“Do you know that your lives are designed to give flavor and seasoning to a tasteless world? Have you noticed what or who the world calls important, or beautiful, or successful? Do you see how shallow and tasteless it has become as it seeks to find value in its vain idols? No one will ever be able to substitute anything for My way of doing things and remain fulfilled. Notice how those who refuse to serve Me scurry from place to place, thrill to thrill, seeking satisfaction of some sort. Notice how there never seems to be enough for them. That is the way it has always been and will always be.
“Ask those who claim to be independent of My will in their lives. They will tell you that they are free spirits and bow to no one. In their folly, they will even find ways to prove that I don’t exist. How pitiful they are as they attempt to fill the void that is meant for Me in their lives. They manufacture their own form of beauty, but real beauty is not to be found. They attempt to serve important things; but their treasures are of no importance and will be exposed for the sham that they are.
“I hold beauty in the palm of My hands. Importance is what I deem important. Real value is not elusive when it is based on My ways. You have been given eyes to see what is really beautiful, important, and of real value. The scales have been taken from your eyes. You have seen that your moments with Me are far more fulfilling than all of your former attempts to find pleasure in the world combined. You must season the world with your new life. Show others how flavorful a life can be. Live bountifully in Me, no matter what you may be going through. As you do, your life will spread My life in all directions, giving others taste buds for those things that have true worth.
“You become the seasoning that I have called you to be in your world. I will give anyone who comes to Me full meals of real value and eternal worth. I will show them splendor and beauty beyond their wildest imaginations. I will show them Jesus as they observe you and your life.”
Ezekiel 44:23 AMP
The priests shall teach My people the difference between the holy and the common or profane, and cause them to distinguish between the unclean and the clean.
Habakkuk 2:18-20 NIV
18) Of what value is an idol, since a man has carved it? Or an image that teaches lies? For he who makes it trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak.
19) Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Come to life!’ Or to lifeless stone, ‘Wake up!’ Can it give guidance? It is covered with gold and silver; there is no breath in it.
20) But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.
Matthew 5:13 AMP
You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste (its strength, its quality), how can its saltness be restored? It is not good for anything any longer but to be thrown out and trodden underfoot by men.
I remember one girl in high school who stood out among the rest. The only way that I can explain how she looked to me was that she was always “clean.” Whenever I would picture her, she would be sitting on a rock near an ocean, the wind doing wonderful things to her hair, her face shining in the sun. (Those are some pretty weird thoughts for a pimply-faced, gas-pumping motorhead, who spent most of his days wondering things like where the ocean was, if there really was one.) She had an untouchable beauty that set her apart, so much so that I needed to find out what made her so beautiful.
After dating briefly, (I remember that she knit little covers for every knob and handle in my car,) I saw no value in anything for which she stood. We had no common interests, so I joined the rest of my friends who called her “too weird to date.” I even had to pick her up from church a couple of times. How weird is that!
As I look back, however, her quiet life stood out as a light would invade darkness. She frightened me with her unspoken purity and her continuous joy. My filthy mouth was silenced in her presence, even though she never told me not to swear. She was the most beautiful, friendliest, most loving, courteous person I had ever met. I wanted to be different than what I was when I was with her but had no clue how to change. She scared me with her integrity and unquestioned acceptance.
In my insecurity and life of purposeless floundering, her kind of quiet peace was unattainable as far as I was concerned. She never had a harsh word for anyone, always served everyone, and expressed words of love that I could not understand. Her life was so bright that I had to flee from it, so that I could function in the way that I wanted.
She died in an automobile accident in our senior year of high school. I had to leave the funeral early because I had nowhere to place the joy that everyone had through their tears. I could only cry, something that I rarely did. How could they be smiling?
Some twenty years later, after I had embraced the love of Jesus, I finally understood how brightly her light was shining in my dark, little world. She was a rare diamond in a world that honored only costume jewelry, all because of her love for a Jesus that I did not know then.
Let my life glow with Your love, Lord. Needing Your mercy and forgiveness more than ever, Lord. Please change my heart and how I perceive others, so that You can use me.
Jim Corbett
