We all have a vital part to play in the Kingdom of God and our quest is to discover who He has called us to be and where He has positioned us to be.

He called us to be the salt and light of the world (Matthew 5:13).  He called us to make a difference in people’s lives.  We are to remember that no man is an island therefore we didn’t just pop up into this world just to live for ourselves.  Our God is a purposeful God. He knows you and I like no one else, even before the foundation of the world and certainly He knows each of our own part in the body of Christ.  The best part of it is that when we discover our rightful place in His kingdom, we become aware that we’ve just been set up to enjoy and celebrate life.

Our God is a relational God and He longs for us to have an intimate relationship with Him that overflows through our relationship with each other.  He blessed us with Himself for us to carry and steward His presence to anyone He calls us to stop.  He meant it in a way that people will encounter JESUS IN US and when they do they will never be the same again. His touch, His words, His compassion flowing in and through us may be the only Bible they read.

SALT!  It cleans and clears stains and residues.  It keeps wicker furniture new, gives brooms long life, easy fireplace clean up, polishes copper and brass, cleans grease stains, removes watermarks from wood, relieves stings and bites, keeps windows and windshields frost-free, deodorizes sneakers, ends ants parade, brightens up cutting boards, keeps salad crisp, revives wrinkled apples, keeps milk fresh and conditions skin.

SALT can also enhance other flavors. It balances sweetness and helps suppress other flavors, such as bitterness. It is a food texture and taste enhancer. It is a nutrient source, a binding agent that helps form protein gels holding them together.  It is a food color enhancer.  The presence of salt helps maintain color, whether artificial or natural and prevents it from turning gray or muddy.

SALT is the oldest method of food preservation, and it was heavily used before refrigeration was available. Salt acts as a preservative by drawing moisture out of food, because microbes that can spoil food need moisture to grow. Many disease-causing microbes are also simply unable to grow in the presence of salt.

SALT basically CLEANSES, REVIVES, ENHANCES, PRESERVES and ADDS FLAVOR.  Isn’t it that the finished work of Jesus Christ did all these to you and me?  His Blood cleanses.   His Word revives, encourages, enhances and enlarges our knowledge of Him.  He preserves our lives by His promises that are yes and amen.  He ADDS VALUE TO OUR INDENTIY as He sees us through the eyes of His love, fulfilling our utmost desire to be seen, acknowledged, loved, honored, appreciated and valued.  HE DID IT ALL because HE LOVES US ALL.

Everything that He has done in our lives empowers us to the same to and for others.  We simply cannot give what we do not have.  Do you know that when we practically and personally experience Who He is, it propels us to share our testimonies with those around us who are hurting and suffering?  Why?  Out of the abundance of our hearts, our mouths speak. When joy fills our hearts, it detonates us to make known what He has powerfully done to us that the desperate world around us can taste and see the goodness of our Daddy God Who is always committed to our good.  It becomes a norm for us who are in His family, belonging to His kingdom, to carry HOPE, a confident and joyful expectation and anticipation, that ALL IS WELL.   We are assuredly blessed to know and see that He Who began a good work in us is faithful to finish it.  We have been transformed though still continually being transformed and made new from selfishness to selflessness, from being self-centered to being others-centered.  We run the race with endurance, with a fiery passion and compassion, committed not just for our own good but for the good of those who God has ordained for us to touch with the touch of His presence. This I believe is one facet of being the SALT in the world.  Salt is never meant and purposed for itself.

How about being the LIGHT?  Jesus Who is the LIGHT of the world lives in us. He said, “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)  His word also says, “You are the light of the world.  A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” (Matthew 5:4)

What kind of light are we? IF the light in our lives that is to be seen is our moral excellence, praiseworthy, noble, and good deeds that glorify our Father in Heaven (Matthew 5:16 NKJV), then APART FROM the finished work and the resurrection power of Jesus Christ, all we have is a flickering, weak, unsteady, blinking and barely seen light that cannot be set on a hill or to tell you the truth, we carry NO LIGHT at all. Our connectedness to Jesus is the KEY!

We are to be like a tree that is fully lit up.  Imagine a Christmas tree with white steady lights fully wrapped around it with its plug plugged into the power source.  To carry this light, we need to be plugged in constantly and consistently to Jesus Who is Source of all. The light is a transformed, fruitful and inspiring life produced not by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of God, that brings courage, strength arousing interest and enthusiasm to those who see us.  It is a grace-filled life that radiates the brilliance of Who Jesus is.  It is a life that is never content of today’s encounter but yearning to know Jesus more and more.  The more we know Him, the more we can make Him known.  It is a life in Christ that shines through the darkness, bringing hope to the hopeless, revealing the Father to the fatherless, and loving the unloved.

I asked the Lord once to show me ways on how this is to be done.  One powerful revelation that He unveiled my eyes to see is that when light is switched on, whatever it is that is within the reach of the brightness of the light is positioned to be exposed and be seen whether they are good or bad.  That’s what a normal light does.  It doesn’t hide anything. But HIS Light is different. His light is entwined with His perfect love that casts out all our fears away because it covers our multitude of sins.  It is the kind of light that will cause us NOT to fear disgrace for we will not be put to shame nor humiliated.  It is the light that is interwoven with His righteousness, making wrong things right in our lives by the power of His Blood.  It is simply making ALL things NEW in our lives.

Look at the woman caught in adultery.  When the scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus, “What do you say?” (John 8:5)  How did He respond? “Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, AS THOUGH HE DID NOT HEAR.” (John 8:6)

“So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.”  And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.  Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.  When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?”

She said, “No one, Lord.”

And Jesus said to her, “NEITHER DO I CONDEMN YOU; go and sin no more.”          (John 8:7-11 NKJV)

Isn’t it that in this story, the LIGHT of the world collided with darkness?  Could it be then that when He called us to be the light of the world, just like HIM, He graces us to see people just as He sees them, never condemning but forgiving, as He is, so are we in this world?  Instead of disapproving and criticizing, we embrace them in His love as we are called to share the GOSPEL of peace for it is the power of God for salvation.  It is to unveil the truth of how much we are loved that Jesus came to set us all free from the kingdom of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of His marvelous light.  It is a demonstration of love and compassion touching their hearts with the goodness of God that will change the way they think about God, not as a harsh God but as a Father abounding in love, rich in His mercy and grace.

As believers, we have been created to be peculiar with no apologies.  We are meant to expectedly walk in awesome oddity graced by the Spirit of God.  Not weird, but it is a walk that catches people’s eyes to see us moving in a different spirit, contrary to how the world sees and responds.  He filled us with Himself, anchored our lives to the Rock of all ages, JESUS, and empowered us to walk in consistent JOY and PEACE no matter what’s going on around us.  It is a life that makes people wonder and be wooed to recognize us and say, “What manner of a man is this?” That’s peculiarity.

“But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, A PECULIAR PEOPLE; that you should show forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.”                    (1 Peter 2:9-10 KJV)

We were once lost, but NOW we’re found.  We were once blind, but NOW we see!  We are NEW CREATIONS IN CHRIST who carry the newness of life being the salt and light in the earth, walking in the power of His love by the Spirit of God, and become beacons through whom others are drawn to JESUS.