Salt-Giver

“So then any of you who does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:33 [AMP])

In Luke 14:26-33, Luke wrote of Jesus speaking to the crowd who followed Him. Jesus spoke about what a person must do to be His disciple. The things Jesus said a disciple must do sound harsh-hate your mother, father, wife, husband, children, and yourself (vs. 26-27). When one looks at the original text, the intention is that you love Jesus more than these. Put your relationship and devotion to these people in your life lower than your devoted love to Jesus. Jesus said His followers must persevere, carry his or her own cross, and follow Him. He spoke to the heart of people in this part of His teaching.

These sound like difficult, negative things. How can Jesus speak about hating people when He loved humanity enough to die for it?

In verses twenty-eight through twenty-nine, Jesus said a follower who doesn’t count the cost of following Him is like a man who began to build a farm building but ran out of funds. He said people would mock and ridicule this man for not counting his cost well enough to see if he had the funds to pay for the building (Luke 14:29-30). Jesus spoke to the pride, the emotions, of a person in this part of His teaching.

This, too, sounds difficult. No one wants people to ridicule or laugh at them. So many people considered Jesus to be a cult leader and when He died, the people would point fingers at His followers and laugh at them for being gullible. How could Jesus stand up to this ridicule Himself as He faced religious leaders and others wherever He went?

In Luke 14:31-33, Jesus used the idea of one king confronting another in battle. He said His followers need to count the cost by preparing and understanding they and their personal resources are less than God’s. One king realized he had half the soldiers the other king did. When this realization came upon him, he sent an envoy to seek the terms of peace. A person’s resources end at death. God’s resources continue throughout eternity. If a person begins to follow Jesus but not with his or her whole being, then he or she wasn’t a true believer at all. That person’s resources will end; whereas, if the person was a true believer, he or she would have had access to the greater King’s resources and would have gained righteousness and eternal life. Jesus spoke to the mind and spirit of a person with this part of His teaching.

A follower of Jesus is not just one who physically follows today and tomorrow, but next week has another leader or another plan. A follower of Jesus is one who counts the cost, the cost of loving Jesus more than anyone or anything one has whether family, self (heart, soul, mind, and body), or possessions. Jesus compared the fickle follower to unsalty salt. Salt keeps its flavor when undiluted. Comparatively, followers of Jesus continue to follow Him when they do not seek to add other things to their lives and so dilute the teachings of Jesus and their devotion to Him. Jesus said to these people, “Salt is good, but if salt has become tasteless (bland and flat), with what will it be seasoned?” (vs. 34 [AMP]) If salt has lost its strength and become flat, how will its saltness be restored?

Being a follower of Jesus requires a commitment of heart, soul, mind, and strength. It’s not just a physical (bodily) following of Him by going to church on Christmas and Easter, or for those who are more “religious”, every Sunday morning. It’s a daily devoted following of Jesus by going to your quiet place, giving your heart to God each day, humbling yourself by recognizing your feebleness and sinfulness, supplicating for forgiveness, and recognizing who God is, His greatness. It is a moment-by-moment seeking God’s will and plan for each event that happens in your days and years. This is loving God with your whole being-heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30).

Jesus taught in the Sermon on the mount, “First and most importantly seek, aim for, and strive after His [God’s] kingdom and His righteousness [His way of doing and being right], and all these things will be given to you also.” (Matthew 6:33 [AMP]) When we seek His kingdom and His righteousness, we seek God and His attitude and character. We are enabled to love Jesus more than our family members. We’ve counted the cost and know we are unable to finish the task, but the Master has all the resources we need to finish the building. We recognize our finiteness in time, power, and strength and recognize God’s omnipotence (power). With God’s strength, we can do anything. We can continue walking in the ways of Jesus. We continue to think of honorable and right things. We have pride in Jesus and not ourselves-who we are and what we can do. We recognize the greatness of the salvation Jesus gave us and don’t take it for granted. Jesus paid the ultimate price-His life.

