Is my salt effective?

You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty ? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out to be trampled under foot by men. - Matthew 5:13 (LSB)

President Woodrow Wilson told this story. I was in a very common place. I was sitting in a barber chair when I became aware that a personality had entered the room. A man had come quietly in upon the same errand as myself, to have his hair cut, and sat in the chair next to me. Every word the man uttered, though it was not in the least didactic, showed a personal interest in the man who was serving him. And before I got through with what was being done for me, I was aware that I had attended an evangelistic service, because Mr. D.L. Moody was in that chair. I purposely lingered in the room after he had left and noted the singular effect that his visit had brought upon the barber shop. They talked in undertones. They didn't know his name, but they knew that something had elevated their thoughts. And I felt that I left that place as I should have left the place of worship. My admiration and esteem for Mr. Moody became very deep indeed.

Do my interactions with others leave them feeling like they just left a place of worship?

Would they say the interaction had increased their admiration and esteem for you?

For you have been chosen by God himself—you are priests of the King, you are holy and pure, you are God’s very own—all this so that you may show to others how God called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were less than nothing; now you are God’s own. Once you knew very little of God’s kindness; now your very lives have been changed by it. Be careful how you behave among your unsaved neighbors; for then, even if they are suspicious of you and talk against you, they will end up praising God for your good works when Christ returns. - 1 Peter 2:9,10,12 (Living Bible)

No human being can come into this world without increasing or diminishing the sum total of human happiness, not only of the present, but of every subsequent age of humanity. No one can detach himself from this connection. There is no sequestered spot in the universe, no dark niche along the disc of nonexistence to which he can retreat from his relations to others, where he can withdraw the influence of his existence upon the moral destiny of the world.  Everywhere, his presence or absence will be felt. Everywhere, he will have companions who will be better or worse because of him.  It is an old saying, and one of the fearful and fathomless statements of import, that we are forming characters for eternity. Forming characters? Whose? Our own or others? Both. And in that momentous fact lies the peril and the responsibility of our existence.  Who is sufficient for the thought?  Thousands of my fellow beings will yearly enter eternity with characters differing from those they would have carried thither had I never lived. The sunlight of that world will reveal my finger marks in their primary formations, and in their successive strata of thought and life. - Elihu Burritt

For this reason also, since the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the full knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and multiplying in the full knowledge of God - Colossians 1:9-10 (LSB)

Who am I not ceasing to pray this prayer for?

Who am I discipling?

The whole point of the passage is that we who are the sons of the kingdom are to be salt and light in the world, and never, under any condition, be it persecution, be it face-to-face abuse, be it behind the back malicious slander, never are we to alter that function one whit. We have to face the music, in the vernacular, or, in biblical terms, we have to take up the cross and follow Christ. I believe that this is directed, not to the whole multitude sitting on the side of the hill as Jesus preaches, but this is directed to the disciples. This is directed to the ones who believe. The reason He wants the ones who believe to be salt and light is to win the multitude. So He never loses the perspective. The King, for a moment, leaves the crowd and he talks to the saints, the disciples, sitting before Him.  But it isn't for their sakes only that He talks, He loves the vast multitude, the unheeding mob, if you will. And He realizes that if that unheeding mob is to be reached, it is to be reached because the believing community is salt and light. This is a mandate to influence the world. - John MacArthur

Be Encouraged to step out of your comfort zone today and be the salt in your community through your focused influence.