In this episode I go over the teaching of Jesus Christ about us as his disciples being the salt and the light of the world and how we can't let anything get in the way of us shining our light and spreading the gospel of the true light (Jesus Christ). I pair this with scripture, prayer, and 3 takeaways.
Today's episode is part 3 of resting in the teachings of Jesus Christ. Last week I went over the teaching of the parable of the good Samaritan. The week before that I went into the teaching of judging others. If you haven't checked out those episodes make sure you go and check those out.
First I want to say quick prayer.... Lord I pray that you lift up every single person reading this right now. I pray that you give us the knowledge and understanding to know exactly what it is that we're reading and exactly what it is that you want us to get out of this teaching, and the wisdom to be able to implement it in our daily lives. Lord I pray that you open up our eyes, our ears, our mind, and our heart to you, and that you help us see the truth and help us to discern the truth in every aspect of our lives. I love you with my whole heart. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Here are some scriptures that are pertaining to the teaching of Jesus Christ about salt and light:
13 "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
14 "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."
-Matthew 5:13-16
21 He said to them, "Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don't you put it on its stand? 22 For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open. 23 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear."
24 "Consider carefully what you hear," he continued. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you--and even more. 25 Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him."
-Mark 4:21-25
16 "No one lights a lamp and hides in it a jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, he puts it on a stand, so that those who come in can see the light. 17 For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. 18 Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him." -Luke 8:16-18
33 "No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead he puts it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light. 34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness. 35 See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. 36 Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be completely lighted, as when the light of a lamp shines on you." -Luke 11:33-36
Alright, so let's discuss all of these verses that we just read here. So Jesus was talking to his disciples whenever he was saying all of these things about salt and light. Us as Jesus' disciples, as believers of Jesus Christ and followers of Jesus Christ, we are the salt of the earth and we're also the light of the earth. We have to spread love and light to others.
Like Jesus says in Matthew chapter 5 in verse 13, "if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?" What is salt good for if it's not salty? Okay. I'm just going to use an example of French fries. Have you ever ordered McDonald's French fries and realized that the people forgot to put salt on them and you end up with these bland French fries that you don't even want to eat because you don't have any salt to put on them? Yeah, I've had that happen to me too and it's not great. So basically salt is made to be salty, salt makes things better, and as disciples of Jesus Christ we are the salt of the earth. We are here to spread the gospel, to spread the word of Jesus Christ, and to be that salt for other people. We can't be bland. If salt loses its saltiness, it's not good for anything. So we have to make sure that we are staying plugged into studying the Bible, studying the teachings of Jesus Christ (just like we're doing now), praying, following Jesus, being obedient, staying faithful to the calling that God has placed in our hearts, and just being salty for Jesus. And I'm not saying it in the slang term that people use now like, "Oh you mad? Oh you salty?" If you've heard that before, you know what I'm talking about. That's not what this is talking about here. It is talking about being the salt of the earth, spreading the gospel and being salt for other people, helping make other people's lives better by spreading the gospel in hopes that they have eternal through Jesus.
We as disciples of Jesus Christ are also the light of the world and we can't let our lights be hidden. We can't just sit idly by or try to conceal our love for Jesus and the fact that we're Christians. I know in the world today it does not make it easy to boldly proclaim that you're a Christian and let everyone know about Jesus Christ, because that is looked down upon so much in the world today. So many people are preaching about self-love, doing what you want, whatever makes you feel good, and whatever makes you happy. This world is full of selfishness, greed, money, materialistic things, deception, trickery, and evil, but we can't let the world dim our light. We can't try to conceal our light or just not let anyone know about Jesus, because we're afraid of what they're going to think about us or what they're going to say about us. We have to let our light shine before everyone that we come across, everyone in our household, everyone that we pass by, our neighbors, people on social media, and just everyone that we possibly can. We have to let that light shine and spread love and light to others so that they can see the good things that we do, they can see the way that we are, they can see our positivity and how we live in Christ, and they can see that it's from God the Father and praise them because of it.
Now I'm just going to go over the verses here that we read in chapter 11 of the book of Luke in verses 34-36. Jesus says that our eye is the lamp of our body and when our eyes are good, the whole body is full of light. That's why it's so important for us to ask God to open up our eyes to see the truth of God's words and to discern the truth. We have to fill ourselves with good, with light, and let the Holy Spirit guide us and help us to discern that truth and to walk in the way of the will of God the Father. We can't be conformed by this world and we can't let our worldly desires, materialistic things, or the things in this world get in the way of the calling that God has placed in our hearts and the will of God the Father. We have to make sure that our eyes are full of light so that our body does not get full of darkness. We have to make sure that we're discerning the truth, we're letting the Holy Spirit guide us, we're studying the Bible, we're praying, we're following Jesus, we're not letting the enemy trick us, and we're not being deceived by worldly things.
So now I'm going to go over some verses about Jesus Christ being the true light of the world:
I know that in the verses that we read above Jesus says that we, as his disciples, are the light of the world, but Jesus is the true light.
