Lesson 42. The Salt of Love

We are told that we are the salt of the earth. These words are a very good illustration of how God sees His children who live in love and obedience. The entire Sermon on the Mount is devoted to love for God and for people. In it, Jesus explained how those who are filled and moved by love conduct themselves. The Sermon on the Mount contains a very profound meaning that is revealed in special beauty when my heart overflows with this great gift and with a thirst for still more love.

Have you eaten a salad or other food prepared without salt? It has a natural taste and nourishes the body, but it often becomes very bland and tasteless. No restaurant will survive if it begins serving its patrons unsalted food. Of course, guests can be warned that every dish contains no salt, and someone may even like this, but salt nevertheless gives food a special flavor and in many cases preserves it from rapid spoilage and decay.

Love adorns every deed I perform and every language of love. Like salt, it dissolves into the contents of my life and permeates every corner of my thoughts and feelings, distributing itself evenly throughout every sphere of my being and activity.

The world does not even suspect how deeply indebted it is to the righteous people living in its cities and nations. Because of their presence, God bears long with our Earth and preserves it from destruction. In the example of Sodom, we can see the fate of a city in which even ten righteous people could not be found. Only Lot and his two daughters were saved; all the other inhabitants were destroyed by God’s judgments for their wickedness. A similar fate awaits all the cities of the last days if no godly people remain within them.

The world lies in wickedness. Sin boldly raises its ugly head. God offers every person life, love, and His righteousness. God’s grace is still available to everyone. But if people choose the dominion of another lord, then in the end God gives them the right to live with that master and the right to die. Then everyone will understand how terrible sin is in the fullness of its wickedness and what a tyrant of the human soul that lord is whom people chose for themselves instead of God.

People do not value love. They mock it and crucify it without understanding what they are doing. Yet God continues to seek those whom He can endow with His love in order to save those who crucify and curse Him. What amazing love! God searches for lost sheep; God searches for the lost coin; God waits for His lost daughters and sons, and He is ready to run out to meet them, embrace them, and kiss them, if only they decide to return to Him.

If salt loses its strength, with what can it be restored? Can salt lose its properties? According to Christ’s teaching, this can happen when, instead of God’s blessings and the laws of love, I choose my own way of salvation and follow it. Because of my lawlessness, love grows cold within me. It becomes lukewarm, my heart ceases to burn, and I become content with what is happening to me. At the same time, I persuade myself that my life meets God’s requirements.

But love exists. It has not died. It is available to everyone who lives with God in the heart. As such love extends its influence to the surrounding world, it preserves me from spoilage and decay. All my good deeds performed without love may be good in themselves, but they will nevertheless become bland and tasteless.

There will always be people who, while living in sin, desire to be loved and forgiven for everything so that they may feel comfortable in their lawlessness. When punishment threatens such believers, they greatly regret being caught, not what they did. These people ask for mercy, believing that others are obligated to forgive them at their request, while the heart remains evil. But when love touches the heart, it reveals a person’s uncleanness and presents the prospect of change toward something better and Heavenly.

The presence of this gift is important in every language of love. Love may be rejected, but its influence will leave its flavor and its trace.

When you love, you will certainly encounter resistance and opposition from evil powers. The enemy of souls hates love and opposes it in every way. This is the reality of our own time as well. Therefore, you should not lose heart when you are rejected. Salt accomplishes its work with confidence, penetrating every sphere of public life. The influence of loving people is exceedingly great. These are precisely the people who will bring the history of our world to its conclusion by actively participating in the final events. But if the salt loses its strength, what should be done with it? Jesus expresses an equivocal attitude toward this tragedy. Yet at present He calls, offers, gives, and delivers His love and righteousness to everyone who is interested. Jesus waits for hearts to be opened to Him so that they may receive the limitless possibilities of love and happiness.

Christ’s first sermon began with an account of the laws of blessedness and of who is worthy of it. The Savior showed that happiness is available to everyone who desires it and that love lies at its foundation.

It sounds strange: to love without love. Yet this is precisely how my carnal heart attempts to live. It plays at love without seeking to possess it. It is ready to declare its love, but in the eyes of others I become a hypocrite.

When God endows me with His power to love, the world, seeing it, often begins to call me the embodiment of evil. This is difficult to understand. Yet everyone perceives the language of love. Not every person desires to speak it, but everyone expects love to be shown toward them.

If love loses the power to love, what can make it loving? It sounds strange. Love exists in order to love. But if it becomes only a name behind which God’s presence is absent—a pink heart on my T-shirt that everyone passing by can see—any person will understand that only empty words stand behind such love. This condition has become the norm of life. Therefore, when I declare true love to such people, they habitually pass by, understanding that such a thing is simply impossible in a world of evolution where the strongest survive. Yet love advances and conquers.

Where can we obtain this love so that it truly loves? There is One Who is Love. He waits for my thirst so that He may meet my need for love. God desires my prayers for love so that He may answer. He hears when I ask and responds.

It is God’s will that I should love; therefore, all Heaven awaits my decision to possess this gift. Without God I cannot love, and without my choice nothing will be given to me. To be the salt of the earth is my desire; to become salt is God’s action within me in response to my choice.

1. Please read 1 Corinthians 13:1–3 and Matthew 5:13. Do these passages have anything in common?

2. What examples from the Bible came to your mind while studying this subject?

3. What did you understand from this lesson?

4. What revelations did you receive while studying the materials on this subject?

5. What must be done to become salt? How do you understand this symbol?

6. Are you a “salty” person?

7. At what point in life do we become salt?