We spend much of our lives at the workplace, therefore we ought to glorify God there. Work is a blessing from God and this is the time to shine forth even more than before. God sees our work as serving Him (Col 3:24). Therefore we must seek to grow and to improve. And as we work we must also trust God and draw upon His grace to excel in our work (2 Cor 12:9). After we pray for God’s blessings upon our work, we need to be willing to take corresponding action, such as being diligent (Pro 10:4). God is training us for greater responsibilities, to be the salt of the earth (Mat 5:13).

As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are challenged to be different from the world and live a lifestyle that reveals God. We are to be humble and meek, thirsting for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart and to be peacemakers (Mat 5:1-9). And while we reveal God, those who reject Him will hate us and persecute us (Mat 5:10-12). When God calls us the salt and the light, it presupposes that the world is in decay and darkness.

Especially in the last days the moral state of the world will go from bad to worse and deception will be rampant (2 Tim 3:13). As the glory of God rises upon his Church, the contrast between the light and darkness will be starker (Isa 60:1-3). There will be more resistance against Christian values. We have to shine so that God can draw forth the people who love him. God wants us to reveal Christ wherever we are. When ungodly values and ideas are brought forth we are not to be passive. Love requires us to speak the truth (Eph 4:25).

Salt is white, signifying purity and holiness. We are to be examples of purity and represent God’s holiness to the world (Lev 19:2). Salt adds flavor to food, likewise we are to add colour and flavour to the world. We of all people are truly free (John 8:36) while those who sin are in bondage (Rom 6:16). So we believers are more able to enjoy life than the people of the world. Salt stings – it has medicinal properties when applied to wounds, but it hurts. We will have people either loving or hating us, because we will be either the fragrance of life or the smell of death to them (2 Cor 2:15).

Salt creates thirst, so we should create in the unbelievers a thirst for Jesus, to seek him for the living waters of God (John 4:10). Just as the Gentile believers are supposed to stir the jealousy of the Jews (Rom 11:11) so shall we stir the hearts of non-believers to want what we have. Just as salt is a preservative, we are to preserve the world from corruption. Even Sodom and Gomorrah could have been spared if there were only 10 believers (Gen 18:23), and that is the power we have to hold back God’s judgment against sin. Finally, salt must have contact in order to be effective. Likewise we believers must be in the world (John 17:11) in order to impact the world, yet stay above the corruption. We are in this world but not of the world.

Jesus emphasized that we are THE salt of the earth, that if we do not fulfill our role no one else will. And the ‘You’ in this passage is in the plural form. As individual grains of salt are ineffective and small lights are unable to light up an entire city, we must work in partnership with the brethren, synergizing with one another to fulfill our calling as the salt of the earth and light of the world.

Points to Ponder: