The Impact of Salt

Salt is one of the oldest and most commonly found food seasonings. Everyone knows what salt is, but sometimes the importance or necessity of salt, the impact that salt has is not realized until it is lacking.

IMPACT #1: Salt is essential for life.

“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted?” Matthew 5:13 (KJV).

The bible tells us that we are salt.

In fact, we cannot survive without it. Salt – is the main source of sodium and chloride ions in the human diet. Making it essential for the functioning of our nerves and muscles and fluids. It also influences the body’s control of blood pressure and volume. Electrolytes help to also support regulating blood pH and pressure and is also a crucial component to the production of stomach acid. That’s why when we sweat and lose salt, it’s important to replace it with not just water but a source of electrolytes (or salt).

But let’s go a little deeper.

When we are operating as Jesus has made us, as salt, we have such a beautiful opportunity to share with those we encounter the One who is essential for life everlasting. We have the incredible opportunity and ability to impact those around us, to speak LIFE because we carry its power in our tongue.

“Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.” Colossians 4:6 (KJV).

The greek word used here for salt, “halas,” also translates as wisdom and grace exhibited in speech.

The words we say make such an impact, and we need to use our words and our speech to others with the motivation of wisdom and grace- especially when having hard conversations. Grace and wisdom, with God’s leading and guidance, are the ultimate seasoning for any conversation.

IMPACT #2: Salt impacts flavor.

“Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg?” Job 6:6 (KJV).

Trust me, this Cajun girl knows well seasoned food, so let’s be real. Salt makes food taste better. You can tell when salt was left out of a dish real fast.

Salt can add flavor to something that is otherwise bland on its own, like chips or fries, can help to enhance flavors that are already there, like vegetables or watermelon, or it can provide a contrast by changing the taste. Think of salted caramel, or salt in your coffee to make it less bitter. Salt reacts with the bitter receptors of the tongue to lessen bitter flavors.

If I have a friend who is left bitter from life, and I come as salt to love them, pray for them, and be an example of goodness and mercy, reflecting the God I serve into their life to dull or even desensitize that bitterness. My influence can impact on them when I am who God has called and created me to be.

We are called to spread throughout the world and enhance it, adding His flavor to things that would be bland, drawing out the blessing of whatever is good, and providing a contrast by being distinct, different, or set apart.

IMPACT #3: Salt makes us thirsty.

Water is essential for life, and a balance of water and sodium is important. If the body detects that our sodium-to-water ratio is off, our bodies will signal us to drink because it needs more water.

Just like our bodies need water, our souls thirst for living water.

“but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” John 4:14 (KJV).

All of us need spiritual water, and I pray that our lives lived before others, our witness, and our walk help to increase a thirst in those we encounter for the fount of living water.

With water, which gives life, and salt, that preserves, like saline that replenishes an ailing person, His covenant with us – His grace and forgiveness given to us through His selfless sacrifice, gives us life and preserves us from the evils of this world.

IMPACT #4: Salt preserves.

We are blessed with refrigerators and freezers to help us preserve meat and other goods for a certain amount of time until we are ready to use them. This was not always an option for those before our modern inventions, so those in the past would turn to salt to help preserve their food. They would rub the meat with salt, which helped to draw water from the meat’s cells to prevent rotting and loss.

When we receive the Holy Ghost, we are sent to this world as a preservative, combatting against the moral decay of our sin-impacted world, and preventing it from becoming completely corrupt or ruined.

Salt does not just savor. It saves and protects.

IMPACT #5: Salt purifies the sacrifice.

“And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.” Leviticus 2:13 (KJV).

The meat offering, or a food offering, had to be unleavened bread with oil and salted.

Notice how it says, “the salt of the covenant.” The offerings were to be offered with salt as a symbol of the purity of the covenant and a reminder of the commitment that the people of Israel made to keep it.

Salt is a requirement for sacrifice, and a sacrifice without salt is rendered unacceptable.

This makes sense for the covenant of the Law that the people were under, but what about us, who are now under the dispensation of grace?

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living

sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” Romans 12:1 (KJV).

Our lives are to be a sacrifice unto God. And when we offer our lives and all that we do unto God, remember to add the salt of the covenant by keeping our motivations pure.

A man can do good works and think by his good works alone he is saved, but this is not so. We need the salt of our faith and belief in Christ. When we try to save ourselves on our own merit, it rejects our need for the grace of God to save and keep us. It’s offering a sacrifice with no salt.

Let’s look at when Jesus was praying in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus was preparing to go to the cross. The gospel of Luke records in chapter 22 and verse 44 that Jesus’s sweat was like drops of blood. As we see Jesus preparing to go to the cross to save and offer a way for our purification, we see Him sweating heavily, praying and sacrificing His own will, and that salty sweat is covering our sacrificed Savior, preparing Him for the cup that could not pass Him.

“For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.” Mark 9:49 (KJV).

There’s no sacrifice without fire or pain, but the good news is that this fire purifies us and strengthens us.

“Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations. That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:” 1 Peter 1:6-7 (KJV).

Living a life dedicated to God and fulfilling His work that He left for us does not guarantee that we go through life easy breezy and free from pain and suffering. No one, not even scripture has even said otherwise, but it is the most rewarding life because we are actively living in the will of God, and it’s a yoke much lighter than the yoke of this world.

When we offer our lives as a living sacrifice, when we accept and follow Jesus’ example in His death, burial, and resurrection, and when we make ourselves available for His will to be done in our lives… He will do the cleansing and purifying, and He will indeed refine us and purify us for His profitable use.

It’s like that saying goes “God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.” He is all we need. His grace is sufficient, and His power works best in our weakness – we just have to sacrifice it all unto Him. When we do this, we are fulfilling our call of being the salt of the earth.