The Saltiness of Our Lives Abiding In Christ Can Soften Hard Hearts

Have you ever cooked soup beans and to your dismay they were tough and hardened and not the soft nourishing feeling in your mouth that you had been longing for?

 Well beans are seeds and so if in an environment that is hostile to continued growth, often times beans will not germinate due to the presence of low pH in the soil.

While I was eating  a bowl of soup that my friend had prepared for me I mentioned to a friend that was sitting with me the secret that I had been taught to ensure that the beans would be soft and not hard.

I don't know who told me or when but I know it was before the age of the internet and I have held to this tradition for years now, that I only salt my beans after they are softened in the pan as they cook.

My friend found that interesting and related it to her own life as a young Christian how a certain woman that was a salt and light bearing Christian had turned her off by her saltiness and her heart was hardened to evidential spiritual life by her continual talking about the Lord.

I left that night wondering how I could apply this concept of salt hardening the beans in a bowl of soup but as I researched this old "truth" that I had held near and dear to my bean cooking heart, I learned that indeed this was a fallacy.

I found that magnesium and calcium ions in the beans' skin are the culprits of the toughness  and when soaked in tap water that contains dissolved minerals, these ions create bonds that further hinder the permeability of the beans' skin.

So soaking beans in a salted brine actually proves to have a 2-fold benefit in that the ions in the salt water now are able to bind with the Mg+ and Ca+ ions in the skin of the bean and thus removing their hindering effect which affords the water an opportunity to permeate the skin of the bean, allowing it to absorb more water and this in turn decreases the cooking time of the bean.

I too have bought into the lie that if I extravagantly talk about and declare Jesus to those around me that my over exuberant saltiness will cause their hearts to be hardened.  But this is just not so!  The last comment my friend made about this salt bearing individual was;

"Now, I love her so much!"

My friend's comment at the end of the discussion confirms that when someone is salt and light it will indeed have a softening effect on those around them.

Mark 9:50 says;

Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, 

how will you make it salty again?  

Have salt in yourselves, 

and be at peace with one another."

And Colossians 4:6 says;

Let your speech always be gracious, 

seasoned with salt, 

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

I have succumbed, at times, to keeping my mouth closed because I thought I might turn people "off" to the truth.

We see in Romans 2, as Paul reprimands the religious Jews in Rome, that there is some truth to this idea of turning people away from God by how we act and speak.  

Paul has just completed a list of offenses of the unrighteous, godless people of the day that more than likely caused the religious Jews to feel good about themselves.

 Chapter 2 begins by Paul shifting his attention from the godless to the supposed godly and giving them a piece of his mind.

But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law 

and boast in God and know his will 

and approve what is excellent, 

because you are instructed by the law; 

and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, 

a light to those who are in darkness, 

an instructor of the foolish, 

a teacher of children, 

having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth--

... You who say that one must not commit adultery, 

do you commit adultery?  

You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law.  

For, as it is written, 

"The name of God is blasphemed 

among the Gentiles because of you."  

True saltiness does not mean that we parade around with the idea that we are better than those around us because we keep the law of God and do not partake in the wickedness of the world.

We are deceived if we think that abiding in the law and not in the Spirit will soften people's hearts enabling the water of the word to do its penetrating work.

Our realization of our own propensity toward sin on every level, draws us near the ribbon side of Jesus, ensuring that we never think of our ourselves more highly than we ought to but allows us to revel in the atoning blood of Christ's sacrifice, bearing with one another in love as we bury our heads deep into His wounds, realizing that WE ourselves are dependent on His work to soften our unrepentant vile hearts.

It is from this position that our lives become a saturating brine to the world around us.  As we speak of the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience that leads us to continually repent, then our lives can have the same effect on those around us.

As we declare who God is to us we lead people into a better understanding of who He really is and how He really loves.

Lord, You are great and highly exalted and we are weak and lowly, unable to fulfill the requirements of the law and we are not even going to pretend that we can.

We are so thankful that Jesus fulfilled the law and that His work has been applied to our lives.

Help us to live circumspectly and to never think of ourselves as better than others so that Your name would not be blasphemed among the Gentiles because of us.

Go ahead and salt away not fearing that you will drive people away from God when you yourself live in the abiding reality of God's great worth and your great need!