Why Jesus Warned People Against Being Flavorless
Illustration;Did you hear about the clever salesman who closed hundreds of sales with this line: "Let me show you something several of your neighbors said you couldn’t afford."
Source Unknown.
Let us present Christ as one who offers something no one else can.
1. Jesus cautioned people against being "good for nothing" because He wanted them to make an impact on their communities. Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its saltiness; how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men." (Matt. 5:13)
Ask the Lord to help you have a purifying, preserving and healing effect on your community.
2. Jesus warned people against neutrality because He wanted them to stand out from the world. Jesus said, "If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you." (John 15:19)
Ask the Lord to help you stand the persecution, criticism and misunderstanding that comes from being different.
3. Jesus cautioned people against just being passive or indifferent. Jesus knew that Paul would write, "Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone." (Col. 4:6)
Ask the Lord for help to know how to flavor every conversation with edifying, instructive and encouraging ideas.
Illustration:George Gordon Liddy, Watergate conspirator recently released from prison: "I have found within myself all I need and all I ever shall need. I am a man of great faith, but my faith is in George Gordon Liddy. I have never failed me."
The Christian Century, Sept. 28, 1977, p. 836.
4. Jesus taught His disciples how to bring life to things that were formerly dull. Jesus said, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; but I have come that they may have life and have it to the full." (John 10:10)
Ask the Lord to help you bring new vigor, vitality and excitement to whatever ministries God gives you to do.
5. Jesus instructed His disciples how to make truth persuasive. Jesus said, "The Counselor will come and will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment." (John 16:8)
Ask the Lord for greater wisdom and skill in helping your ministry to have greater persuasive effects on your listeners.
6. Jesus taught His disciples how to make truth more appetizing. Jesus said, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." (John 6:35)
Ask the Lord for wisdom, knowledge and skill in allowing you to minister in a way that makes people hunger more for Christ’s goodness and truth.
7. Jesus taught His disciples how to relate to people in ways that brought healing. Jesus said, "Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ’The kingdom of God is near you.’" (Luke 10:9)
Ask the Lord to
give you a ministry of emotion, mental, social, and even physical healing through the powerful name of Jesus.
8. Jesus taught His disciples how to avoid people who lacked salty characteristics. Jesus said, "He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me." (Luke 16:16)
Ask the Lord for the ability to discerningly choose whom to associate with.
9. Jesus warned people against becoming insipid - dull, flavorless or lifeless because He knew these believers could not be distinguished from the unloving people of the world. Jesus said, "Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold." (Matt. 24:12)
Ask the Lord to help you stand out with a Christ like love, grace and witness of His truth.
10. Jesus warned people to avoid any phony righteousness. Jesus said, "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of hypocrisy and wickedness." (Matt. 23:27,28)
Ask the Lord to help you remain pure, clean and righteous in every aspect of your life and ministry.
11. Jesus warned people not to lose their saltiness through age, weariness, or apathy. Jesus said, "Some bore no fruit because of the worries, riches, pleasures, troubles or persecutions of this life." (Mark 4:17,18)
Ask the Lord to help you keep your flavorfulness through a continual renewing from the scripture, the Spirit and Godly mentors.
12. Jesus taught people how to spice up their ministries with fruitfulness. Jesus said, "If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers." (John 15:5,6)
Ask the Lord to help you bear great qualitative and quantitative fruit in all aspects of your personal and ministry activities.
13. Jesus taught people to make the ministry pleasantly exciting without being a burden. Jesus said, "Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life." (Matt. 19:29)
Ask the Lord to help you bring others into a lifestyle and ministry that is filled with a Spirit led excitement and fruitfulness for eternity.
Conclusion:Charles Francis Adams, 19th century political figure and diplomat, kept a diary. One day he entered: "Went fishing with my son today--a day wasted." His son, Brook Adams, also kept a diary, which is still in existence. On that same day, Brook Adams made this entry: "Went fishing with my father--the most wonderful day of my life!" The father thought he was wasting his time while fishing with his son, but his son saw it as an investment of time. The only way to tell the difference between wasting and investing is to know one’s ultimate purpose in life and to judge accordingly.
Silas Shotwell, in Homemade, September, 1987.
