Losing Sight of Things

Listened to a particularly convicting sermon today in church. The pastor was preaching on Matthew 5:13, the verse about being the salt of the earth. It was a wildly appropriate way for me to close out what has been a less than stellar weekend emotionally.

I often have struggled with things out here in LA. I came out here to follow God's calling to reach this city and reach its people for Him. My goals within the industry are, and must remain, secondary to that. Yes, I need to be in this industry to reach it because it's an extremely cloistered group. But it's easy to lose sight of the overarching objective in all of this.

Christians are kind of seen as underdogs and weaklings (or worse) by most of this city and much of the country in general. And the truth is we have embraced that role. Or we've focused on pervading the public eye to change people's behavior (though not their hearts).

But Jesus sees us differently. The pastor pointed out something very important about this passage that is so obvious it sometimes goes unmentioned. He didn't say we should be the salt of the earth or that we could be if we live right. He says we "are" the salt of the earth. As he said in the sermon, "The God that said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light, has said to you, 'You're salt.'" So live like it.

Salt had many purposes in the ancient world but the three the pastor talked about today were preventing decay in meat, renewing soil for fertilization and adding flavor to food (something it's still widely used for). So no matter which way you look at it, it's a pretty vivid picture of how we are supposed to be salt in the world.

That's all I have for now, since I'm still kind of processing this wonderful sermon. I'll post up a link on here when it gets posted to their website. It's pretty compelling and I'll be listening to it several times in the coming week (and probably beyond).

*REALITY LA Sermon