March 15: Matthew 5 13-16

Key Verse: Matthew 5 14
You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.

Devotion:
Have you ever bought, or had given to you a sample of different salts? I had a present given to me which was a set of different salts from around the world: blue salt, grey salt, white salt and even pink salt. Each of the salts got their colours from the surrounding elements where they are found from volcanoes to waters. But what was common amongst all of those salts? They tasted of salt! Sounds a bit silly, but what use would any of them have been if they did not taste of salt? We expect things to taste like what we know they should taste of!

If we have salt which has lost all of it’s flavour, then the only good thing left for it would be to throw it on the ground to be used to melt ice… if it even did that any more! The same can be said of lights – we expect lights to shed light in places where we need to see after dark. We know they can do that and we expect them to do so when we flick the switch on! But what use would a light be in a closed box into which we could not see?

God looks at each one of us as salty or able to shed light. The saltiness may not be what we can do by ourselves; we may need God to enable us to be the salt which people want to taste. The light is probably not going to be us because we live in a world where we are constantly surrounded by dark and where many people try to hide in that darkness – but we are that light in many cases. The light may only be a reflection of God’s light, but it will seem to come from us at times.

The people around us are going to expect us to remain tasty and remain as a light source. We may not feel like it at times, but after we have show people a bit of God through us, they will continue to expect to see God in us when they look at us. To be of real use to these people around us we need to be filled with the salt and light which comes from God in the beginning. We need to continue allowing others to take away some salt and share the light. Don’t hide away just because you think they may not like it – it may be the one thing they have been waiting for in their lives!

Points to Ponder:
Have you ever been described as salty or full of light?

Are you ready to share that salt and light?