Let's imagine a culture full of people offering grace instead of spewing anger, living grateful lives of peace instead of frantic lives of fear.

Ever notice how moms have to hide the candy and cookies but not the salt? They leave it right out on the counter. You never find a kid stuffing handfuls of salt in their mouths. Salt is amazing stuff; it’s both purifying and preserving. We can live (probably longer) without sugar and a bunch of other stuff, but salt is essential.

Jesus talked about salt. “You are the salt of the earth,” He said in Matthew 5:13. I think it was His metaphor for grace. That idea comes from Paul, who said in Colossians 4:6, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”

Unlike oils and other essentials, when Artaxerzes was supplying Ezra the priest, the amount of salt he gave him wasn’t limited . . . “Salt without limit,” (Ezra 7:22). And way back in Leviticus, the Jews were taught to add salt to all their offerings. “Season all your grain offerings with salt. Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings,” (Leviticus 2:13). Any offering made without gratitude for His love and grace is probably an attempt at a trade, not a gift. God wanted His children to remember that.

We can have more money than we need. We can have too much food, too much freedom, too many options, too much stuff. But we can never have too much grace. In fact, the more grace we give away, the more we have.

Just for the record, my definition of grace is ‘undeserved blessing’ of ‘unmerited favor.’ It’s all the good things that come to us from God that we don’t deserve. For me, the best examples of grace are things I cannot possibly connect to anything I’ve done. In those cases I know it’s from God and not someone just trading with me or paying me back. A fantastic sunrise, prayerfully enjoyed, is grace. The spontaneous hug of a child is grace. And of course, a flashback to Jesus’ forgiveness . . . grace on steroids!

Charles Spurgeon wrote the following about salt. As you read it, think ‘grace’ when he writes ‘salt.’ . . .

“Believer, go to the throne for a large supply of heavenly salt. It will season thine afflictions, which are unsavory without salt; it will preserve thy heart, which corrupts if salt be absent, and it will kill thy sins even as salt kills reptiles. Thou needest much; seek much, and have much.”

Every time you see one of those “Salt Life” stickers or shirts, remember that Jesus wants us to live the ‘salt life’ . . . a life aware of His grace for you and generous with grace towards others. I want to hijack the idea of the ‘salt life’ from the beach bums and repurpose it for us Jesus-followers. Imagine a culture full of people spewing grace instead of anger, living grateful lives of peace instead of frantic lives of fear. Go to the throne, get a load of heavenly salt and start sharing it today.

Prayer – Thank you Lord that you took away the burden of fairness and replaced it with grace at the Cross. Give us an awareness of your presence and nudge our souls to appreciate your grace and love and to give it ‘without measure’ to everyone we encounter. In your beautiful name. Amen.