Verse of the Day for May 1

Jesus does not say try to be salt. He does not say that one day, once you have grown up a little, you may become light. He says Ye are the light of the world.

Look at who was listening. Fishermen, a tax collector or two, sick people who had followed him up the hill, and a crowd that had not yet seen the cross or the empty tomb. None of them were ready. He named them anyway.

Purpose here is not a reward handed out after training. It is a description of what you already are because of whose you are. Salt is salt before it touches the meat. The lamp is lit before anyone sets it on the stand.

The only question the passage leaves open is where the lamp sits. Nobody lights a candle to put it under a bushel. Readiness is not really the issue here. Placement is.

So the nurse starting her first night shift, nervous and checking every chart twice, is already light in that ward. She does not have to feel it to be it.

Feeling ready usually arrives after obedience, not before it.

Wherever you are standing this morning is a candlestick, not a bushel.