With this understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, devotedly loving Him with our heart, soul, mind, and strength more than ourselves, our family and friends, and our things, we can persevere resolutely, carry our cross determinedly, and follow Jesus persistently. With this mindset, we can join Joshua and say as he did in Joshua 24:15,

“If it is unacceptable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the river or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live, but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” [italics added for emphasis, AMP]

Lord, I find myself wanting to falter in following You. I come to a point to make a decision and I want to take the easy way. Often that means not following You. Please forgive me for my laziness and disobedience. Forgive me of making myself my own god. After each time I choose my own way, I realize my sinfulness and insufficiency then I remember Your righteousness and greatness. Lord, I do not deserve Your love and forgiveness and I am humbled each time You give these to me. You are so much greater than I could ever think or imagine myself to be. You are almighty and awesome, and I am feeble and disappointing. Thank you for Your forgiveness. Thank you for your devoted love. Thank you for continuing to call me to follow You and for your strength and resources to do that. I renew my commitment to follow You with the strength of Your power. I commit to take up my cross, forsaking all I have and all I love, to follow You. Amen.

Salted and Best

“Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.” Mark 9:50b [ESV]

In Matthew 5:27-30 and Mark 9:42-50, Jesus taught His disciples a lesson about intentions and actions. He made the point in the Matthew passage that a person’s thoughts, their intentions, can be as sinful as the sinful act or word. In Matthew 5, Jesus prefaced it with a teaching about adultery and so people often equate the teaching about the eye and hand to adulterous sins. When they do that, they miss the lesson. In these passages, Jesus taught about all sins. He did not intend we denote sexual sins as the greatest sins and so hold our “small” sins as not a big deal. That was not Jesus’ intention with this teaching in both Matthew and Mark.

In Matthew, Jesus made this point very obvious with His Beatitudes. Each of these eight verses of Matthew 5:3-10 speak about a person’s internal life, their emotions, attitudes, and intentions. A follower of Jesus is a follower internally first, then externally with actions and words. For, as Jesus said in Matthew 15:11, “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles the person.” [ESV] Paul made a similar distinction when he said in Romans 10:9 that people must confess with their lips Jesus is Lord and believe in their hearts God raised Him from the dead to be saved. Internal action, belief, goes along with external action, confession. With Matthew 5:20, Jesus further pointed to the internal motivations of a person when He said, “I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” [ESV] The scribes and Pharisees thought righteousness came from actions. With verse twenty-two, Jesus again highlighted that a person’s internal motivations/intentions are what God will judge. He said in this verse, “Anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.” [ESV] Each of these teachings come before Jesus’ teaching about removing an eye (seeing) and hand (doing) to keep one from sinning.

Before his writing about this lesson from Jesus about the hand, eye, and foot, Mark told of Peter, James, and John witnessing Jesus’ transfiguration and talking with Moses and Elijah in Mark 9:2-13. It terrified the three disciples. Peter babbled about setting up three tents for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, then a voice from a cloud, God’s voice, told them to listen to Jesus. In essence, don’t make plans, but seek the Lord and His purposes and will. Possibly the intentions of Peter to erect three tents was solely for honor of the three men, or maybe he meant he, James, and John were more highly regarded and so felt they should establish themselves by establishing these three tents. Next in this chapter, Mark relayed Jesus healed a boy with an unclean spirit (Mark 9:14-29). The boy’s father asked the disciples to heal him and they couldn’t. They asked Jesus why they could not heal the boy, and Jesus said this healing can only happen with prayer. Were the disciples unable to heal the boy because of an oral action or because of their internal action, little belief? Were they seeking the fame? Jesus spoke about a faithless generation in reference to the disciples being unable to cast out the evil spirit from the boy in verse nineteen. In Mark 9:30-32, Jesus foretold His death and resurrection again and His disciples misunderstood. Was it because they did not believe because they knew people cannot live again after dying? Jesus spoke again about faith, and internal action. In Mark 9:33:37, the disciples were concerned about their status in importance. Who was the most important of Jesus’ followers? Their intentions caused their argument. In Mark 9:38-41, John told Jesus a man was casting out demons in Jesus’ name and he and other disciples tried to stop him because he was not following them. Again, they were seeking fame and greatness among people. Jesus told them if a person is not against Him and them, he is for Him and them. Each of these segments of Mark 9 show us Jesus was teaching the disciples about internal motivations-intentions-and how they can be sinful. Actions and words are not the only ways for sin to occur. Intentions, attitudes, and thoughts can cause a person to sin, too.

