This year, we're going to do the COV devotions a bit different. I'll be posting a weekly devotion and sharing thoughts on a specific passage of scripture that relates to the message from Sunday. I'll also post a daily reading schedule for you to go through so as to keep you on track to be in the WORD every day during 2011.I will also post a question for each days reading to get you to think through the personal application of God's Word to your life.
MATTHEW 5:13-16
"You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again? It is good for nothing anymore, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do men light a lamp, and put it under the peck-measure, but on the lampstand; and it gives light to all who are in the house. 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."
In these four verses the Lord summarizes the function of believers in the world. Reduced to one word, that function is influence. Whoever lives according to the Beatitudes is going to function in the world as salt and light. Christian character consciously or unconsciously affects other people for better or for worse. As John Donne reminds us, “No man is an island.”
An ancient Greek myth tells of a goddess who came to earth unseen but whose presence was always known by the blessings she left behind in her pathway. Trees burned by forest fires sprouted new leaves, and violets sprang up in her footprints. As she passed a stagnant pool its water became fresh, and parched fields turned green as she walked through them.
Hills and valleys blossomed with new life and beauty wherever she went. Another Greek story tells of a princess sent as a present to a king. She was as beautiful as Aphrodite and her breath was as sweet as perfume. But she carried with her the contagion of death and decay. From infancy she had fed on nothing but poison and became so permeated with it that she poisoned the very atmosphere around her. Her breath would kill a swarm of insects; she would pick a flower and it would wither. A bird flying too close would fall dead at her feet.
Andrew Murray lived an exceptionally holy life. Among those on whom his influence was the greatest were his children and grandchildren. Five of his six sons became ministers of the gospel and four of his daughters became minister’s wives. Ten grandsons became ministers and thirteen grandchildren became missionaries.
Woodrow Wilson told the story of being in a barbershop one time.
“I was sitting in a barber chair when I became aware that a powerful personality had entered the room. A man had come quietly in upon the same errand as myself to have his hair cut and sat in the chair next to me. Every word the man uttered, though it was not in the least didactic, showed a personal interest in the man who was serving him. And before I got through with what was being done to me I was aware I had attended an evangelistic service, because Mr, D. L. Moody was in that chair. I purposely lingered in the room after he had left and noted the singular affect that his visit had brought upon the barber shop. They talked in undertones. They did not know his name, but they knew something had elevated their thoughts, and I felt that I left that place as I should have left a place of worship.”
Many years ago Elihu Burrit wrote, “No human being can come into this world without increasing or diminishing the sum total of human happiness, not only of the present but of every subsequent age of humanity. No one can detach himself from this connection. There in no sequestered spot in the universe, no dark niche along the disc of nonexistence to which he can retreat from his relations with others, where he can withdraw the influence of his existence upon the moral destiny of the world. Everywhere his presence or absence will be felt. Everywhere he will have companions who will be better or worse because of him. It is an old saying, and one of the fearful and fathomless statements of import, that we are forming characters for eternity. Forming characters? Whose? Our own or others? Both.
And in that momentous fact lies the peril and responsibility of our existence. Who is sufficient for the thought? Thousands of my fellow beings will yearly enter eternity with characters differing from those they would have carried thither had I never lived. The sunlight of that world will reveal my finger marks in their primary formations and in their successive strata of thought and life.”
In Matthew 5:13–16 Jesus talks about the influence of His people on the world for God and for good. In His high priestly prayer from John 17, Jesus said to His Father, “I do not ask Thee to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world … As Thou didst send Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world”.
1 John 2:15 says,, “Do not love the world, nor the things in the world”. Christians are not to reflect the world but they are to influence the world; they are to be in it but not of it.
When we live the life of the Beatitudes some people will respond favorably and be saved, whereas others will ridicule and persecute us. In the words of Paul from 2 Corinthians 2:14-16, we will manifest “the sweet aroma of the knowledge of [Christ] in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life”.
In either case our lives have profound effects, and even persecution is not to alter our function in the world. 1 Peter 2:9 tells us that "we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that [we] may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called [us] out of darkness into His marvelous light”.
Though Jesus was speaking before a great multitude of people on the hillside, His teaching about kingdom life was primarily for His disciples, for those who believed in Him. His concern was for the all of the multitude, and in hearing His teaching on godly living many of them may have been drawn to faith. But the principles He teaches here are appropriate only for believers, for they are impossible to follow apart from the power of God’s own Spirit.
Here in this passage, these words spoken by our Lord on this country hillside,is a mandate for Christians to influence the world. The Beatitudes are not to be lived in isolation or only among fellow believers, but everywhere we go. God’s only witnesses to this world are His children, and the world has no other way of knowing of Him except through the testimony of what we are.
The figures of salt and light emphasize different characteristics of influence, but their basic purpose is the same. They will both be studied from the aspects of the presupposition of the world’s corruption and darkness, the plan for believers’ godly dominion in the world, the problem of the danger of failure, and the purpose of glorifying God.
This week, let your light shine. Influence your world for Christ. I love you guys. Stay faithful. Stay the course. ENDURE!
January 2, 2011: Matthew 9:35-38. Will you be on God's workers?
January 3, 2011: Acts 1:1-8. Where are we commanded to be witnesses?
January 4, 2011: Ezekiel 3:16-27. What are we to warn people about?
January 5, 2011: 1 Corinthians 9:16-23. What is our mission as follwers of Christ?
January 6, 2011: Romans 10:9-15. How are people saved?
January 7, 2011: 2 Peter 3:8-13. How does God view those who don't know Him?
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