THE SALT

“You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavour? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless.”       Mathew 5:13 [NLT]

Listening to a podcast on this verse on the first day of the year, I recalled a part of my English Language lessons from many years ago: Definite Articles vs Indefinite Articles. ‘THE’ is a definite article, while ‘A and AN’ fall into the indefinite article category. A definite article is used with an item that is known with certainty, while an indefinite article is used with an item that is general or non-specific – it is not used with a particular thing that is known.

When the Bible says that we are THE salt of the earth, the use of the definite article implies that there is no other salt of the earth. The statement is not a general statement referring to a non-specific item. We are the ONLY salt of the earth. The church as an organization and the church members at individual levels are the salt of the earth. If the area around us is missing the salt effect, we need to look in the mirror and apportion the responsibility to the right person.

Salt preserves, salt ‘sweetens’, salt brings out the best from all the other ingredients. Talking PERSONAL responsibility for these missing salt effects is tough, because it’s always easier to point at other people, especially leaders with titles. This finger-pointing comes with a filter that prevents us from seeing the changes that we could make in the field that God has committed into our hands to cultivate.

No matter how many fingers we point at other people, it does not change God’s word that allocates this salty responsibility to us, and we are really not at liberty to choose the part of God’s word that is applicable to us. We may not be in the position to change the whole world or even our cities, but we definitely have a space that God has allocated to us to influence. We can change that space by manifesting our saltiness.

We can follow Nehemiah as a great example in this light. When he heard the state of things in Judah, he stepped up to do something about it, starting with prayer.

Then I said, “O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of unfailing love with those who love him and obey his commands, listen to my prayer! Look down and see me praying night and day for your people Israel. I confess that we have sinned against you. Yes, even my own family and I have sinned! We have sinned terribly by not obeying the commands, decrees, and regulations that you gave us through your servant Moses. Nehemiah 1: 5 – 7

Following his prayer, he took the necessary steps and did what was in his power to initiate change.

We should never join the band of those that say that we pray too much in our country because praying continuously is in line with God’s word to us to pray without ceasing. We actively oppose the scriptures when we say that. As Christians, we should continuously pray hard and work even harder to show forth the glory of God in every space where we find ourselves, fully bearing in mind that we are the salt of the earth.

When we don’t see ourselves in the ‘corridors of power’, we should plant ourselves in the corridors of prayer because “…The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.” James 5:16 [NLT]. We should not doubt the power of prayer, no matter how long it takes to manifest. Prayer and hard work are not mutually exclusive. We should be THE salt in our spaces and start the change now. A small quantity of salt is enough to make a large pot of soup to have a perfect taste, you are more than enough to ‘saltify’ your space.