What is the lesson Matthew and Mark tell us Jesus taught? Paraphrasing, if your hand, foot, or eye causes another person (be they a child or one less mature in the faith) to stumble in their faith or fall away from faith in Jesus Christ, then remove it. This sounds harsh. Consider some of the passages that preceded Matthew 5:28 and Mark 9:43. If the disciples had convinced the man who cast out demons to follow them, he would have had no power to heal people from demon possession. If one disciple was greater than another in status, only people who followed that one disciple would be right, and it would take away preeminent stature from Jesus. Only by and through Jesus can people be saved. If a disciple had this status, fewer people would be saved. If people could be angry and still worship God, then no necessity would exist for Jesus to bring righteousness. It would mean a wall could exist, a wall of hate. It would be contrary to the Law and mean God would be pleased without sacrifices and heart worship. Finally, with the Pharisees form of righteousness through the Law, the Law would not be fulfilled, people would not be cleansed from sin, and they would be unable to know Yahweh God, the eternal One.  

Understanding this, what did Jesus mean by cutting off a hand or foot or gouging out an eye? Did He mean for us literally to do this? Considering the laws of the nations at that time, such as a thief had his hand removed as a punishment for stealing, stating the lesson this way made sense to the people. Jesus meant whatever causes you to sin in action, word, or thought (intentions, motivations, and attitudes), cast it away from you. Remove it from your life. For one person, being near money makes him or her want to steal it, then don’t work with money. Don’t be a bookkeeper, cashier, or other financial worker. For another person, if talking about other people is a problem for you, when someone begins to talk about someone else, excuse yourself from that conversation or relationship. If that person regularly slanders, backstabs, lies about, or tells gossip about another person, separate yourself from that person entirely. If being with a homeless person makes you prideful that you are “better than them,” then identify at where your pride lies in your life and remove that thing or position or give it to needy people. If you think you know better, have a better education, or your way is always the best, consider Who gave you the gifts to allow you to study, to learn, and to be a more informed and wiser decision-maker. Each gift God gives a person, unless given back to Him daily in recognition of from where it came and for what purpose He wants you to use it, can be used for something less than God intended just like a hand, eye, and foot are good. God, when He created humans, said it was very good. That means hands, feet, and eyes are very good. Yet, if we use any part of ourselves-heart, mind, spirit, and body-separate from God’s purposes and plans, they are not being used for God’s best. Each part of our being, as created by God, is good. All God gives us is good. How we use them and for Whom is what determines if it is merely good, or best. God’s plans and purposes are always best.

Consider this, if God gives a gift of being an exceptional organizer, being efficient, and understanding things quicker than others, that doesn’t mean every plan of that person’s is the best plan. God can use other people also to be organizers, efficient, and wise. Also, if that person to whom God gave these gifts does not submit his or her day and plans to God at the beginning of the day, the plans of that person may not be God’s plans; they may not be the best plans. Just because a person is gifted in a particular area, does not mean what that person says or does is always the best. Each day, each person must submit to God everything He has given to him or her. We must give back to God each gift He gives us-care, love, faith, mercy, humility, home, job, education, car, wisdom, understanding, organization, counting, medicine, teaching, preaching, medical, healing, etc. All gifts from God can be used merely for good by us, or they can be used for the best by God when we submit them back to His purposes each day.

Of what good is salt, if it has lost its saltiness? What good are God’s gifts if they aren’t used by and for Him? (Matthew 5:13)

“Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” (Philippians 3:7a [ESV])

Lord, I get so caught up in my everyday life, I forget to come to You at the beginning of each day. I forget to give to You all You have given to me. Please forgive me for running headlong into the day without You. Forgive me for considering myself able to take care of everything and forgetting about You. It’s not that I don’t believe in You, but that I don’t give You high enough priority in my life. Without You, I am nothing; I have no existence. Forgive me, Lord. Lead me, Lord, to desire You above all else. Lead me to seek You first. Make my every breath and every heartbeat draw me closer to You, the source of my life, strength, and salvation. Thank you for saving me. Thank you for Your patience, mercy, compassion, and grace. I do not deserve You or Your goodness. You are almighty and all-knowing. Amen.

Glory: What is it and to Whom? - A Matthew 5:13-16 Devotional

¹³“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. ¹⁴You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; ¹⁵nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. ¹⁶Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

This passage caught my attention yesterday. I have read it many times and heard sermons throughout my life upon it. This time, though, a part of it struck a new chord with me. Perhaps that new chord came because of the studies I have done on the book of Deuteronomy.

