Christian in a Post-Christian World?

You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.
-- Matthew 5:13

The mark of Christian maturity in any body of believers is the ability to distinguish between relevance and compromise. We are not to become like the world, but we have an obligation to be interesting to the world. The worst sin of the modern day church is making the Gospel -- the most exciting news in history -- boring. We have succeeded.

Jesus compared us to salt. He didn't tell us we ought to be salt, or that one day we would be salt; He said that we already are salt. The problem is, we are in danger of being salt without flavor. No one wastes their time "salting" salt. If it doesn't do the job, it is thrown out.

When we imitate the world; when we lower our standards so we can "identify with" the world, we lose the most important part of our effectiveness. Salt adds a "zing" to an otherwise boring meal. We are not interesting to the world "in spite of" our differences from them; we are interesting because of those differences. So much compromise has been allowed in the name of so-called "witnessing," but the truth is, when we dress like the world, when we sound like the world, when we use the same terminology as the world, we become a somewhat less exciting version of the very people we are trying to reach.

Those who do not know Christ are thirsty for something genuine, for something that is truly different, that comes from another world. We have that in Christ: standards and a lifestyle that throughout history have been so drastically different that the world around us has resisted, has fought, has investigated, and then has embraced the Gospel that Christ paid so dearly to give us.

So how is the world treating your faith? Are they embracing it or trampling it? Keep your flavor! It's what makes you valuable above all else!