Seasoned

Colossians 4:6, “let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.” KJV

Colossians 4: 6 Let your speech be always in grace seasoned with salt: that you may know how you ought to answer every man. Douay Rheims (Latin Vulgate)

Colossians 4:6 Your word be savoured with salt evermore in grace: that ye know, how it behooveth you to answer to each man.  Wycliffe

When you go out in public, are you a witness for Christ?  How do others perceive your words?  Do they see you having grace or graceless?  When I see fellow Christians in public, I try to see what their witness is about.  

Just this past weekend, a group of teenagers was having brunch.  They all started to pray.  I was walking past them; I stopped immediately and asked did all of you just pray.  With big smiles on their faces, they said yes.  The people I was with did not notice.  They were not ashamed to pray in public where lots of people were.  I asked about their prayer, they responded with grace.  It was like a chorus singing when they replied yes.  They understood when someone asks, you respond with grace.    

The challenge in today's world is we have lost our grace in how to talk with others.  I love what the Wycliffe says, "behooveth" which adds a bit more to the word ought.  Behoove adds morals and ethics to our speech.  Is our speech full of evil or good?  Dishonesty and lies or truth and honesty?  Does your speech give glorious light from God or darkness towards evil?  Jesus and Paul had to deal with dishonest people all the time.  We will as well.   

A few years back, a family was praying at their table.  I asked the waitress to give their bill without the beer the man ordered.  My caveat was, don't tell them who bought their dinner.  Well, the waitress did.  They came up to our table, asking if we had something to do with buying their meal.  I said we did and explained I saw them praying as a family before eating and my spirit felt something special.  I also explained I don't buy alcohol, which prompted her to respond about the beer.  We had an excellent five-minute conversation about the Lord.  I got the sense as they were leaving, this was a bigger deal than our little conversation.  It was if God showed up in our conversation between the husband and wife. I am not going to get into the details, but God shined a light on our discussion, adding salt (flavor) with grace.  

We do not know what the other person is going through or feeling at that time.  It was certainly the case in our conversation; the wife seemed to shine a light to the husband in grace, not condemnation. The only thing we can do is be ready for when the time comes, our speech and witness for Christ will be full of grace and seasoned with the right flavor of the Lord.  Lives and hearts will change when Christians can speak with grace to the graceless, hopeless, loveless, faithless, lost world.  I was once lost but was found by the Grace of God's words in the Holy Bible.  His words shine a light in people's dark world. It is up to us as Christians when we greet the world, that our speech is full of grace, morals, ethics, integrity, love, hope, faith, joy, and peace.   When people ask why are you different or when you bring grace to them, let the Lord's light shine bright with a graceful, seasoned speech praising God.