The World Doesn't Have Enough Salt in Its Diet
If Christ had stayed in Heaven, what good would that have done? Praise Him! He left Heaven and came to earth to pour Himself out on us. Likewise, if we, as Christians—which means “Christ ones”—stay in the church and spend all our time with fellow Christians, what good does that do?
Christians in a church are the same as salt in the cupboard. We must go out into the world. We must be where the lost are and involve ourselves in their lives.
Dennis Kinlaw, an Asbury Seminary professor, tells a story about growing up in rural North Carolina during the depression. It was Dennis’ job, as a young boy, to rub salt into the meat his father brought home from hunting. He would rub salt into the meat until his young muscles ached. Finally, when it was thoroughly salted, he would hang it up in the storehouse.
One day company arrived, so Dennis’ mother asked him to get some pork out of the storehouse. Dennis ran out, got a piece of pork off of a hook, and brought it into the kitchen. After he laid it on his mother‘s cutting board, he was shooed out of the room. The boy was just about out the front door when heard his mother yell, “Dennis!”
Young Dennis knew from experience that whenever his mother screamed his name like that he was in trouble, so he slunk his way to the kitchen and stood in the doorway afraid to go in.
Looking up at his mother from the doorway, he noticed she was not glaring at him but rather staring down at the meat.
Dennis quickly dropped his gaze and noticed something unusual. He would say that it was the first time in his life he ever saw meat move. Stepping closer, he noticed maggots pouring out of the slice his mother had made into the pork.
Dennis thought for sure he was going to get it. But all Mom said was, “Not enough salt, Dennis. Not enough salt.”
Now our tendency is to want to blame Hollywood, or liberal schooling, or TV, for the decay of our culture. But maybe, just maybe, the real problem is “not enough salt.”
As Christians, when we enter a culture and involve ourselves in the lives of those around us, we should naturally create a thirst for the things of God. If that’s the case, we should be asking ourselves: How thirsty for the things of God am I making the lost in my community?
If we feel the world is decaying around us, the problem may very well be “not enough salt.”
Ask yourself, "Am I making sure the people around me have enough salt in their diet?"
