Matthew 5:13-16, NIV – “You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.
A few years ago, on Christmas Day, our family had a discussion about what we wanted our family to be about. We listed words and phrases that we wanted ourselves and others to use when describing our family. Some easy ones we came up with were “silly, crazy, fun and happy.” These form the basis for our family being known as the McCreazies. Then, there were others that were more serious and intentional like loving, generous, gracious, and forgiving. One of the other phrases that made the list was “point others to Jesus.” I love that because I believe it is something we do better as a family than any one of us alone. In fact, the very way our family members relate to each other sends a powerful message to those outside the family.
Imagine one grain of salt on your food; that’s probably not even noticeable. But working together, multiple grains of salt change the flavor of their environment. One light is good, but multiple properly focused lights are much better. In the passage above, Jesus imagined a community practicing his teachings with each other and others in a way that was a flavoring influence and shining light to demonstrate the power of those teachings to those around them.
In the first couple of hundred years after Christ, the Christians, (under the rule of the Roman Empire) saw themselves in this way and lived it. They slowly influenced and changed those around them until 312, Constantine, the Roman emperor, was converted. This same kind of transformation has been repeated in countries all over the world over the last two thousand years. Christians change the world by living the Gospel and demonstrating to those around them that it is a better way to live.
To be clear, Christians do not change the world by attaining power and wielding it to bend the world to their will. That actually hurts the cause of Jesus’s kingdom. Constantine is actually an example of this; he used his absolute power to make the Roman Empire “Christian” by decree. The Christians started enjoying favored status and abandoning their former ways of relating to each other and others. Their saltiness and illumination both faded.
Nevertheless, many Christians even today believe that our cause is best served by putting Christians (or at the very least those sympathetic to Christian values) in offices of power so our values can be made the law of the land. Such efforts are playing out right now in our country. These will fail and most likely become a stumbling block to those who would be otherwise be attracted to the “Jesus” way of life. If Jesus’s cause was served by attaining power, he would have never submitted to dying on a Roman cross.
No, the way of Jesus is to love God and love all people in such a way that it shows the fallacy of striving for power and might. That is done best not by individuals, but “families” of Christians living by Jesus’s teachings. We win by losing. We find our life by losing it. Our strength is our weakness. To live is Christ and to die is gain. These should sound familiar because they are scripturally derived descriptions of the lives we are called to live together and for others. Sooooo….
Question: How does your family (however you might define that) influence others in a way that demonstrates the beauty of Christ’s teachings?
Prayer: God, show us the power of living the way you taught us. Use the way we are with each other and those around us to win others to your kingdom. Amen.
Prayer Focus: Pray for God to show you one step you could take to improve the life of your family today.
Video: This is a powerful video. Watch it. Do not just listen.
Toby Mac – Love Broke Thru
Weekday Word w/ Eric 
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