Salt of the Earth: Pray for Truth Road Trip -- Part 6

Jared doing the driving

We're nearly through Luke.  Jared and I are going through the New Testament between America's coasts in the next seven days.  We left our friends Matthew and Mark back in Massachusetts.  Doctor Luke is giving us his consultation as we make our way across New York.  Next comes one of my favorites, John.

Jesus sat down with a crowd one day.  He taught them about His kingdom.  He told them that they needed to think of themselves as salt.  He said, "Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth."

When you put salt on a wound there is pain.  America is badly wounded.  When Christians speak and live the gospel of Jesus Christ, there is pain.  We should expect difficulty.

Jesus said previously to this same group, "You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world."

We cannot begin to develop saltiness unless we choose to put our heart and mind right.

Dr. Wilson Hickam at home

Paul discusses this in Romans, "So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."

My mentor, Dr. Wilson Hickam, has worked at this for a lifetime.  Two days ago, when I was talking with him in the wee hours of the morning in his livingroom, I snapped an image of him that I will treasure.  The image shows him thinking, not fitting in.  We mused together about not fitting in.

Jesus concluded, "If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness?"