““You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless.”
Matthew 5:13 NLT. http://bible.com/116/mat.5.13.
I learned something new tonight. Salt can only lose its saltiness if is mixed with an impurity. Yep! That's what my CMA devotional stated. Just like us, we have to be careful with our witness, we must keep the worlds impurities out of our lives in order to be the salt of the earth.
A case in point:
Do you know people, Christians, that can't be positive and loving with someone that messes up. I'm not talking about a genuine sin. I'm talking about an innocent mistake or just not doing something the "right" way.
How should we share criticism?
Today, I heard somebody being pretty harsh to a fellow believer. The tone and the way the criticism was shared was not at all what I think Jesus would want. I hear the same thing by "Monday Morning Quarterbacks" in so many different areas of my life. I think it's obvious we need to love with compassion even through mistakes. We need to criticize differently than the way the world criticizes. The more we let the world creep into our lives, the more we lose our saltiness. A gentle rebuke or, many times, no rebuke at all would be fine,
How we treat fellow believers is an important example for non believers. We must learn how to be firm and gentle when correct someone. Of course this also holds true, maybe even more so, when we deal with non-believers. We have to put aside our impatience. We have to constantly remember how we treat others says more about our witness than anything else we may say or do. We can't get lost in doing our jobs and taking strong leadership roles without first looking at our relationships with others. The love we show is the most important seed we plant.
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