"The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." -John 1:5
The light that this verse is talking about here is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ walked on this earth and he shined in the darkness of the world, but the darkness didn't understand him. The evil people that had stubborn hearts didn't understand him, and that's why they crucified him.
"The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world." -John 1:9
That true light here is Jesus Christ. He is the true light that gives light to every man, and that's how we get our light is from Jesus Christ. We have to let that light shine to others, spread the gospel of Jesus, let other people know about him, how he's changed our lives, how he can also change their lives, and how they can have eternal life through him.
19 "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." -John 3:19-21
So the light that is coming to the world is Jesus Christ, but men loved darkness and they still do. There are still so many people that are full of darkness and they're not going to come into the light because they have done evil deeds. These people are afraid that if they come to Jesus then all of their sins are going to be exposed. They are afraid that if they hear what we have to say about the gospel of Jesus Christ then people are gonna recognize the sins that they have, the evilness that they have, and the stubbornness they have in their hearts, and that's why a lot of people don't want to come to Jesus or even hear about him.
We see in verse 21 that whoever lives by the truth comes into the light so that it may be seen plainly. So whenever we live by the truth we come to Jesus and we see that what Jesus has done is for the will of God the Father. Everything he did when he walked on this earth, when he died on the cross to forgive us of our sins, it was all to fulfill the will of God the Father, and to forgive us of our sins so that we may have eternal life in heaven with Jesus Christ and God the Father. Whenever we see the truth, we know the truth, and we can discern the truth, then we want to come to Jesus, we want that light to shine through to others, and to let them know about Jesus and how amazing he is.
"John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light." -John 5:35
So Jesus is the true light of the world and John the Baptist (that came before Jesus that was baptizing people for repentance of their sins and was making a way for Jesus) was the lamp for the true light. He was shining the light so other people could see the true light (which is Jesus Christ), be saved, and have eternal life through Jesus. That's also how we, as Jesus' disciples, should be. We are a lamp for the true lights and we have to let our light shine through to others. Some people will accept the words that we're saying and they will accept the words of Jesus Christ, and others are not going to believe what we have to say or believe in Jesus Christ, but we can't let what other people think affect what we're doing. We can not stop spreading the gospel or stop studying the Bible and doing the things that we need to do to stay faithful and obedient to the will of God the Father and the calling that God has placed in our hearts just because of what other people are going to think about us, or if other people no longer accept us, or want to be our friend, or whatever the case may be. We have to make sure that we are standing firm in our faith and letting our light shine through to others no matter what.
Here are 3 takeaways from this teaching:
I want you guys to write these down, put them in the notes in your phone, or however you want to do it. But these are 3 things to always remember and live by.
1. Jesus is the true light of the world
- Jesus is everything that is good in this world.
- Jesus died on the cross to forgive us of our sins, and when we believe in him and we have the Holy Spirit within us, then we're saved and we have eternal life in heaven with Jesus and God the Father,
2. We have to receive light from Jesus
- As followers of Jesus Christ we have to spread that light to others.
- So whenever we believe in Jesus Christ then we receive the light of Jesus, and we have to spread that to others.
- We have to spread the gospel of Jesus and let everyone know about him, how amazing he is, and how he's changed our lives.
- We have to let that light shine through to others and spread the gospel in hopes that they may be saved and have eternal life in heaven also.
3. Not everyone will understand or accept us
- Just like not everyone understands or accepts Jesus.
- The Jews crucified Jesus because they wouldn't accept what he had to say, they had hatred in their hearts, and they were set in their evil and stubborn ways.
- We have to recognize that not everyone's going to understand us, they're not going to accept us, and that's okay.
- We have to make sure that we're standing firm in our faith, that we are staying obedient to Christ and the will of God the Father, that we're spreading the gospel, and letting as many people as we possibly can know about Jesus Christ so that they may be saved and go to heaven also.
The worst thing that we can possibly do is just being in our own little bubble and not ever letting anyone know that we believe in Jesus, that we're a Christian, or anything about Jesus Christ. This world is temporary and in the end either we're going to be going to heaven or we're going to be going to hell, and that's not something to take lightly. We have to try our hardest to make sure that everyone we know, love, and everyone we come across has the opportunity to have eternal life in heaven with Jesus Christ. And that is only possible if they know about Jesus. If we never spread the gospel and let anyone know about Jesus, and if no one else does that also, then how are they ever going to have the opportunity to have eternal life in heaven if they've never had the opportunity to see the light and to ask Jesus to come into their heart?
I hope this episode helped you guys to know and understand the teaching about salt and light and to know the importance of spreading the gospel of Jesus. It's so important to let our light shine through to others, and it doesn't matter what anyone thinks or if they accept us or not. It is our duty as Christians and as believers of Jesus Christ to spread the gospel in hopes that others might be saved and have eternal life in heaven also. Next week we're going to go into another teaching of Jesus Christ so make sure you stay tuned for that.
I love you guys so much.
Never forget to choose faith over fear.
-Lorena Camille (Faith Fuels My Fire)
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Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
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