THE SALT & THE LIGHT
OF THE WORLD
1. OUR PRESENT STATUS
*Matthew 5:13-16 YOU ARE the salt of the earth; YOU
ARE the light of the world.
The Greek implies YOU AND YOU ALONE are salt, light.
Jesus does not say you ought
to be, are going to be, should be, but YOU
ARE.
He did not say to the crowds
of *Matthew 5:1, but to His
disciples.
This means we are totally
different to the world.
YOU ARE AS DIFFERENT AS SALT IS TO THE MEAT IT PRESERVES;
YOU
ARE AS DIFFERENT AS LIGHT IS TO THE DARKNESS IT SHINES IN.
We live in a world which
therefore is in darkness and corruption.
SALT is used to preserve and
flavour things.
IT SERVES NO PURPOSE LEFT IN THE SALT CELLAR; IT MUST BE USED WHERE IT IS NEEDED.
In the same way LIGHT, is to be put into darkness.
E.g. Fellowship(Church)
situation: As SALT we come back into the salt cellar for a while to increase our
saltiness and have a recharge.
THEN we GO BACK into the darkness and rottenness of the world.
2. THE NEW PERSON
The NEW PERSON joined to Jesus does not HAVE SALT, nor does he HAVE
LIGHT: He IS salt and IS light!
*John 8:12 Jesus said "I am the light of the world."
*John 9:5 "WHILE I AM IN THE WORLD, I am the light
of the world".
Thus He says to all His
disciples "YOU ARE the light of
the world."
After He left the world, died,
rose again and was glorified, He sent the Holy Spirit and joined Himself to His
people.
NOW WE ARE THE LIGHT because JESUS
THE LIGHT LIVES IN AND THROUGH US.
E.g. Prism: We know
light because we are surrounded by light. But what is light?
When I take a
prism and put it in the light, it is IN
the light and the light is IN it -
light is now described: the nine colours of the spectrum.
(7 colours we see with natural eye, and two we cannot see ie infared, ultraviolet. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_spectrum
By using a prism to put the
light through, it showed us what light is.
Application: God IS
light. Jesus IS the Light of the world.
To someone living in the
world, it seems so remote and unreal: who is light, God or Jesus?
So God takes chinks of
glass like us, puts us in the light and the light in us.
NOW
PEOPLE CAN GET A GLIMPSE OF THE FULL SPECTRUM OF THE GLORY OF GOD.
THROUGH OUR LIFESTYLES comes an expression of God: WHO HE
IS.
(Same as the spectrum we have the 9 parts of the FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT:
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,
self-control.)
(Notice: its not fruits, but singular FRUIT)
N.B. GOD PUTS US IN THE WORLD SO THAT THE WORLD
CAN BEGIN TO SEE WHO HE IS.
(Imagine all the prisms just
gathering together and admiring one another's spectrums all the time! This is not their purpose.)
So don't pray for
Christian neighbours to move in or a Christian boss to be appointed.
God wants YOU in the darkness and corruption to be the grain of salt and beam
of light.
3. A WAY OF LIFE
SALT does not struggle to be salty - that is just the way it is.
LIGHT does not sweat at shining, it just shines.
SALT does not make a sound when it is sprinkled on food, but you know it is
there when you taste that food.
LIGHT makes no sound, yet it shines brightly.
CHRIST LIVES IN US: THAT'S THE WAY WE ARE - SALT and LIGHT.
The way I treat people; the way I do business, my word being my bond,
all silently testify who I am: a Christ-in person.
E.g. The woman caught in adultery: Jesus bent down and wrote in the dust. Much
speculation and many ideas have arisen as to what He wrote.
It was not really WHAT He wrote, but WHO WAS DOING THE WRITTING, "THE LIGHT"
that gripped them. As they had come into Light's presence,
they realised how
dark they were and they left one by one back into the darkness.
N.B. Jesus had just been HIMSELF. This had an awesome
effect on all coming into His presence (righteousness, holiness, wholeness,
purity).
WITNESSING is NOT
forcing living water down the throats of people who are not thirsty.
BUT IT
IS having people lick salt which silently makes them thirsty without even
realising why.
4. THE
BEATITUDES - THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
Starting in *Matthew 5 for 11 verses is a list of
those "BLESSED".
"BLESSED" in the Amplified Bible (e.g. verse 3) is rendered "HAPPY,
TO BE ENVIED.......": when people see us they can see themselves and
be envious, thirsty.
So don't be
surprised when people oppose you, or get offended or mad. SALT
put into a sore STINGS. LIGHT
suddenly put on HURTS the eyes.
5. A WARNING
SALT without saltiness is not being what it is.
A LIT CITY hidden is not being what it is.
A LIT LAMP covered is not being what it is.
BE WHO YOU ARE: LIGHT -
don't hide it.
Now that we are redeemed, new
creations in Jesus, the ONLY WAY we
can be fulfilled and satisfied is to go out into the world and be who we are.
Look at where God has placed
you in this life (work, friends, neighbours): IF YOU ARE NOT THE SALT, THERE IS NO SALT.
