselves.
"These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up (Deuteronomy 6:6-7, NIV). ... "[T]hat the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments; and that they should not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God (Psalms 78:6-8, ESV).
Put A Pebble In Their Shoe
It's happens to all of us. We're walking along and suddenly become aware of a nagging little bump beneath the sole of our foot. Perhaps we're in a hurry and don't want to take the time to address it, so we try to ignore it. We're just too busy; it's not worth the effort.
Or perhaps we're not in an appropriate place or position to stop and remove our shoe to address the discomfort, so, again, we try to ignore it. We keep walking, trying to convince ourselves that it's fine, this is fine, no big deal.
But sure enough, there comes a time when we just can't ignore it any longer ... the shoe, and maybe even the sock or stocking, needs to come off so we can shake out the tiny pebble which made itself at home just beneath soft, tender pad of our foot.
Many (if not most) evangelical Christians get so nervous about witnessing to others. We fret not having all the answers, or feeling inadequate in presenting the "whole" of the Gospel message. So we shrink back and say nothing. But does this dichotomy of choices really exist? Or is there something in between?
Christian author, Greg Koukl, speaking to The Gospel Coalition, had this to say:
A wise ambassador ... weighs his opportunities and adopts an appropriate strategy for each occasion. ... Now here is my own more modest goal. I want to put a [pebble] in his shoe. All I want to do is give him something worth thinking about. I want him to hobble away on a nugget of truth he can’t simply ignore because it continues to poke at him.
Effective witness doesn't have to include a full, five point Gospel presentation. Sometimes all that's necessary is a little "nugget of truth" that nags at the unbeliever's conscience or phyche, until they simply cannot ignore it any longer. They have no choice but to "deal" with it, giving it greater consideration.
What they do with that nugget isn't our responsibility. It's entirely on them now. Will they simply remove it and toss it aside? Will they take it out and ponder how it got in there? Will it cause them to pause and consider further truth?
Remember, next time you feel intimiated to "present the Gospel" to an unbelieving relative, friend, or even stranger ... you don't have to drop a boulder on their head. You just need to drop a pebble in their shoe.
Matthew 13: 3-9 (NIV):
A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.