Swimming in a salt-saturated ocean I always get extremely thirsty.  Perhaps you can relate to that dry and desperate feeling that overcomes a person who accidently gulps a mouthful of the Atlantic.  :You return to shore rubbing your eyes, coughing and weary of wandering through the waves.  In just a few short minutes, the need for something cold and wet becomes indescribable.  All those bizarre Pepsi commercials make sense.

            Jesus said, "Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt has lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted?  It is henceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men" Matthew 5:13.

            Each of us as individual Christians represents "salt".  That is to say, as born-again Christians, with new life coursing through our bodies by the saving power of Jesus Christ, we are to make this world "thirsty"  we are to be the kind of Christians who make others "hunger and thirst after righteousness".  We have to live, individually, a Christ-centered life-style that produces desire in the hearts of all around us.  People should be parched in our presence.  As one evangelist friend told me, "You can't make a horse drink water, but you can sure put salt in the oats!"

            But in this connection, there is a deeper and broader truth.  God is not only interested in salty individuals.  He desires even more the "salty family".  The Lord Jesus Christ wants to so live His life through our home units that other families will hunger for our holiness, long for our love and revel in our righteousness.  The more it becomes His holiness, His life and His righteousness, the more savor in our salt as a family.  Our saltiness must always be Christ-likeness.

Tom Allen,   CRF Youth Speaker