Heart Tracks - Tasteless? Wasted?

"You are the salt of the earth, but what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it useful again? It will be thrown out and tramped underfoot as worthless." Matthew 5:13....."One reason why men pay so little attention to the gospel today is the tasteless living of Christians." Vance Havner...."How much of our prayer is wasted conversation because of our failure to live out His life in ours?" Tony Evans

Two strong and descriptive words; Tasteless. Wasted. To what degree might they be applied to our lives right now? Do we dare to stand in His Presence long enough to get a real answer? Do we fear what the answer might be if we did? I am not trying to lay down condemnation in these questions, but I think Havner's and Evans quotes do hit the mark to some degree in all of us. In you, and in me.

The enemy and the culture through which he works have done a very good job of intimidating His followers into silence, through compromise, appeasement, and fear. We don't want to offend. Christ came to bring peace we say, but we somehow forget that He also brings a sword. He said that the very act of standing with Him will certainly bring about conflict and division with and from the surrounding world culture. Not because those who are His go about looking for a fight, but because living and walking in His light will most certainly bring the fight to those who do so. Salt, rubbed into a wound stings and burns...deeply. We live in a terribly wounded, fallen, and darkness encased world. Those who live and abide in Him will be salt and light in that darkness, in that open wound. Salt brings healing. Light brings wholeness. Is the witness of your life and mine that of bringing healing and wholeness in Christ....or have we lost, are we losing our flavor.

Then there is the matter of the quote from pastor Evans. Paul said that the prayer of the righteous will have powerful effect. What are the effects of yours and mine? Jesus said that we ask for much but don't receive it because we ask with wrong, selfish motives. Or we ask while all the while living lives that cripple our witness and testimony for Him. Lives that exhibit little if any love, mercy, compassion, or boldness. To live in such a way really will give rise to prayers that are nothing more than wasted conversation with God. Empty words, empty prayers, being offered up by empty lives. Lives that are empty of Him but very full of self.

The need, in the world and in the Church for His salt and light is beyond desperate. There is only one road that leads to such a life and witness. It goes to and through the cross. Such lives will never be tasteless, and always offer and bring healing to the deepest, seemingly incurable woundedness. Such lives will be so filled with His light that no prayer could ever be a wasted conversation, but will lay hold of the God who has taken hold of them. Releasing Kingdom power that this world and enemy that fills it can never withstand. Resulting in lives, in a Church, that is no longer tasteless. No longer wasted. May we walk in such a life. May we be such a Church.

Blessings,
Pastor O