Salty or Not?

Many of us are familiar with Jesus’ words in Luke 14:34, “Salt is good, but if salt loses its flavor, how can its flavor be restored?” But until today I have never understood what in the world that meant.

I won’t bore you with chemistry, but as a chemist I know that sodium chloride will be salty unless one of two things happen; either the consumer loses the ability to taste or sodium chloride becomes something else and ceases to be sodium chloride.

What made reading this verse today different from the numerous other times is circumstance combined with context. The circumstance is that I happened to be reading The Great Omission by Dallas Willard, and more importantly Chapter 2 entitled, “Why Bother With Discipleship?” while at the same time I read Luke chapter 14.

In essence Dr. Willard says that being a disciple of Jesus is not something a Christian aspires to be, but being a disciple of Jesus is what a Christian is supposed to be. People, saved by grace through faith, will not excuse their unwillingness to participate in the life of a disciple of Jesus, but repent of that unwillingness. People, covered in the supernatural shed blood of the Lamb of God, are not called to some life that is less than a completely devoted, eternally convinced, supernaturally inspired student of the God-man, Jesus of Nazareth.

Simply, if you are not enabled to and compelled to live your life in deed, thought, action and speech after the life of Jesus as exposed in the Bible and led by the Holy Spirit, then you really are not…dare I say it, a Christian. If you are trying to be a good person, or trying to earn God’s favor by studying your Bible or praying or going to a worship service and you are not compelled to do those things then we need to talk.

Back to the Luke 14:34 passage. In the context of all of Jesus’ teaching there is no “almost salt.” You can’t be an “almost adopted” child of God. There is no such thing as an “almost disciple.” What are you or have you been excusing in your life because “almost” has been enough for you?