Hi, my message for today is learning we have a special characteristic to transform our lives.
Recently I was up early in the morning. I walked outside to get our newspaper. I hurried as it was a cold morning, and I don’t like cold at all. So I was quick and purposeful as I stepped outside and into an environment that I don’t like. Then it came to me. God doesn’t want me or you to walk into any situation and to simply allow the effects of that situation to change us. He made us to be life-changers so that we rule the circumstances of life that would want to rule us. Now, we often speak of how the challenges of life, how difficult circumstances, and how the way we react and respond to tough things can all be used to make us better. This is true, and this is all well and good. But this is not enough for God. He asks a little more of us.
This little experience with the cold weather helped me to see how selfish I might have been in some situations when I simply endured. I had it within me to make things better! You see, I have a problem: I don’t like doing things I don’t like to do. But now I see that often God has more. God desires better for us than what we desire for ourselves, especially when our desires are for what we do not want to do. He wants us to realize what we can and should be doing is to make life better for others just because we are here and living today. The scripture speaks to this special characteristic of who we are in the Matthew 5:13. It says, “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses if flavor, how will it be salty again?” Just like sunshine, rain, light, good, and love, salt is one of those things that has no purpose for itself; it is only here to make things better for you and me. Everywhere we look, we can see the effect and impact left behind on people and in the earth by these things. They are not limited by the circumstances they encounter; they bring change to their circumstances. Every time the sun shines it leaves a bit of its warmth behind. Every time it rains it leaves a bit of its life-giving nutrients behind. And wherever love abounds, the Lord is there in all His glory. And salt helps to bring out the best in things.
So, it came to me that perhaps God would much rather that we impact our circumstances with our good rather than to simply work through our circumstances until we can get on to something else. Being salt is part of the good needed to make things better for others. Salt is a preservative for things of value we want to preserve; it is a healing remedy when there is a sickness about us; it helps to release the full flavor of something we love. Salt is used to change the circumstances of many things that would otherwise die without it. Salt is made better and shows its best when it is used right where it is to change the things it touches. If salt is not used, it will be of no real value and it will die.
So, you are the salt of the earth; you are the thing that can be poured into the lives of others to make them better. You can soften a hard life, you can heal a wounded spirit, you can lift a fallen soul, and you can bring joy to the most unloved person. Being salt will teach you how to focus on others more than yourself; it will teach you how to treat others in a healthy way; it will teach you how to give even when you don’t believe you have much to give. As much as we say, “Look at what the Lord has brought me through,” being salt will help us learn to say with gladness, “Look at the good I can do right here where the Lord brought me to be.” Live a Delivered Life. Love you.
Live Delivered 