In Deuteronomy, Moses told the Israelites several times the LORD chose them as His people because He loved them (Deut 7:6-8, 10:15). He said other nations would call the Israelites wise and understanding (Deut 4:5-7). They were called wise and understanding if they kept the LORD’s statutes. With the LORD’s actions for the Israelites, other nations feared the Israelites and began to consider Yahweh God more powerful than their man-made gods (Deut 28:9-10). The Queen of Sheba visited King Solomon and after staying with him, she declared, “Blessed be the LORD your God.” (1 Kings 10:9 [NASB])

In the Matthew passage of today’s study, Jesus said the people of Israel were a light to the world and a city set on a hill. Geographically, the temple of God resided upon the highest hill in Judah’s territory within Jerusalem, also called Zion. Yet the problem became that the Jews did not lead people to want to know and follow God. Their light did not burn bright like a beacon. The Jews had the geographical advantage of being a beacon. They, too, had the spiritual advantage in that God chose them to receive His love and to share about Him to the neighboring people. Instead, they absorbed beliefs and lifestyles of their neighbors, which meant the light of God did not shine as brightly and did not draw as many people to Him.

Jesus applied this to his followers in this Sermon on the Mount, too. He told His disciples and other believers to be the salt and light to the world. Keep growing and applying the Word and love of God to the world as they lived. Keep shining brightly the love God put in them when they became believers. Geography is not the factor because no matter where a believer lives God’s light, the Gospel, can shine from a person in their words, actions, and attitudes.

The most important part of this verse, though, the part that captured my attention is at the end of verse sixteen. Jesus said in this verse, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Jesus did not mean we are to do good works to gain praise for ourselves. Rather, we do good works out of the promptings of the Holy Spirit who lives in each believer, because of God. Our works should reflect God’s love and the glory for the good works, words, and attitudes should reflect back onto God and give Him the glory.

What is “giving glory” or “glorifying the Father?” The word “glorify” comes from the Greek word doxazo and means to cause glory – to cause recognition, honor, acclaim, and reverence to go to God[1]. When a believer in Jesus Christ says or does a loving and good thing, the glory should reflect back to God, to His honor. When we do this, we and other people recognize God’s majesty and righteousness and give Him the glory.

When believers let the light that is in them shine to the world around them, they show God’s love for the world. Christians can shine through kind, gentle, compassionate, and loving words and actions. The purpose for is to show God’s love as modeled by Jesus Christ. When people respond with gratitude and praise, believers have two options, to reflect the glory to God or to keep it to one’s self. The first is what Jesus taught His followers. To do the latter makes a person’s pride build and shows self-reliance instead of reliance upon God. It builds up a person’s ego and leads the person to forget the Lord and walk in his or her own way – to walk away from God.

We must understand the love and good deeds or words that came from that love came from God, what He imparted into us through the Holy Spirit of Jesus. No good deed comes from our selves, but from the Spirit as a gift. When we begin to accept and keep the glory we should reflect to God, we begin to consider ourselves as the ones who gave the gift of loving actions or words. We negate the effect of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Jesus did not teach this. He taught His followers their good deeds, words, and attitudes came from the Father and glory was due back to Him for His grace and love. Jesus meant this above in verse sixteen. We do good deeds, speak kind words, and live with good attitudes – each coming from purity, which humans are not – out of love for the Lord. We obey the promptings of His Holy Spirit out of obedience and with the resources He supplies into our hearts and hands.

Rightness and love do not come from human nature because people are sinful. Paul said everyone is sinful and fallen short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23). God is the one who forgives the sin of humankind upon each person’s faith in Jesus Christ because of His love and mercy (Romans 6:23). Only by God’s grace do we have love and the other gifts of the Spirit within each believer. So, any praise and honor we receive for good and kind works and words should reflect back to God. He empowers us to do these things through His Holy Spirit. Only God is due the glory!

Today we must decide, as we must every day, if we will give all glory back to God. We can be the living witness for God just as He wanted the Israelites to be and as Jesus called His followers to be in Matthew 28:18-20. Each of us makes this decision for ourselves.

Each day, when you awake, make the decision and pray for the strength to reflect the glory back to God.

Give Him the recognition, praise, honor, and reverence He is due.

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[1] Walter Elwell. “Evangelical Dictionary of Theology,” Baker Academic Publisher: Grand Rapids, 2001.