The Good-For-Nothing Believer

In one of His conversations with His disciples, Jesus said that every believer is the salt of the earth, and this understanding must bring us into a place of fruitfulness in our secular life and even as Christians. The consequence of this truth is that we will be enabled to display the blessings of God in our lives, bringing salt to sourness, sweetness to bitterness, and satisfaction to those who are living perpetually in dissatisfaction.

Matthew 5:13 NKJV

[13] “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavour, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.

What does the salt do to food when we cook? It brings flavour and sweetness. We use water for cooking, oil, and other ingredients, but salt is different because it plays a very important role in cooking. When Jesus Christ said in His word that we are the salt of the earth, He is therefore saying that we are bringing sweetness and flavour into the world around us, our family, the church, our immediate community, the city we live in, and our nation.

This understanding helps us to depend on the Holy Spirit for guidance on how to accomplish all of these. We can only be the salt of the earth if we follow Jesus and leave the way He lived while on earth and what the word teaches. We must be willing to love like Jesus loves, forgive like Jesus forgives, pray for our enemies, and we must be willing to give our substance in worship to God. We must be willing to serve others and not to be served. “just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:28). Also, we must daily live to please God with the help of the Holy Spirit.

In addition to all of these, we must be humble enough to make any meaningful impact within our family, the church, and the community in which we have found ourselves. Humility brings the saltiness out of us and the flavour can be felt by everyone around us. The flavour of love, peace, gentleness, meekness, longsuffering, and joy are all the flavours that are expected to come from our saltiness. No one eats salt and squeezes their face. It brightens people’s faces when they taste it.

Therefore, when salt can no longer add flavour to the food, what happens to it? It becomes good-for-nothing, trampled under the foot of men. Matthew 5:13b “? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men”. Likewise, a believer who does not manifest the fruits of the Spirit as mentioned above is like the good-for-nothing salt because what makes the believer the salt of the earth is no longer there. The evidence of saltiness vanishes when the believer’s walk with Jesus Christ is inconsistent and such a believer decides not to be in companionship with the Holy Spirit. But the truth is that the Holy Spirit is always in a position to help the believer with guidance and total reliance on grace, which enables such a believer to manifest the fruits of the Spirit. This, in turn, gives us the capacity to bear the characteristics of being the salt of the earth.

However, the overall truth here is that in ourselves, we do not have what it takes to bring the flavour of saltiness into the world around us, but Christ is able to do it through us through His grace and His help. This is the truth: Christ is our righteousness and then we can do all things by His strength infused into our spirit; Philippians 4:13; “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”.