Element Church Insider

Ever think of God as an optimist?  I think we’ll see it today.

Welcome to One Prayer day 5.  You can get a One Prayer calendar HERE if you don’t have one.  Today’s prayer?  God is holy!  Please pray for the churches listed today on the calendar and for God to reveal Himself as holy to us and those around us.

Matthew 5:  Introducing… the Sermon on the Mount.  Perhaps one of the most famous discourses uttered from the mouth of Jesus.  Literally holding teaching for MANY areas of our life.  The Sermon on the Mount is packed full of wisdom and teaching.  But it’s not the teaching on money, relationships, law, anger, adultery, divorce or vows we’re going to look at.  It’s something much different.  I want us to see the optimism of God.  Yes, God is an optimist.  (Which is hard for us people who aren’t.  I wouldn’t call myself a pessimist but a “realist”)

Matthew 5:13-16 says:

¹³ “You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. ¹⁴ “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.

This gets me every time.  The people Jesus was talking to were nobodies.  NO ONE would consider them salt OR light to anything.  They were commoners.  Farmers.  Peasants and the like.  But Jesus…Jesus saw something in them.  When everyone there would have pointed to the palace, the temple and the homes of the elite as the difference makers, Jesus pointed back at them.  And notice what He said.

He said “YOU ARE the salt…”  “YOU ARE the light…”.  Not you CAN be or you SHOULD be but YOU ARE!  Now, realistically (see I’m a realist), not everyone there WAS salt or light.  There were many, most, if not ALL of them who literally were NOBODIES.  Not only in worldly standards, but in the standard of faith.  But that didn’t matter.  I think Jesus saw who they COULD become and said “You ARE”.  You are!  “Stop living beneath ALL that I am able to make you.  I’m about to teach about how to live life.  YOU ARE what I’m going to teach.”  I think God…is an optimist.

I think when God looks at you He still says “You ARE the salt, and you ARE the light.”  But He doesn’t stop there, He then offers the challenge “So DON’T lose your flavor and DON’T squelch the light”.  God sees what we CAN be and then TELLS US that’s who we are.  He’s an optimist.

Where in your life have you lost flavor or stopped shining light?  How long are you going to convince yourself you AREN’T salt or AREN’T light when God says YOU ARE?  Notice, He says “You ARE salt, but if it doesn’t give flavor (or stops giving flavor) what good is it?”  Don’t let your lack of belief in what you CAN BE keep you from being WHO YOU ARE.  Be an optimist.

Trying,

Jeff