SUGARLESS SYRUP
Father, thank You for bringing me to this place and this time today. I ask You to speak to me right now, and to let Your Word breathe life into my heart. Please use these next few moments to bring me to more of a fullness of You and to learn more of Your Glory and how to leave the footprints of Jesus everywhere I go today. In Jesus Name I pray. Amen!
Read Matthew 5:13
Several years ago I was a sponsor at a conference for one of my friend’s youth groups. After the Friday night session we went to a local Waffle House to eat before going back to the hotel. As we were sitting around talking I looked over and saw a bottle of syrup that said Sugarless Syrup. I have to tell you, I was a little freaked out by this. Still am unnerved by this idea of sugar free syrup to be honest. I mean what is it? I just grabbed a bottle of normal syrup from the pantry and here are the ingredients: sugar syrup, corn syrup, artificial maple flavor, salt, caramel color, and potassium sorbate (a preservative), so syrup has sugar, flavoring, coloring and preservative. It is really sugar in its purest form, so I am not sure what sugarless syrup is and do not wish to find out.
Now this bottle of strange artificial syrup may have been an unsettling sight for me, but it in no way compares to the anxiousness created by Jesus’ warning at the end of this verse. Jesus says that salt that loses its essence is worthless and only good to be thrown underfoot. The past few days we have looked at several aspects of salt, it makes people thirsty, it flavors, it preserves, it is valuable (the word salary has its roots in salt), it can be used in healing wounds, in fact salt, as we discovered yesterday, is said to have over 14000 different uses. It is multifunctional and essential. Yet with all these potential applications Jesus says we must maintain the saltiness or it is all for naught. I think we should take this warning seriously and avoid its repercussions at all costs.
Some might read this warning and see that Jesus is saying it is possible to fall away from Him and so to somehow lose our salvation. I, however, do not think so. Salt cannot lose its saltiness just by mixing with other things. Salt poured into water retains all the properties of salt and does not become something new. Salt poured onto French fries is still salt. It takes a violent chemical reaction triggered by combustion to alter the chemical makeup of salt. Since I believe that Jesus teaches that once we truly believe in Him we cannot lose that salvation, I do not think there is a force with enough power to separate us from Him. However an initial and understandable reaction to this warning might be to pull back and only hang out with other salt. It is going to be hard to lose the saltiness while stuck deep down in the salt shaker right? But maybe that is just where we might lose our saltiness. Salt really has no impact on other salt. So for us to fulfill any of the purposes of salt we have to escape the homogenic setting and get out into the world. Today leave His footprints by getting out of the salt shaker and onto the plate. Maintain your saltiness by putting it to use, otherwise you are going to lose it, and well that is costly.
Leave His footprints as you walk today!
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