Influencial Lives

I was reading in the book of Matthew Jesus' sermon on the mount. This is a specific sermon to the 12 apostles He had just commissioned to follow Him. The main theme and message is how to rightly follow Jesus defining how it should look and what the attitude should be. It has been something I have often meditated through but today the section talking about us being the salt and the light of the world really stood out to me. The concept behind the salt and light of the world is that these two items are very influential materials. As salt changes the flavor of a dish or light changes the environment of darkness so we are Christians are just that; influencers.

This concept is said time and time again but I tried applying it to my life to what the verse is really saying. It got me thinking though what does it really mean? There was verse that led me to that line of questioning. In verse 13 of chapter 5...

"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."
-Matthew 5:13 NIV

So the second part is what caught my attention. Just because the salt loses its saltiness doesn't say its not salt anymore but just good for nothing. If I am a Christian and I lose that "Christianess" its not saying I wont be a Christian just that I will be worthless. This is bad in that if we are to be representatives of Christ we are going to be influential whether we want to or not. So if we are going to put on the title "Christian" we need to remember what that label does. People will put us into a category or put stereotypes on us, so really it comes to a matter of thinking what am I portraying to the world?