God has a purpose in drawing His people closer to Him, not only to see healing and deliverance in our personal circumstances, but to see His own Kingdom brought into focus here and now. We are called to be “salt” to the places and people around us, to bring taste, flavour, and healing. But all too often the salt is hidden in the rubble of our lives and somehow we never quite deliver. Did God make a mistake? Never. The mistake is in thinking that because salvation is a gift, we don’t have to do anything else.
Just as precious metals like gold are refined by heat and purified to get rid of the rubbish, God has a process for refining us. 1 John 3 v 2-3 “Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that whenever it is revealed we will be like him, because we will see him just as he is. And everyone who has this hope focused on him purifies himself, just as Jesus is pure.” (NET Bible).
Purifying ourselves is just a fancy way of saying “getting rid of the stuff that gets in the way of loving God, and loving each other.” It’s easy enough to deal with the big things, the obvious things, but what about the rest?
Purifying ourselves is just a fancy way of saying “getting rid of the stuff that gets in the way of loving God, and loving each other.” It’s easy enough to deal with the big things, the obvious things, but what about the rest?
Here’s what we explored today :
Imagine for a moment this pile of junk is your life. It’s a mix of bits of wood, sawdust, stones, sand, and somewhere in there is a good half cup of salt. Pretty hard to spot isn’t it?
This isn’t really something we would want to offer up to flavour anything at all. The overwhelming taste would be dust and dirt.
So how do we go about cleaning it up?
The big bits are pretty easy to pick out – they represent things like drugs, stealing, violence, adultery. Easy enough to spot, and when you get rid of them the difference is obvious.
Imagine for a moment this pile of junk is your life. It’s a mix of bits of wood, sawdust, stones, sand, and somewhere in there is a good half cup of salt. Pretty hard to spot isn’t it?
This isn’t really something we would want to offer up to flavour anything at all. The overwhelming taste would be dust and dirt.
So how do we go about cleaning it up?
The big bits are pretty easy to pick out – they represent things like drugs, stealing, violence, adultery. Easy enough to spot, and when you get rid of them the difference is obvious.
But what about the rest?
We could try picking out the sawdust piece by piece, but it might take a while. An easier way is to filter it. We used a sieve, but God uses people, often our faith community who can help identify and pick out the things that need a bit more tidying up.
What is left in the bottom is a mixture of sand and salt. We can start to see the salt for the first time, but still wouldn’t want to add it to anything that was meant to be eaten. At this point trying to separate the two is practically impossible. We should give up. It can’t be done. It’s definitely too much work.
Under our own steam that’s certainly true, the task is overwhelming. This is where we really need God to step in and do the heavy lifting.
We could try picking out the sawdust piece by piece, but it might take a while. An easier way is to filter it. We used a sieve, but God uses people, often our faith community who can help identify and pick out the things that need a bit more tidying up.
What is left in the bottom is a mixture of sand and salt. We can start to see the salt for the first time, but still wouldn’t want to add it to anything that was meant to be eaten. At this point trying to separate the two is practically impossible. We should give up. It can’t be done. It’s definitely too much work.
Under our own steam that’s certainly true, the task is overwhelming. This is where we really need God to step in and do the heavy lifting.
We added water to the grains, and poured the whole mucky mess through filter paper. The paper pulled out the sand, and the salt dissolved into the water, ending up in the bottom of the bowl.
In scripture water is a picture of the bible, the word of God. When we start measuring our lives up against God’s word and letting it “wash” over us suddenly things start to separate, the good and the not-so-good are no longer interwoven together.
In scripture water is a picture of the bible, the word of God. When we start measuring our lives up against God’s word and letting it “wash” over us suddenly things start to separate, the good and the not-so-good are no longer interwoven together.
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The next bit is not very comfortable for us in our day to day life. The only way to separate the water and salt solution to get to the salt is to heat it. Apply some pressure, some difficult circumstances, get hot and really uncomfortable – that’s what serious refining looks like. It is never fun but the end result is something quite precious.
Voila.
We have something that actually resembles salt – the life of God in us is finally revealed and starts to be able to bring life, flavour, healing.
God is calling us to be holy, not so we can be perfect, spotless and untouchable, but so that having been through a process of being refined and changed, we can be an example of how a life can really be turned around.
We have something that actually resembles salt – the life of God in us is finally revealed and starts to be able to bring life, flavour, healing.
God is calling us to be holy, not so we can be perfect, spotless and untouchable, but so that having been through a process of being refined and changed, we can be an example of how a life can really be turned around.
1 Peter 1 v 13-16 “So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s coming when Jesus arrives. Don’t lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn’t know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, ‘I am holy; you be holy.”
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