Walking With Christ

Matthew 5:13  You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?  It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.(ESV)

The ocean is incredibly powerful.  A cup of ocean water isn’t.  If that cup of water is poured into a crack in a large rock on a cold enough day, it might be enough to break the rock.  Pour that cup of water onto soil on a hot day and watch it disappear.  A single cup of water poured out on dry soil will disappear quickly.  Add enough water and the soil will get washed away.

A sand dune can be an incredibly beautiful thing.  A sand box can be a lot of fun.  A single grain of sand is easily lost.  That single grain of sand in the eye?  That’s miserable.

The properties of many things change based on quantity or volume, or environment.  People are much the same.  A single Christian in the wrong environment might be like the single grain of sand in the eye or the frozen water that breaks the rock.  Unfortunately, getting lost is the far more likely option.  Far too often, we tend to take on the attributes of our environment and blend in rather than becoming the lightning rod of change that we are called to be.

John 15:5  I am the vine; you are the branches.  Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.(ESV)

The branches only produce fruit when they remain connected to the vine, the root.  That root provides nearly everything that is needed for the branch to survive in almost any conditions.