Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Psalms 96-98
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Mark 9:49-50
Jesus: Everyone will be salted with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. Salt is a good thing; but if it has lost its zest, how can it be seasoned again? You should have salt within yourselves and peace with one another.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
My wife likes salt. In fact, when she was growing up, her dad accused her of salting salt pork. She’s one of those who puts salt on food before she tastes it because she knows it won’t be salty enough for her. She just likes salt. She salts meat, she salts vegetables, she even salts fruit sometimes before she eats it. She doesn’t just like salt, she loves salt.
I mention this, because after you’ve lived with her a while and sit at her banquets (she is a great cook, by the way), and you go to someone’s house who is subject to a low sodium diet, food just doesn’t taste the same. You stab a big juicy piece of beef on your fork and stuff it in your mouth, chomp down on it and …. blah! There’s something missing. It’s just not the same. You know there is something not quite right about the flavor. Or you dig into that baked potato that looks so good sitting on your plate, raise a big steaming hunk to your lips and as soon as it passes your teeth and touches your tongue… There it is again. That bland nothingness that should have been such a succulent experience.
Then it hits you! “Could you pass the salt, please?” Yes, you can use other spices to help your palatte, pepper, salsa, all those herbs with names I can never pronounce or remember which goes with which dish, but salt… that’s the one that goes with everything. It’s the universal donor to make things good. Jesus said it, so it must be true, right? Salt is a good thing; but if salt as lost it’s zest, how can it be seasoned again?
Jesus told His disciples, those who followed His teachings, they were the salt of the earth. They seasoned their environment. They made the world good. They made it a place that was no longer mundane, distasteful, unattractive, blah. As the salt of the earth, we are to be that universal ingredient in God’s creation that acts as that spice everyone wants. We are to be that seasoning that causes people to be like my wife, something you just can’t get enough of. Someone you want around you all the time and in every situation.
As I write these words I’m reminded of my very good friend who passes away unexpectedly a few days ago. He was that kind of person. He was the salt of the earth. Loved by everyone, a friend to everyone. He called himself just a package car driver as a UPS driver for 43 years, but in that time, his life touched thousands of people with his humor, compassion, and genuine love for people. You were his friend whether you wanted to be or not. Gery understood what it meant to be salt and he sprinkled the seasoning of God’s love everywhere he went.
Watching Gery’s life over the last two decades of our friendship helps me understand these words of Jesus and how we are to express His love in a world that needs Him desparately. Gery thought of himself as just a UPS package car driver. He just did his job, picking up and delivering packages to the many people on his route every day. But to his customers, he was much more than the UPS guy.
The company would call a customer, “We need more information for the address you’ve given us.” “No you don’t. You don’t know my driver.” Gery would deliver. He saw a rattlesnake at the edge of an elderly widow’s porch when delivering a package on day. Most folks would just leave. Gery stopped to kill the snake, looked for others, left a note to warn the lady, and encourage her to have a professional check for more. Those who knew Gery aren’t surprised he often ran late on his route, because he often performed those little acts of kindness that brought joy to others. But he also completed his work every day with excellence.
Salt within us. Seasoning to sprinkle on those we meet and make their lives just a little better because we touched them in a way that made their day just a little brighter or a little richer or brought just a little more joy into their life because we were there. That’s what Jesus is talking about. Just a UPS package car driver? No, Gery was Jesus to those he met every day. And on a rainy Monday morning in the middle of the workday, there was standing room only at his memorial celebration as friends and family paid tribute to his life, remembering the impact this package car driver made on the community he served.
So what does that tribute and Jesus words mean for you and me? Just a package car driver? No. Just a clerk? No. Just a nurse or a doctor or a soldier or a CEO? No. We are not just a…name what ever you might do as an occupation. If you are like Gery, and do what Jesus tells you to do, you are Jesus to everyone you meet every single day.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.