Salt Of The Earth

The recent rains have been a welcomed relief to the dry dusty conditions of the past eight months. My poor yard grass has suffered terribly. One big patch of my side yard has died out completely. The soil there is lacking and it seems all the tap water in the world does it no good. But give it a little nitrogen enriched rain water and what looked totally dead begins growing again. Of course the first thing to sprout is unwanted weeds so it’s dig them, pull them or mow them until the grass gets going again. The lawn mower is a good weed killer and, I’ve been told, it also promotes grass growth. All I know is, the only way to have a nice lawn in South Texas, that doesn’t cost a bundle of money every month, it has to have rain and be properly groomed regularly. One without the other and a yard lawn can look pretty ratty in no time. Anyway, I’m thankful for the rain and continue to pray for more. Getting some exercise pushing the mower is good to.
A recently widowed woman, who never had to pay monthly bills before, was astonished when the banker called and told her she was overdrawn on her account. “How can that be?, she asked. “I still have lots of checks!”
Trial witness: “Well, I think...” Questioning lawyer: “Don’t think! In this courtroom you are to tell what you know, not what you think!” Witness: “Well, I’m not a lawyer, I can’t talk without thinking.”
Growing up I was a very poor student when it came to book learning, and still am in many ways. But, show it to me, put it in my hands, let me do it and I’ll never forget it. Well, needless-to-say, I’m in left field looking at the flowers when it comes to the subject of chemistry. Say, Periodic Table, and I know what that is, but to keep from mixing a lethal cocktail of elements together, I’m not the guy you want around. I know there are some really bad elements out there, one being sodium, Na on the periodic table (I looked it up) and another is chlorine, Cl on the table (I knew that one). Their numbers are 11 & 17 respectively, in case you wanted to know. Anyway, take sodium, in its pure form, drop it in water and you’ve got an explosion. Sodium is always found naturally linked to another element, I guess to keep from blowing up my lawn every time it rains. Chlorine, on the other hand, is a yellow-green stinky gas. Yeh, bleach odor. Chlorine was used in WWI as a weapon. You don’t want to mess with either one of them alone. But, put them together and you have sodium-chloride, ...table salt. Two dangerous and potentially deadly elements, combined, sustain life as we know it. Without salt, foods cannot be preserved, and without salt in our bodies, we cannot survive. It’s beyond me.
[Ephesians 4: 15] “...speaking the truth in love.” The apostle Paul exhorts Christians to speak the truth in love. You see, love and truth can be like sodium and chlorine. Both elements, when separated, can be dangerous. Love without truth has a way of attaching itself to various doctrines, whatever suits it best at the moment. Love without truth compromises where God says: “stand firm”. Love without truth ignores sin and does not confront it. On the other hand, truth without love can be offensive. It can turn people away from the gospel. Truth without love is cold, hard, and often legalistic. Truth without love has very little influence for good. We need to have both truth and love combined to really have something that’s helpful and valuable. Be the salt of the earth.