How salty is your love?

We live in a time where we can be connected to each other 24/6 and yet all our connectedness is having a negative impact on our emotional state and our ability to impact the lives of those around us. This week, I want to talk about two verses I feel are the yin and yang of our present age.

Luke 7:47 “ For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.” A short little verse but one with big ramifications. For the most part, this verse alone splits most of us into two camps. The first are truly those who do only love a little because they feel have only been forgiven a little. A large portion of us living in the west today have life pretty good, and thus when we come to our relationship with God we don’t feel that we were terrible people to start with. After all, how many of us are murderers or career criminals?

The truth is, a lack of understanding of how being in a state of sin separates us from our Creator allows for the idea that there is someone out there who is “not a bad guy” and this is false. The state of sin is the same for everyone. The gulf between us and God is the same fixed distance regardless of what kind of life one was leading or the acts they do. No matter how much money a billionaire philanthropist gives to the needy and the poor, unless he acknowledges his need for God in his life, the gap between him and God is the same as any rapist or murderer. We often use the scale of comparison to justify our actions in regards to why we do not adequately have a passionate love relationship with our Creator. The “better than” mindset plagues us more than ever today because we do not love God, and thus cannot love our neighbour. Our fairly easy day-to-day existence leads us into lives of self-focused obsession with little room for self-denial; thus how can we lead lives of self-sacrifice for God? Simply, we cannot. We love God only a little because really we only feel that what was forgiven of us was a little. How far from the truth this is! Our state of separation has each one of us owing the death penalty. Sadly though, even by my death my debt cannot be paid, because the death of my mortal coil is not the death of my eternal soul and thus is unworthy of debt repayment; only the death of my eternal soul can meet the requirement that sin asks. The fear of the second death should sober us to evaluate our present actions. The second type of person who reads this verse is one who knows the sin they have been forgiven of is great, but this does not inspire great love; rather, they lead lives of always feeling “less than”, always feeling not really worthy of God’s love and thus never really acting loving either. This feeling of not quite good enough to be worthy of God’s love is true for us all. After all, it was not us who loved God first, but God who loved us, and so there is no room for anyone to feel they are not worthy of God’s love because they think their state of separation is somehow greater than another’s. This feeling of “less than” leads a person to the same ineffectual relationship with God as feeling you have not been forgiven of much. Both paths lead us to be a passionless people and thus ineffectual in our daily walk. The truth is, we have all been forgiven the same, and as a result we should all be demonstrating the same love both to God and to each other.

Matthew 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.” So, you and I are salt, but what makes salt, salt? Well salt is only salt if it is salty, in like manner we are only salt if we are passionately in love. Love is the substance that makes us like salt, that which both gives us a certain flavour in this life, and that which causes us to be the preserving agent in our societies. Now, if you have ever used a low quality salt you know it doesn’t matter how much you heap on your plate, it won’t do the same job as high quality salt, and so it is with us. If you only love a little, then what you are bringing to the table is a low quality product that won’t really ever achieve the same results as a high quality salt, regardless of how much you pour on. It is my personal belief that it is this corresponding effect that has led to the morally bankrupt state of most of our countries today. There is very little left that either has flavour or the power to preserve, and I believe this is because we have simply forgotten how to be in love with God and thusly our neighbour. We are a people who has indeed lost our saltiness. We can build huge churches and donate lots of money but we must not fool ourselves; we are not overcoming this life, it is overcoming us. For the most part, we are salt that does not even like being shaken out of the container into the world. We are quite content to hide in our churches or behind our keyboards and pretend that we are having an impact in this life, but sadly, the truth is there for all to see; we have lost our saltiness.

Many people are people of passion, but few are a people of love and there is a big difference. We are not called to be a people who are always right or theologically sound, we are called to be a people who love each other. Without a love for one another we resort to aggressive evangelism projects, huge outreach ministries and large churches to ever insulate us from this world. Love is the action we are called to commit, and by committing it the whole world will know where we stand. We are in desperate need of some salt in this age. The need, both in the church and out, for salt is pressing. We have a society that is running amok because in truth we are not salt at all. We can act like we love, we can talk like we love, but only those who really are in love with God are salt. The hands on the clock are ever moving and one can already see on the horizon that there is an army of boots coming to trample the people of God, because quite simply, that is all tasteless salt is good for. We must stand up, redeem the days and find that first love we had, or maybe never had, for God if we are ever going to have a hope of preserving our cultures and bringing back some flavour to this life.

Shalom

Jay