Mark 9:50 Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
As we continue to probe the lessons from the salt covenant, we now inquire into our part in the covenant.
Yesterday, we spoke of Yeshua (Jesus) as the unique Bread of Life– and His sacrifice our only provision for justification and righteousness.
Now remember that the salt was “added” to the bread as it was broken. This added salt provides a picture of our communion with the Living Bread being joined to Him for a life of holiness and good works. Our saltiness represents the influence we carry into the world through our union with Him. This influence is expressed through the savor of our works. That savor is something He exhorts us not to lose.
The apostle Paul expresses this compound reality clearly; “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” [Ephesians 2:8-10]
Our part in the covenant relationship is to be salt to the world –to be a savor which brings the flavor of our Lord to every encounter; to be a preserving influence in a world of sin and decay; and to be sprinkled around for the gospel’s sake. May we remain good salty salt as we walk in all the good works He’s prepared for us.
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]Have you ever felt uneasy, unsettled or unstable? Or maybe a better question is — who hasn’t? How do we overcome these feelings?
Is that a trend or something? I don’t know what it is but I’ve heard that phrase said quite a bit. We were even walking down the Wal-Mart isle to pick up a few things and my wife showed me a T-shirt with “I have issues” written across the front! I guess the world is coming to the sad reality that we really do have some issues.
It never ceases to amaze me, the way the devil uses our offenses and our “offendedness” to divide and conquer marriages, relationships, churches — even entire nations!
There’s an old adage, “Have the heart of a lion!” Hearing it, we think, “courage”. This recalls a quote I once heard; “Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened”. I doubt there’s a single hero story in which the fearless leader fails to inspire the righteous determination of his army or people. The voice of the captain resounds through the ranks evoking the fierce cry of every warrior ready to face death or worse, for the cause. Courage truly is contagious.
The Hebrew word for “face” is “panim”, (the Hebrew letters, peh-nun-yud-mem), literally “faces”, a plural word. Normally, when we think about God, we focus only upon one of His “faces” at a time. God is “love” – or He is “holy”– or He is “just”— or He’s a God of “wrath”. Yet, of course, ALL these “faces” are His at once; and so the word “panim” accurately reflects the truth of God’s multifaceted being. As we get to know Him better we begin to appreciate the complexity of His nature and the fact that our focus on one “face” is a very limited view, since there’s so much more going on in His amazing “Personality”.
Patience is one of those things… so hard to learn it… so hard to practice it faithfully in our daily walk. It’s one of of those things I truly wish we didn’t have to learn — but God requires it of us! As I was reading through this passage again in Exodus, it dawned on me that Moses sat on the mountain for six entire days before the Lord spoke to him. He had to patiently wait for the Lord for six days!
The book of Isaiah, often called the Old Testament Gospel, reveals that a child was to be born and his name called “The Mighty God, and the Everlasting Father”. We know that this Child was Yeshua (Jesus) of Nazareth, that He is the unique Son of God, the express image of the invisible God. The throne of David was to be given to Him and He now holds its “key”, a symbol of the right and authority of His reign, which will be consummated when He returns to this world and restores the Kingdom to Israel [Acts 1:6-7].