Don't Add To The Flavor...
Galatians 1:8-9
"But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!"
We are to salt and light to a world in darkness. As I meditated on this passage I thought of our witness. Can we recount the hand of God in our lives? Do we remember how we got to where we are at? That is our witness, our testimony. No one can refute your story, it happened to you and glory be to God for using our stories to represent Him!
I feel like this is why these particular verses are so crucial to our Christian witness. You see there where Jews that came to accept the message of Christ as the Messiah. They even started talking about Him to others. However, instead of preaching salvation by the grace of God through Jesus, they insisted in keeping the the mosaic covenant as well, particularly in this case circumcision. This belief that we can somehow do good works or earn our way to heaven is called legalism. When we add our own flavor, the recipe gets all messed up. Look at what Paul said about the message he preached.
Galatians 1:1
Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.
Paul knew exactly where his message came from, he was not sent by man to deliver an earthly message, but from Jesus Christ Himself! We should be about the same business. We need to use the Word of God (Bible) as our guide, our filter, our recipe book (no disrespect meant). Just as it is famously written in John 3:16 -"For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." It is faith and belief in Christ that saves us, not our good works. When we add our own opinions and "flavor" to God's recipe for salvation we end up leaving a bad taste in peoples mouths. We should then look to the ultimate recipe book, the Word of God, to guide us. If we do that the Salt will surely not lose it saltiness.
God bless you in His service!
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