FAMILY IT! — Wednesday Family Devotional — “Flavorful Family”

Supplies: Bible; salty snacks (optional)

READ

Read Matthew 5:13-16 together.

SHARE 

So where do you stand on salt?  In Jesus’ day, that question would seem strange.  Everyone enjoyed salt.  It had many uses and was both helpful and tasty.  Fast forward two thousand years and the opinions are more diverse.  While most of us still agree it’s tasty, we also know what health professionals have told us: too much sodium is bad.  We sometimes find ourselves in a tug-of-war between the potato chips in the pantry and the “latest medical findings” we just heard about on Dateline.  So to accommodate our salty cravings, the market has responded by helping us compensate in other areas.  Grocery store shelves are lined with low-salt, no-salt, and reduced-sodium products.  Everything from cereals to taco seasonings sports a big star on it telling me it can help me lower my sodium.  Yay!  (That means I can pour extra salt packets on my fries, right?)

Where do you fall on the spectrum?  Are you a salt-lover or do you take an anti-sodium position?  Share with your family.

THINK

One thing I love so much about scripture is how it transcends time.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was speaking in a way that was culturally relevant to the crowd that day.  He used a reference like salt because it was something they could all understand.  Those people were nodding as He spoke: “Ah, yes.  I totally understand.  Salt has a noticeable purpose in my life and, in the same way, my faith can have a noticeable purpose in the lives of those around me.”  They got it.  

Fast forward two thousand years and, even though our views on salt are very different, Jesus is still speaking in a way that is culturally relevant to us.  You see, as Christians in the 21st century, I think we struggle with the pluralistic world we live in.  We are bombarded with so many different view points about “higher powers” and “spirituality.”  Nobody’s right and nobody’s wrong—it’s all just a matter of personal preference.  In fact, it’s cool to embrace everyone else’s belief system.  And so to cope in this framework, a market has developed for “low-salt Christianity.”  There’s the “no-salt” kind where you know you’re a Christian, but you don’t advertise it.  There’s no reason anyone else has to know.  Then there’s the “low salt” kind; your friends know you go to church and you have a fish sticker on your car, but you don’t let all that Christian stuff go to your head.  I mean, it doesn’t need to change who you are, right?   Or how about the “reduced sodium” brand of faith?  Yes, you believe in Jesus, but so much of the Bible is old-fashioned fundamentalist hokum.  You can pick and choose which parts of theology really work for you.  After all, you don’t want to be too Christian; you run the risk offending someone, of potentially ruining a relationship or, worse, seeming un-hip. 

This is the kind of salt-less-ness we run the risk of living with today: a life so bland, so void of any Jesus-spice that it has no influence, no flavoring on the surrounding world.  Is that really how we want to live?  Is that really the model we want for the Savior who changed our lives?  Who turned our worlds upside-down?  Who looked into our dark and sin-filled hearts and said, “THAT’S the one I want!”  How about instead we crank up the volume, we pour on the salt, and let the world taste the difference Jesus makes?

APPLY

This may be a little challenging to process, but would you take that step and spend a couple of minutes thinking about how you’re living out your faith.  Are you a salty Christian or do you find yourself being more of a “reduced-sodium” follower?  What are you doing to flavor the world with Jesus?  Or what’s influencing you to not flavor the world?  Now that you’ve spent some time in this passage, what kind of Christian do you want to be?  What can you do to start making those changes?

Crack open a bag of your favorite salty snack and spend some time talking about these things together.  Decide how you can help each other be a “flavorful family.”

PRAY

Sweet (and salty?) Jesus, thank You for coming in Your boldness.  It’s amazing how many different people You touched while living a salty life, opening the eyes of everyone around You to who God is and what He desires.  Help us, Jesus, to live boldly in our own places: our schools, our neighborhoods, our workplaces, and our homes.  We want to flavor the world with Your love.  In Your Holy Name we pray, Amen.

REPLY

Did you and your family enjoy this devotional blog?  We'd love to know about it!  Our hope is to continue providing this weekly opportunity for families to do a devotion together.  If your family did this devotion, please shoot us an email, text or just post a comment to this blog.