Col 4:6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.
What is it about salt? And how do I season speech with it? Gracious speech is sweet, yet Paul says to season it with salt.
A friend of mine makes this interesting breakfast of quinoa grain mixed with some oatmeal, coconut oil, dried fruit and nuts with some date honey to sweeten it. Then..might seem strange, he adds salt. Salt brings his healthy breakfast to a new level of flavor. Salt carries all the other flavors to a new level of palatability. It brings a wonderful balance to the sweet porridge.
Take out the salt in any recipe and there’s something vital missing. What is it about salt? By itself, salt doesn’t taste so great. It’s too strong. Yet add it to the recipe and its power becomes the very thing which brings life to the food.
I think salt is that element of God’s truth that enhances, preserves and strengthens us. Speech seasoned with salt will encourage or warn, it will impart life and prevent decay from setting in, or stop it in its tracks. Stopping decay is reversing a fundamental element of the Fall. Salt is vital to life and salted speech is too.
Believers need to be “salty” in a world that is falling apart from the suffusion of sin and decay.
Our message is sweet. God forgives, He loves, He brings eternal life. Yet these wonderful truths exist in an awful context of death and decay which we must not ignore by only speaking graciously. We must add salt.
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]Yeshua (Jesus) is described as the “image of the invisible God” [; ], that is, God, manifesting Himself in a visible, tangible form, a human form in whom dwells all the fullness of Deity [; ; ], equal with God before Creation [; ], but choosing to be emptied of His glory for the purpose of incarnating as a flesh and blood human being on Earth; [].
Among the mighty men of David were those of the tribe of Issachar whose special gift was their understanding of the times, a gift of prophetic insight; and this was such a precious gift because included in their discernment was the ability to know how to apply it. In our time prophecy is everywhere. Yeshua (Jesus) warned us that there would be false prophets in the last days, especially approaching His second coming, and He said the prophecy would be so subtle and the false signs so powerful that even the elect might be deceived if that were possible; [Mt. 24:24] While it’s clear to many of us that we’re living in prophetic days, there are also millions who have no clue of the current times and seasons.
Have you ever considered why Abraham was called the father of faith? Why not Enoch, who was translated from this world? Or Noah, who by faith created an ark to save mankind in the days of the flood? Abraham didn’t perform any miracles, signs, or wonders, which would qualify him by today’s standards of spiritual performance, yet he is known as the Father of Faith, simply because he trusted in the Kingdom to come.
Last week, we discussed the significance of Jerusalem in the culmination of the age. Here, we’ll continue to scratch that surface. The word “Jerusalem” is so rich with meaning that a single devotion will only begin to unpack it; there are so many etymological approaches. But most agree that the root letters at the end, שלם (shalem) spell a Hebrew word requiring numerous English words to fully comprehend including, “perfect”, “complete”, “sound”, “whole”, “harmony”, “peace”, etc. In addition, the concept of payment is present, as לשלם (leshalem), “to pay”, also suggests “reward”.
When God set apart the Seventh Day it was after He Himself had worked for six, and then rested. Shabbat is therefore, “primordial” in a real sense, something established from the beginning of time. This makes the pattern of working six days and resting on the seventh something fundamental to human existence, and something exceedingly blessed.
The expectation of the coming Kingdom of God is intimately connected with the restoration of Israel and the city of Jerusalem. The preceding passage describes Zion in labor, as once again, we find the metaphor of birth used to convey this scriptural promise. It is a national gestation which will not be aborted, but will come to fruition. But first, before this labor begins…a “male child” is born… This can be none other than Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah, Israel’s King, Himself, arriving beforehand, (on a donkey, at that), quite some time before the labor which gives birth to the nation; and causing the prophet to wonder if a nation can be born in a day.
Yesterday, we began our series of devotions focused on the birthing of the Kingdom. Continuing to develop these insights, let’s look at day 2 of creation and its focus upon water.