Our Lives Should Exude the Gospel

Running is hard work.  It causes a rich secretion of water and salt to come to the surface via each eccrine gland providing a physiological mechanism by which to cool the body from its increased heat production that results from muscle friction.

Sweat is a necessary byproduct for any runner to be successful as it provides the body the ability to regulate it's temperature.  As the water evaporates from the surface of the skin there is a lose of energy from the phase change from liquid to a gas.

The water leaves, in its wake, the secreted salts that have come up and out of the body.  These salts must be replenished in order that the runner maintain a homeostatic condition.

As we run the race that is set before our lives, as disciples of Christ,  we are to employ and teach the everlasting covenant of the gospel to others.  We are to be salt to the world.

In one of the most famous passages in the Bible, the Beatitudes, Jesus proceeds to encourage His followers through their potential struggles and He tells them that they are blessed in them.

After He  tells them that they will be persecuted and falsely accused He encourages them to "rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven,..."

He then goes on to declare;

"You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?  It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.

As believers we must constantly be replenishing the salt as we exude it from our lives.

The cost of discipleship is high but our very lives are to offer to the world the savour of the knowledge of Christ.

2 Corinthians 2:14-15

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere,  For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are perishing,

Just like a runner perspires and emits not only salt but a fragrance, to some we are a fragrance from death to death because of the type of race we are engaged in but we are to some the fragrance from life to life so we should not stop running and pursuing Him and the knowledge of Him

We should give thanks for those who are engaged in the race and pray for them;

Ephesians 1:15-18

For this reason, because I have heard of your faith 

in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 

I do not cease to give thanks for you, 

remembering you in my prayers, 

that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom 

and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 

having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, 

that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,

We have a hope and we should release that hope to a hopeless world and our lives should spur one another on to give thanks for one another and pray for one another so that we may experience a revelation of the knowledge of Christ.  

If we don't know Him and experience the enlightening of who He is in order to have a firm hope then we are lack luster or tasteless as Christians.

In Luke 14:26-33, Jesus gives clear requirements for his disciples;

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father 

and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, 

yes and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.  

Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me 

cannot be my disciple.   For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, 

whether he has enough to complete it?  

Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 

'This man began to build and was not able to finish.  

Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, 

will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able 

with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?  And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, 

he not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

It is not easy to run the race that has been set before us.  We must give up the things that we hold dear to hold fast to Jesus with all of our hearts, souls and minds.

This means that we must love Him in such a way that our thinking and meditating are on Him and not our own lives.  We must seek to put Him and His kingdom in front of our own agendas.  At times that means making sacrifices that we don't want to make.

As we grow in the knowledge of Him by His power and not our own, we will be empowered more and more to do just that.  Making Him Lord over all is what He requires of us but He does not leave us hanging.  He supplies what He demands of our lives.


In Luke 14:34 he goes on to say;

"Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, 

how shall its saltiness be restored?  

It is of no us either for the soil or for the manure pile.  

It is thrown away.  He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

Jesus is saying listen up!  Those who follow him and make him the priority of their lives are to offer to the world the knowledge of Christ and when we are not compelled to do that we are in need of revival.   We become a wasted life.

Thayer's Lexicon describes the meaning of  saltiness as;

It is your prerogative to import to mankind 

the influences required for a life of devotion to God.

We are called to tell everyone about the hope we have in Christ!

I Peter 1:3-7

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritence that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.  In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuine of your faith- more precious than gold that perishes through it is tested by fire- may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Matthew Henry's commentary on Matthew 5 states;

Christ sent forth His disciples as a blessing to the world, 

by their lives and doctrine to season it with knowledge and grace and so to render it acceptable to God.

When salt has lost its saltiness Matthew Henry describes it this way;

unsavory, void of spiritual life, relish and vigor - very sad

flat, foolish, graceless, insipid

I don't want my life to be unsavory, flat and graceless!  I want to provide the vital nutrients for survival to those around me!

Our lives are to be as a sacrifice to the Lord sprinkled with salt.  Our lives should be a representation of the eternal unbreakable covenant of Christ that we are partakers of, extended to those around us.

Our speech in the world should reflect our God in exhibiting wisdom, grace and prudence.

Colossians 4:5-6

Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, 

making the best use of the time.  

Let your speech always be gracious, 

seasoned with salt, 

so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

God of Heaven we thank you for sending Your very own Son as an eternal, unbreakable covenant between us so that we can come boldly before you and ask of You great and awesome things that You would  be the essence of our lives.

We desire to show forth the praise of Your glory and offer to the world around us the hope that is in us.

Give us eyes to see and hearts to obey what Your Spirit is saying through Your word.  Give us the desire to lay down every weight that so easily entangles us from running full force and emitting the fragrance of Christ to those around us.

Help us to leave in our wake, as we run, the salt of the everlasting covenant that we are partakers of through Christ.

We want to be a salty people full of the knowledge of Christ.  Let our speech always be gracious and seasoned with salt knowing how to answer each person that we encounter with the gospel.