Col 4:6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.
What is it about salt? And how do I season speech with it? Gracious speech is sweet, yet Paul says to season it with salt.
A friend of mine makes this interesting breakfast of quinoa grain mixed with some oatmeal, coconut oil, dried fruit and nuts with some date honey to sweeten it. Then..might seem strange, he adds salt. Salt brings his healthy breakfast to a new level of flavor. Salt carries all the other flavors to a new level of palatability. It brings a wonderful balance to the sweet porridge.
Take out the salt in any recipe and there’s something vital missing. What is it about salt? By itself, salt doesn’t taste so great. It’s too strong. Yet add it to the recipe and its power becomes the very thing which brings life to the food.
I think salt is that element of God’s truth that enhances, preserves and strengthens us. Speech seasoned with salt will encourage or warn, it will impart life and prevent decay from setting in, or stop it in its tracks. Stopping decay is reversing a fundamental element of the Fall. Salt is vital to life and salted speech is too.
Believers need to be “salty” in a world that is falling apart from the suffusion of sin and decay.
Our message is sweet. God forgives, He loves, He brings eternal life. Yet these wonderful truths exist in an awful context of death and decay which we must not ignore by only speaking graciously. We must add salt.
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy Devotions. This devotional was originally published on Worthy Devotions and was reproduced with permission.
More Devotions
Psalm 1 opens with a sobering warning about the quiet, deadly slide into sin. The man without God doesn’t become a scorner overnight — he drifts there gradually. First, he walks in ungodly counsel, entertaining worldly thoughts. Then, he stands in the path of sinners, embracing their way of life. Finally, he sits in the seat of the scornful, hardened in heart and mocking what is sacred. This progression — from a man without God to scorner — reveals how small compromises grow into full rebellion, dulling the conscience and deadening the soul.
In a world trembling with uncertainty–political unrest, economic turmoil, natural disasters–God is speaking again. Not in whispers, but with the shaking that reorders lives, redefines kingdoms, and removes everything that cannot stand in the presence of His glory. He is preparing us for a kingdom that cannot be moved. But in the midst of the shaking, there is rest — a deep, unshakable rest reserved for the people of God. Not rest as the world gives — temporary relief or distraction — but the kind that anchors the soul in the storm, the kind that is rooted in Yeshua (Jesus), our rest.
Just as a bird needs both wings to fly, a victorious life requires both faith and obedience. In Joshua, God calls Joshua to lead Israel into the Promised Land, not just with bold confidence but with complete dependence on His Word. Faith believes what God says; obedience acts upon it. One without the other stalls the journey. This moment wasn’t just about crossing into the promise land — it was about stepping into covenant reality, where trust in God’s promise was matched by surrender to God’s command.
The Book of Joshua offers more than a military history; it reveals the spiritual dynamics behind every victory and defeat in the life of a believer.
After Moses’ death, God commissioned Joshua to lead Israel into Canaan—a real place that carried profound spiritual meaning. Canaan was not a picture of heaven, for it was filled with enemies, obstacles, and the ongoing need for faith and obedience. Instead, it symbolized the believer’s journey: a life marked by conflict and conquest, failure and faithfulness, struggle and surrender. Just as Joshua was told to rise and cross the Jordan, every follower of Christ is called to move beyond mere spiritual survival into a victorious, Spirit-empowered walk—a life that embraces the fullness of God’s promises with courage, rest, and purpose.
When we hear the word Hineini—”Here I am,” many of us immediately think of the prophet Isaiah in chapter 6, standing before the throne of God, overwhelmed by His holiness. After being cleansed by the burning coal, Isaiah hears the Lord ask, “Whom shall I send?” and responds with the now-famous phrase: “Hineini—Here am I. Send me.”
Following Yeshua (Jesus) isn’t just about believing the right things or checking boxes. It’s about wanting to truly know God — to experience Him personally. And here’s the amazing part: even that desire starts with Him. God is the one who stirs our hearts and awakens our longing. If you find yourself hungry for more of Him, it’s because He’s already working in you.