Salty Christians

“When you speak your piece you lose your peace.” – unknown

When I read the above quote the other day, it reminded me of the following thought: As Christians, the Bible says we are the salt of the earth – “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?…”  Matthew 5:13  We can find one characteristic of Salty Christians in Colossians 4:6 – “Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.”  Salty Christians are gracious-speaking Christians. Notice, the last part of this verse says that a gracious-speaking Christian – a Salty Christian – will know how to answer every man. No, that verse doesn’t limit our gracious responses to those who have just spoken kindly to us. Salty Christians speak graciously to EVERY man. As a reminder, I have written beside this verse, “there is never a reason to tell someone off“.  The “short fuse” we may have had before salvation should be getting longer and longer the more we grow as a  Christian. This morning, the Lord seemed to further emphasize this thought as Bethany shared in our Bible time what she had just read, “And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth…” Luke 4:22 A characteristic of true Christ-likeness will be displayed by gracious speaking.

Although James 3 speaks of the extreme difficulty of governing our tongue, we are still commanded in II Peter 3:18 to “grow in grace”, and this continual growing process would certainly include our speech. This “little member” called the tongue may try to give each of us fits from time-to-time but, if it is our heart’s desire to keep tighter reins, God’s grace will be sufficient as we rely on Him for strength.  

“Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into thy lips…”  Psalm 45:2

~ Rachel ~