Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. Colossians 4:6
All around the entire world everyday nearly every person has a conversation with at least one other person, more often with more than one person. Some will be very short conversations, while others will take hours. Some in person, others over the phone or internet.
As conversations are taking place, people are telling others something that they think is important and needs to be heard. It is one of the most important ways for people to communicate with other people.
Paul finishes up his letter to the Colossian church encouraging them to have conversations that are full of grace, but also seasoned with salt. They need to be able to know how to answer everyone.
Most people feel that their way of thinking is the only way to think, and so when they speak they have very little grace for another person. There is very little room for growth and learning given to another person.
Believers, who are witnessing and spreading the gospel message, must have grace for others. Not every person is at the same level in their faith in God. Thus their conversation must be seasoned with salt.
Salt is something that does two different things, depending upon how it is used. It can clean out garbage, but it can also preserve what is there.
When a believer speaks, there will be times he has to speak words into the life of another person that will focus on cleaning up his life, removing sin and bad habits. Other times it will be to encourage and strengthen the faith that is already there and building the other person up in the Lord.
Speaking in this way will allow a person to always know how to answer someone correctly.
Just as with most people, you will have conversations with others each day. Allow God’s Holy Spirit to guide your words. Have grace for those who don’t know and are still learning.
Be willing to speak what God wants others to hear. Sometimes it will be to clean up things, while other times it will be to preserve something.
Know which is which, so that you will be able to give a good answer to every person and your conversations will be productive in your life and in the lives of others.
Today I pray that you will know Jesus as your Lord and Savior; that your conversations will be led by the Holy Spirit; that you will speak the words of God that people need to hear; and that God will use your conversations to clean up and preserve the faith in others and yourself.
Leave a Reply