I often fail to consider the spiritual significance of the mundane moments of my day. For instance, during mornings when I am tight on time, I rush out the door, hop in the car, slam on pedal, and speed away. During my craze to get to school, I rationalize speeding over the speed limit, shifting in-and-out of lanes, and directing “righteous” anger at “reckless” drivers.
In the midst of my craze to get to school on time, I have given little thought to the significance of how my faith should transform my driving routine.
Our relationship with Christ matters in every moment of the day. Mundane moments—driving, shopping, waiting, listening, cooking, learning—test our patience, compassion, humility, and kindness. Christ calls us to be salt and light to the world, even in these moments!
As we look to faithfully follow this command, let’s first consider the source of light into the world.
Jesus, the Light of the World
Without Christ, we were tasteless salt. We were overcome with darkness and sin. God’s wrath floated over our shoulders waiting to trample and crush us (Matthew 5:13).
But in Christ’s death and resurrection we have been made new. The savoriness and preservative nature of pure salt been restored to us. The Holy Spirit has expelled the spirit of this dark world from within us. Not only this, but our new life is rooted in the eternal glory of Jesus Christ, the giver and source of all life.
The source of light is never-ending, and so we can faithfully live as salt and light in all moment—even the mundane ones. With that in mind, here are a few things we can aim to do in those moments:
Mirror Jesus’s Meekness in Your Speech
Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. (Colossians 4:6)
The content and tone of our conversations provide a window into our heart. Jesus’s meek speech demonstrated his love for the Father and his devotion to seeking and saving the lost. Our haughty speech demonstrates our self-obsession for the indulgent satisfaction of our selfish desires, even at the cost of our relationship with God and fellow human beings.
Jesus’s speech revealed a love and commitment to the Father. He could be firm, blunt, and quick to expose religious hypocrites. Yet, out of his steadfast love, Jesus wept for their lack of repentance and self-deception of being sons of Abraham, while they were really sons of the Devil (Luke 19:41-44).
Jesus’s speech revealed a love for the lost. Jesus called out to Zacchaeus when he was up in the tree. And, as a response to the fruit of Zacchaeus’s repentant heart, Jesus declared the arrival of salvation at Zacchaeus’s doorstep and Zacchaeus’s new identity as a son of Abraham (Luke 19:1-10).
And we can imitate our faith’s author and perfecter by seasoning our speech with this commitment to God and a love for the lost. We can dress our communication with logically-solid, Biblically-sourced arguments and gracious words.
Concerning the consistently sinful world, we engage in Jesus’s mission to seek and save the lost through praying for and with others and trying to better understand their life and needs.
You can never go wrong with silencing yourself before your neighbor, subjecting yourself to God in prayer and study of his Word, and answering from an informed perspective.
Put on the New Self
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4)
Before the world’s foundation, God placed us in Christ that we may be seen as holy and blameless before him. We shared in Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection that we may become the righteousness of God and share in the riches of fellowship with him. Through the ministry of the Word, the Holy Spirit penetrated and indwelled your heart to initiate your spiritual resurrection from the grave into newness of life.
He relocated us from the domain of darkness into his kingdom of light. He established Jesus as our tender, compassionate master, in place of the tyrant, Satan (Romans 6:4; Colossians 1:13). We have been made new, so let’s live like it!
Remember, the Holy Spirit is the power which sustained Jesus’s fellowship with the Father, rose Jesus from the dead in a glorified body, and ascended Jesus to the Father’s right-hand. This same power is in you!
You are dead to sin and alive to God. By God’s grace, you have the power to resist the temptations to ignore the spiritual significance of mundane moments. You can be the salt and light to the world, fighting temptations which have laid siege of your heart.
Jesus is our Lord at all times, and the Spirit is with us at all times, so let us live this new life and be the salt and light of the earth at all times.
Take Every Thought Captive to Obey Christ
We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5)
Our culture romanticizes the inherent goodness of humans. The Scriptures clearly contradicts this, since it establishes that the human heart is inherently corrupt (Jeremiah 17:9). Within this corrupt heart, perverted passions and desires sit enthroned and animate sinful words, thoughts, and deeds (Matthew 15:16-20; Luke 6:45).
Whether you find yourself in exciting moments or mundane moments, high-pressure or low-pressure, the temptation to sin is there. God has redeemed us from the power of evil, so let’s respond by challenging our sinful, selfish thoughts. We challenge these thoughts with this truth:
We live by God’s power for his glory (Romans 11:36). This includes inconveniencing ourselves out of loving concern for our neighbor’s well-being (Luke 10:25-37). Left to ourselves, we ignore the weak, poor, and oppressed. By the Spirit, our hearts grow tender and affectionate for the people that we would typically ignore. By the Spirit’s power, we can become salt and light to the world.
All for God’s Glory
Let’s bring ourselves to the foot of the cross while living out our identity and callings in Jesus in this groaning world. In our successes let’s recount God’s grace which guided and enabled all our steps. In our failures let’s recount God’s grace which sufficiently covers all our guilt and shame. At intersections, let’s remember Jesus called us to be the salt and light of the world.
We are representatives of God’s grace. As such, we are to proclaim and live out the Gospel for the praise of God’s glory. In the Gospel, God revealed his manifold perfection, infinitely beautiful and great, in the Word made flesh, our lord Jesus Christ. We are to imitate him. And, we are to share him with the world so that our neighbor may join us singing:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isaiah 6:3)
