“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.” (Luke 14:34-35, NIV)
Leo Luken is an athlete. Between 1944 and 1946, he won 53 straight fast-pitch softball games, sending pitches across the plate at better than 100 miles per hour. A long-time member of the Fast-Pitch Softball Hall of Fame, Luken went 12-0 in Fast-Pitch World Series competition.
At 45, Luken took up golf. When he retired from a career as a production manager in a piston plant and as a part-time dance instructor with his wife Mickey, the Lukens moved to Florida and traveled to play golf as well. When he was 71, he shot 71. It was the first time he matched his age—not bad for a self-taught golfer!
Early last fall, Luken took shooting his age to another level. Now living at Hilton Head Island, Luken, who was 95 at the time and has now been married for 71 years, beat his age at the Jones Course at Palmetto Dunes. It was the 1,000th time for Luken.
Simply put, Leo Luken has not lost it. He says the secrets to his longevity are moderation and never having lifted weights. Go figure. You stay fit by avoiding “fitness.”
For all the joys of physical fitness and accompanying accomplishments like shooting one’s age, those who are in Christ must look as well at committing to lifelong spiritual fitness.
Jesus took more than one occasion to consider salt with his disciples and other listeners. In Matthew 5, he presented the idea that those who follow him are to be the salt of the earth. Salt served many purposes in Jesus’ day. It was a preservative, as well as a seasoning. Salt was sometimes currency, and even believed divine by some Greeks. In the Bible itself, Elisha had notably added salt to a contaminated spring and the water became clean—a prophetic act depictive of our own kingdom work, where we bring what is pure in Jesus to a sin-torn world.
Both in Matthew 5 and in Luke 14, Jesus also discussed the worthlessness of salt that has lost its saltiness. And here we might say that we find a warning that sounds like this: “Stay in the game.”
While we often read of the sins of youth, it is also true that many committed followers of Jesus relax in their commitments as their life goes on. The weariness of even kingdom work, the comforts of a quiet retirement, disdain for difficult conversations, or a fixedness of one’s viewpoint—all of these tempt us toward an easy road rather than the hard work of a persevering disciple.
Salt that has lost its saltiness is, in a word, unfit. We must resist falling into such a state with whatever bit of strength we have left. May there be no hiccup in our glorifying God between the life we are living today and the life we will live with him eternally!
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Jeff Hopper
April 3, 2014
Copyright 2014 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.