I've just been thinking a lot about the church and Christians in general... Especially, from a North American viewpoint... And even more so, from a Quebecois viewpoint, where we have possibly the smallest population of Christian in the west.
Some of my frustrations with other Christians is how we do NOT portray the love of Christ, and GOD's values and virtues to our world and communities. I'm sorry if I offend you, but we do such a crappy job of showing our world how awesome it is to be a child of GOD and to be Christian... In general... I know there are some really awesome examples in our world.
We're often viewed as dimwitted (George W. Bush?), close-minded, right-leaning, conservative, gun-toting psychos. Or, depressed, unhappy, "poverty"-stricken, boring rejects.
I don't know about you, but the Scriptures do not paint this kind of picture for our lives.
I'm reading a book entitled, "Being the Body," by Chuck Colson, founder and chairman of Breakpoint online and founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, and Ellen Vaughn. I'm not here to review it or recommend it or anything like that. BUT, Chuck does make some powerful observations and comments about Christianity. In the chapters that I am reading presently, he is writing about being salt and light to this world. Most of us understand that being light in this world means bringing the light of Jesus to the world, for He is the light of all men. But do we really understand what it means to be salt?
Well, what is salt? What is it used for? There are two traditional purposes of salt... And probably the two purposes Jesus was speaking about when He first mentioned it to His disciples. One is that salt is used to bring out the taste of food, but it needs to penetrate into the food. That's why it needs to be cooked with the food. Often, if the salt is just on the surface, you haven't really done anything to the food. The second is that salt was (and often still is) used as a preservative. With no fridges and freezers, people used to preserve their meats with salt.
Think about that. Think about what that means for you for where you are. It is NOT good for us to keep our Christianity in the four walls of our churches, and then forget about Christ the rest of the week. Wherever we are, in school as students, teachers, administrators, at work as employees or managers or board members, even as ministers, we should be penetrating into our world and bringing it taste and preserving that which is good.
That brings a couple ideas to mind. First, this world is good!!!! Whoa! That breaks some mindsets, eh! GOD made this world good, but it takes "salty" Christians to bring out the goodness. Secondly, our world is decaying, and it needs salty Christians to preserve that which is good.
I can't tell you what that means for you. I can't tell you what you have to do to be a salty Christian. But we must be! We must be a presence in this world and not as outsiders and outcasts, but as active and useful members of society.
That's why it's important to vote (not necessarily for the "Christian" candidate, but because it's the right thing to do). That's why it's SO important to get involved in your community. That's why it's important to be a good neighbour. That's why you should be one of the best employees your boss has. That's why our churches should be filled with every Christian working their butts off to make their church the most attractive thing to non-believers!
Let's wake up people. We need each and every part of the body working on all cylinders!
Be blessed.
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