Caffeine Free Diet Coke

This morning I was checking the fridge here at the office and the only cold beverages I had to choose from was Sprite or Caffeine-Free-Diet-Coke. I picked the latter. As this cold concoction slid down my throat I began to taste the difference. I began to see through the illusion...

"Wait one second..." I thought, "this doesn't taste all that much like real Coke?!?" I mean seriously, why did I ever pick up this canned chimeric clone of the real thing? Remember your first sip of soda? ("pop" or "sodi water", whatever nomenclature you prefer) Good huh? Sugary sweet huh? I remember my first Coke. Mmmmm...

I digress...

So, I am sitting here with a distant-cousin-by-marriage of a drink that is supposed to be the real thing. Frustrated... Disappointed...

As I am sitting here working... Scratch that. As I sit here sulking at my desk God brings something to my mind... Salt...  What?? What does that have to do with my beverage??

Matthew 5:13 "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."

See, my drink is not really all that good at being Coke. As a matter of fact, Its not really all that good at being a refreshing beverage, period. I began to see the correlation. Do I have the real-flavor of Jesus Christ in my life? Or the Caffeine-Free-Diet-Jesus Christ-Lite version of the real thing?

Is my faith leaving a good and meaningful flavor to those I come in contact with or does the world taste and say "Blaaach?!? This tastes like the faker version of the real thing!!!" Thanks Caffeine-Free-Diet-Coke, for that reminder. And in the realest sense of the phrase... "Keep it real!"