Conduct yourself with wisdom in your interactions with outsiders (non-believers), make the most of each opportunity [treating it as something precious]. Let your speech at all times be gracious and pleasant, seasoned with salt, so that you will know how to answer each one [who questions you].

Colossians 4: 5,6

Most of us are around unbelievers every day, but sadly, we often don’t even think about the opportunities God gives us to touch their lives. We’re so busy doing our own thing and so absorbed in our own stresses that we hardly notice them-unless they bother us!

Paul was acutely aware of his mission to reach as many lost people as possible, especially in parts of the world nobody else would visit. He saw every interaction as an open door to represent Christ to people. Touching them with the grace of God was on the front burner of his heart. He was convinced that every word he said and every attitude he expressed could make a difference in someone else’s life.

In addition to reminding us to reach out to the list, Paul reminds us to season our speech with salt. What does that mean? Throughout history, salt has been used for two purposes: to add to taste and to preserve food. When our speech is seasoned with salt, we add flavor to people’s lives. A painful, but often accurate stereotype of a committed Christian is someone who is straight laced, sober, and sad. Nothing should be farther from the truth! Of all people, we should be the most creative, optimistic, compassionate, sensitive, and alive. And when the time is right, we can explain the reason for our spunk- the amazing grace of God that has been given to us in Jesus.

Very few of us have the role of an apostle Paul or Billy Graham, but God has put all of us in relationships with people who desperately need Him. We just need to be a little salty so that each one of us can reach one who needs Him.

I’m convinced that the lost person will respond to a sincere believer far better than to an insincere Bible scholar.

Zig Ziglar

There is the story of a little boy who was sent to the store by his mother to buy some soap. Along the way he had several incidents and met several different people. Each time something happened he would forget the last thing and pick up a new word. Needless to say by the time he got to the store he had forget why he was there. That’s our story as believers. We have so many voices speaking into our lives that we have become distracted from the instructions Jesus gave us. At the risk of sounding radical and being offensive, we seem to have forgotten or ignored the only directive that Jesus gave. He never told us to build institutions that are operated by cumbersome bureaucracy. He never told us to develop elaborate programs that do everything except connect people to Him. He never told us to build buildings that house the majority of church activities. No, He told us to go and give the gospel message to the least, the last, and the lost. He told us to wait until we were empowered by the Holy Spirit who would testify to our words by miracles, signs, and wonders. We have gotten so comfortable with this world that we have forgotten that eternity waits for us all. We seem to have forgotten that there is no second chance once someone finishes this life.

It’s not that we are opposed to the idea of sharing the gospel with the lost. We have just decided that it’s somebody else’s job. Our feeble response to Christ’s commission is to hire people or teams and delegate them to do our job. As for most of us we gather on Sunday mornings and wait for the arrival of those in the community bold enough or desperate enough to make their way into the gathering. What we don’t realize is that most of the community doesn’t know that we gather to worship the Savior who bought us and received us and saved us and gave us an incredible eternity. Paul, in Romans tells us that if we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths the Lord Jesus as Savior, we shall be saved. Simple enough, but then he says that this is because that “the word is nigh.” Now it gets interesting:

“But how will people call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how will they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher (messenger)? And how will they preach unless they are commissioned and sent [for that purpose]? Just as it is written and forever remains written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!” So faith comes from hearing [what is told], and what is heard comes by the [preaching of the] message concerning Christ. But they did not all pay attention to the good news [of salvation]; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?”

Romans 10: 14-17

Each one of us have those around us that we are in constant contact. Have we ever considered their spiritual state? Do they personally know Christ as Savior? Are they still lost in their sins? What will their eternity be?

On the larger scale, we can attribute the decline of the church to its abandoning carrying out the Great Commission. We can attribute the decline to the church becoming involved in a multitude of activities, none of which are designed to bring people to Christ. We may be busy but it’s with things that have little eternal value.

The devotion today is designed not to condemn but to call us to awake to the work of the Christian and the church- the seeking the lost so that they might be saved.

Jesus in Luke provides an example of seeking the lost and the story concludes with Him describing His mission which has now been transferred to us:

And there was a man called Zaccheus; he was a chief tax collector [a superintendent to whom others reported], and he was rich. Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. Zaccheus was trying to see who Jesus was, but he could not see because of the crowd, for he was short in stature. So he ran on ahead [of the crowd] and climbed up in a sycamore tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way. When Jesus reached the place, He looked up and said to him, “Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” When the people saw it, they all began muttering [in discontent], “He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a [notorious] sinner.” So Zaccheus hurried and came down, and welcomed Jesus with joy. Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, “See, Lord, I am [now] giving half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone out of anything, I will give back four times as much.” Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this household, because he, too, is a [spiritual] son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Luke 19: 1-10

Will you take up His cause? Can He count on you to tell somebody about Him and His love? Will you let your love for Him override your fear or timidity and tap into the boldness given by the Holy Spirit until all hear and none are lost? Will we as the church shed our useless activities and engage in eternal matters as our first priorities?

One day we will attend two courts. We who are Christians will stand before the Christ who died for us and account for the new life He gave us. What will we have to lay at His feet? Will there be those in that number that we gave the Word to so that they now stand in that assembly? We will be in attendance at the other court- the Great White Throne where sinners will be judged and hear the sentence of eternal separation and torment. Will you see those that day that you passed by and said nothing to them about their souls? What shall we say in that moment?

More importantly what will we hear Christ say to us? I hope we all hear, “We’ll done!”

Dr. John Thompson