Salt, Light and Servanthood
By Landa Cope
We do not need to be afraid of the darkness of our world. God’s word promises that where there is darkness our light will shine brighter. It does not take much salt to improve the tasteless pot. I trust that God will put new vision in our hearts as to your global responsibility and call, as you look over what you might salt with flavor and bless with the worth and words of the Gospel.
Joseph was just seventeen when God told him he would lead a nation. By the age of thirty, he was affecting many nations with brilliant agricultural solutions that God had given him in response to a famine. He demonstrated the worth of God’s Word in the political arena so profoundly that it affected generations with God’s truth. Similarly, Esther was a young woman when God directed her to take necessary steps toward international influence. When the time came, she changed the history of her people.
There is no limit to what God can accomplish through you! But we need to be aware of how we can bring God’s salt and light to a waiting world.
The Gospel tells us that Jesus faced three temptations as the Holy Spirit prepared Him for ministry. The first challenged His position as it related to His physical needs. “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.“ The second challenged His position as it related to spiritual power. “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down (from the highest point of the temple).“
Jesus dealt with each of these temptations by acknowledging that His responsibility was to obey the Father as He directed Him. He was not obliged “to prove“ His sonship with a certain physical provision or a spectacular act of spiritual power.
Attacking Christ’s sonship was not effective, and in the final temptation the enemy took a different approach. He accompanied Jesus to the top of a high mountain and showed Him all the nations in their splendor. “ All this I will give you, if you will bow down and worship me.“ Jesus understood His position. He saw His birthright, the nations. The temptation? To obtain his inheritance fast and without apparent suffering by following a way other than God’s.
History overflows with those who have understood who they were in Christ and have seen the nations as their inheritance. At the same time, too many have bowed down to this last temptation of the enemy. It is a subtle deception.
The ways of God are always grounded in servanthood. Jesus did not come to be blessed, but to bless. He did not come to judge, but to forgive. He did not come to gain His life, but to lay it down. He did not come to safeguard His rights, but to secure them from others.
A study of great men and women of the faith will show us that they learned this important frame of mind and heart. Moses tended sheep, David served Saul, Joseph worked in prision, Daniel served a pagan government, Esther waited on her king: these are all examples of how God prepared a world changer through servanthood. They resisted the last temptation and stood as pillars of light in the darkness of their day, salting the history of the human race.
What a generation we live in! Never in human history has there been greater opportunity to shine for the cause of Jesus Christ. May your heart be open to hear God’s purpose for your life. Only He knows what He has planned for you. My prayer is that you pass the last temptation and, rather than be a modern crusader holding nations to the sword, be like Jesus with all the power of a servant’s heart.