"For everyone will be seasoned with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. Salt is good, but if the salt loses its flavor, how will you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace with one another."
Mark 9:49-50
Mark 9:49-50
Everyone is seasoned with fire. Fiery trials are what 1 Peter 4:12 calls them. They aren't supposed to surprise us. They are supposed to be a source of JOY. Peter says we aren't to think of these fiery trials a strange but as normal life and an opportunity to enter suffering with Jesus. We can use the fire as cleansing and be at peace with each other as His living sacrifices -- seasoned with salt.
If we are seasoned with salt (prepared for sacrifice), then we are made into the image of Jesus as the excesses of the flesh are burned away in the fire. If we aren't prepared then our loss will be personally tragic instead of a redeeming fact of life. As living sacrifices that sometimes haven't been seasoned we often try to escape from the altar when the heat gets turned up. We need to arm ourselves with the mindset that Jesus had: serve where you find yourself without seeking escape until God raises you up.
Everyone will be seasoned with fire. The question is do we willingly enter into the suffering of Christ so that He may transform us into His image? Paul said he would do whatever it took to be found in Jesus and experience the resurrection power in his life and in eternity. Can we do less?
Seasoned,
Pastor Jason
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