Salty Grace

DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE COLOSSIANS

SALTY GRACE

Col 4:2-6

2 Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. 3 And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. 4 Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. 5 Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. 6 Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

NIV

We need to continue on with Paul’s concluding remarks as we looked at devoting ourselves to prayer, however, did not make much of the being watchful. That might apply in the sense of being wise as to how we act toward outsiders, which he seems to mean regarding making the most of every opportunity to share the message with them. The idea is that as we talk with those who do not know Jesus as we do, we should make sure our conversation with them is full of grace, however, seasoned with salt. What does that look like? What exactly does that mean? Perhaps that formula of Dr. Henry Cloud’s which states, “Grace & truth, over time, equals changed lives”. The salt is the truth so that we need to season the truth in a way so it is flavorful. In other words, we cannot beat people over the head with scripture or the bible, calling out their sin, and telling them they need to repent and accept Jesus or they are going to hell. That would not be including any grace at all. The fact is our language, or words should be full of grace. That is the first and primary aspect of our message. It there is no grace, no amount of truth would have much effect, in fact, it might just result in the opposite. The fact is as we live out our faith out loud, so to speak, people just ask us why we believe the way we do. Then we would know how to answer every one because we would be in the act of being wise as to how we are toward outsiders and always speaking with them with words that are full of grace, but still having the truth of God. That would look like what an ambassador of a foreign country does. They speak for their sovereign, but in a diplomatic manner as to try not to offend, yet relay the proper message. They are representatives, speaking not for themselves, not on their own account, but only for what benefits the kingdom and their king, or president. That is our mission, should we decide to accept it, and it is not an impossible mission, but one we can achieve because we have the Spirit dwelling within to give us the right words at the right time to bring about the desired result. So let us be aware of how we act or behave toward outsiders. Let us speak a salty grace.