What's the Scoop on Salt?
Sunday, October 20, 2024
You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. Matt. 5:13, NIV.
What's the scoop on salt? First of all, Americans eat 20 times more than they need.
Second, medical science blames salt for high blood pressure, heart failure, and other problems related to fluid retention.
And third, not everyone is salt-sensitive. That's right, some people can eat all the salt they want without ill effects. The problem is that we have no satisfactory test for identifying which half of the population is salt-sensitive and which is not. That's why it's a good idea to be on the safe side and control your salt intake.
If you don't think you can live without salt, remember, you weren't born relishing its taste. Saltiness is something you've learned, and eating salty food fuels the craving. (Have you ever eaten one potato chip?) Plus, salt masks natural flavors that you could be enjoying if you'd leave off the salt.
Why not live on the safe side, lowering your salt intake and your chance of heart disease? Give yourself three weeks on a lower-salt diet. You can retrain your taste buds.
Just as too much salt in our bodies creates problems, so in the spiritual sense does salt that has "lost its saltiness."
God's people "must receive the saving salt, the righteousness of our Saviour. Then they become 'the salt of the earth,' restraining evil among men, as salt preserves from corruption (Matt. 5:13). But if the salt has lost its savor; if there is only a profession of godliness, without the love of Christ, there is no power for good. The life can exert no saving influence upon the world" (The Desire of Ages, p. 439).
Our effectiveness of witnessing to our family and loved ones depends on our receiving His Spirit. "If you are salt, saving properties are in you, and the virtue of your character will have a saving influence" (Testimonies, vol. 6, p. 259).
What can you do to lower your salt intake? What can you do to be "the salt of the earth"?
What's the scoop on salt? First of all, Americans eat 20 times more than they need.
Second, medical science blames salt for high blood pressure, heart failure, and other problems related to fluid retention.
And third, not everyone is salt-sensitive. That's right, some people can eat all the salt they want without ill effects. The problem is that we have no satisfactory test for identifying which half of the population is salt-sensitive and which is not. That's why it's a good idea to be on the safe side and control your salt intake.
If you don't think you can live without salt, remember, you weren't born relishing its taste. Saltiness is something you've learned, and eating salty food fuels the craving. (Have you ever eaten one potato chip?) Plus, salt masks natural flavors that you could be enjoying if you'd leave off the salt.
Why not live on the safe side, lowering your salt intake and your chance of heart disease? Give yourself three weeks on a lower-salt diet. You can retrain your taste buds.
Just as too much salt in our bodies creates problems, so in the spiritual sense does salt that has "lost its saltiness."
God's people "must receive the saving salt, the righteousness of our Saviour. Then they become 'the salt of the earth,' restraining evil among men, as salt preserves from corruption (Matt. 5:13). But if the salt has lost its savor; if there is only a profession of godliness, without the love of Christ, there is no power for good. The life can exert no saving influence upon the world" (The Desire of Ages, p. 439).
Our effectiveness of witnessing to our family and loved ones depends on our receiving His Spirit. "If you are salt, saving properties are in you, and the virtue of your character will have a saving influence" (Testimonies, vol. 6, p. 259).
What can you do to lower your salt intake? What can you do to be "the salt of the earth"?
Used by permission of Health Ministries, North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists.
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