Do we really want to be transformed? Or, do we like ourselves just the way we are? The answer is critical to salvation.
13 Eat honey, my son, for it is good;
honey from the comb is sweet to your taste.
14 Know also that wisdom is like honey for you:
If you find it, there is a future hope for you,
and your hope will not be cut off.
Honey has been used for millennia as a sweetener of foods. Likewise, salt has been used to flavor foods. Have you ever considered how salt is made? As a side note, the chemical reaction needed to create the vast salt lakes and veins was a result of the Great Flood. Here is a description of the process:
“Common table salt, also known as sodium chloride, is an interesting chemical compound because, while it is commonly consumed by humans, when you separate its elements—sodium and chlorine—you are left with something quite different from the edible seasoning known as salt.
The components of salt are sodium and chlorine, both of which are harmful for human consumption and even contact. Sodium requires great care when being handled. If it comes into contact with water, the reaction can be flammable, while powdered sodium has the potential to be combustible (explosive) in oxygen or air. Chlorine, meanwhile, is an extremely caustic and dangerous substance.” Everyday Compound or Poison?
One interesting thing is that when the two elements are introduced to each other, the sodium ignites and transforms into salt. The other interesting thing is that chlorine is used as a cleanser, particularly in pools. It doesn’t take much imagination to see that we are the sodium and the Holy Spirit is the chlorine. We are a dangerous substance on our own, but when combined with the Spirit of God, we become a useful, safe, and beneficial–and much preferred–product.
Which leads to our next point: The “pleroma,” which is Greek for “the Filling.” We find it in Ephesians 1:22-23,
22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness [pleroma] of him who fills everything in every way.
We have the pleroma of Christ when we allow Christ to come into our lives, cleanse us of our sin, and remake us into new creations. The implication is that we are prepared to be “done away with” as we are. Many people are not. They want forgiveness of sins, but they do NOT want to be transformed. If one would watch the demonstration in Making Table Salt, he would find that one does not come without the other.
In a sense, the fire that results from the mixing of the two elements is the continuing transformation of us into the image of Christ. It is this daily transformation that either repulses the lost or attracts the lost, and sometimes both. Either way, our transformation is what the Spirit uses to initiate conviction in a lost person’s life.
May we be willing parties to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit as God shapes us into the image of His Son, Yeshua Ha’ Mashiach (Jesus the Messiah). Let’s be salt today (Matthew 5:13).
Abba, I want to be just like Jesus. I know that You are making me to be like Him. May I allow Your Spirit to transform me daily–even the tough parts of my life of which I don’t want to let go. Help me work through the daily struggle of my feelings. My higher desire is to be obedient and godly; help me attain that goal in spite of myself. May I “put off the old self, which is being corrupted by evil desires,” and “put on the new self, created to be like God in righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22, 24). I can–with Your MAJOR help. Let’s do it. Amen.
In the Master's Hands 