There will be occasions when
to speak, but far more powerful than words is a LIFESTYLE WE LEARN TO LIVE OUT FROM LIGHT AND OUT FROM SALT, WITHIN.
Go out and be who you
are: salt and light, immersed in the
darkness and corruption.
*1John 4:4 Greater is He who is
in you, than he who is in the world.
ALIENS AND STRANGERS
1. THE LIFE OF GOD *1Peter
2:11-12 Being born again from above is
not merely changing philosophies or religions,
but BEING JOINED TO JESUS by an INVASION
of the HOLY SPIRIT.
It is not just believing in Jesus as God (the
demons also believe and tremble).
At the new birth, what takes
place is that I DIE and RISE AGAIN in resurrection life.
I am an ALIEN:
I am in the world, yet not of it. I am walking in the world, yet not part of it. I am an ALIEN
and a STRANGER: one who lives among
another race.
This means I hold the passport of another nation. We are, at the new birth, taken out of the
human race so to speak and caused to come alive into another race -
no longer
the sons of men but the sons of God. We
no longer share human life but have another life: THE
LIFE OF GOD (eternal life).
So first of all I am a child of God, with a British
passport
2. ALIENS IN
THIS WORLD
Once we have seen the
finished work of God in Jesus and choose to order our lives accordingly, we are
ALIENS: we know it and so does the
world.
We have seen things as they
really are. We have seen too much. There is another dimension and it is FOR NOW - we experience the powers of
the age to come.
When I chose to rest in the
fact that God did everything for me in Jesus - my representative - I died to
the world, I was buried as far as the world was concerned,
I rose again from
the dead and came back into this world as a person who has died and
returned. I have exited and come back
again alive with resurrection life.
I am
a DEAD-ALIVE person (water baptism
symbolises this).
3. THE CHURCH OF JESUS
The Church of Jesus is the
community of foreigners, exiles, aliens in this world who:
*rest and depend upon God and His finished work;
*are in fellowship with God and His ability;
*see the invisible - the true facts behind the facts;
*operate out of love and
not self-centredness.
*1John 3:1 (Amplified) "Look at that foreign kind of love
the Father has given us."
The world looks at that kind
of love that is foreign to them and active in us: we are a race within a race, a nation within
a nation.
*Philippians 3:20
(Williams) We are citizens of the republic in heaven. We are a colony of heaven on earth.
We, as a COLONY OF HEAVEN in a foreign land, demonstrate the love, mercy,
forgiveness, joy, peace and power of God. We keep in contact with our home country -
heaven: it is continual
praise, worship and prayer, with even a secret language in which to communicate
with our Ruler!
4. NO FEAR OF DEATH
Aliens face dying without
fear. They know that death has lost its
sting and the grave its victory (over life).
E.g. They see it
like visiting a restaurant to eat. While
you wait in the foyer for a table, you chat, have a drink, eat peppermints and lollipops and
enjoy them.
Then the waitress comes and
calls you into the restaurant proper to eat (the reason for coming).
We live in the foyer of
life right now. We enjoy the lollipops
and peppermints UNTIL we are called
and ushered into the restaurant proper - the real, total dimension of the SPIRIT.
The world calls it death and mystery, but we will be more alive than
ever!
Aliens and exiles know
this and while just passing through they act more responsibly than any others
on the planet.
5. WHY ARE WE LEFT ON EARTH?
God places us in the world,
the darkness and corruption to thrive, multiply, reproduce and increase. By the time we exit this present life, there
is to be a reproduction of more aliens.
Other than God Himself, my
greatest joy, greatest motivation, greatest thrill, greatest satisfaction and
fulfilment is that OTHER PEOPLE CAN
ENTER THE KINGDOM OF GOD -
the joy of the Lord - BY GOD WORKING THROUGH ME.
To lead others to Christ, to
see them in fellowship with Jesus, is joy unspeakable and full of glory.
6. CARRIERS OF GOD'S LIFE
This LIFE reproduces further life - that means more and more aliens.
E.g. Seed that is
placed in earth is different to the earth that surrounds it. Earth cannot produce more earth -it is
sterile (dead). The seed, however, is
different because it has life in it -
IT
CONTAINS LIFE.
Like seed, we are placed on
earth, surrounded by death. Being aliens
we are different.
WE ARE LIVING CONTAINERS OF LIFE WHO REPRODUCES HIMSELF THROUGH US.
We are a COLONY OF ALIENS from another dimension busy enforcing the victory
our Ruler won 2000 years ago
on this planet and setting people free from
slavery to become SONS OF GOD.
Jesus, the Master of the
Universe stood as a man in Nazareth of Galilee and proclaimed:
"The Spirit
of the Lord is upon Me, for He has anointed Me ...." *Luke 4:18.
He "borrowed" from
the victory of Calvary to come.
We "draw" from the
victory of Calvary already won.
WE KNOW THE FACTS AS THEY REALLY ARE!
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So enjoy your life in Christ.
God's Richest Blessings
Sven Grahn
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