Communication

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Did you know that drinking too much water is dangerous?
My father-in-law passed out in my home one day due to a condition called hyponatremia.
Simply put, he drank too much water, which diluted the proper concentration of salt in his body.
Ideally, sodium chloride (common table salt) accounts for .4% of a person’s body weight. So if you weigh 110 lbs. you’re supposed to be carrying four-fifths of a cup of salt around inside you.
When salt levels drop, nutrients can no longer be transferred through the membrane to each cell.
So salt is a key player in our health and wellbeing.
Just shine a biblical light on that truth, and you come away with a tiny spark of how valuable God says you are to Him and to His purpose in the earth.
“You are the salt of the earth,” Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:13. “But if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.”
That’s a great compliment and a freaky responsibility.
Obviously, we’re not just looking at a box of Morton’s, here. How can the salt lose its flavor? Pretty easily, as it turns out. If sea salt gets wet, its composition is changed, leaving other minerals behind that aren’t sodium. It can also go rancid simply from sitting too long.
But due to its preservative and culinary properties, good salt was still worth its weight in gold.
Now, I know you wouldn’t get too thrilled if your pay envelope was full of salt, but given its history as currency, we find this ingredient even forms the root of our modern word, salary.
God had the children of Israel pour salt on every offering to remind them that they were committed to a priceless relationship with Him: “And every offering of your grain offering you shall season with salt; you shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your grain offering. With all your offerings you shall offer salt” (Leviticus 2:13).
In Eastern cultures, “to eat salt” with someone means to share a meal symbolizing the value, permanence, and purity of a relationship, and salt is still given to new homeowners to wish them the blessing of a long life filled with flavor and zest.
Add to this the fact that salt was also valued as a preservative for perishables before the advent of the ice box, and it becomes clear that if anyone can stand in the gap and speak new life into a rotten world, it’s going to be Jesus’ disciples, “that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
But what if the salt of the earth were to fall to critically low levels? Or what if there’s plenty of salt, but it’s out of circulation? What if it just sits there on the shelf and isn’t used?
The salt shaker is in our hands, as it turns out, and we’re battling a salt deficiency.
Consider the fact that salt was part of the incense offered in the tabernacle, which was a picture of the prayers of the saints (Rev. 5:8).
Colossians 4:6 tells us to “Let your speech be always gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person,” and Hebrews 13:15 reminds us to “offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name.”
Revelation 12:11 tells us that the saints overcame Satan “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death.”
Sounds to me like my mouth had better be open, and it had better be salty!
Whether by prayer or praise, and always in witness and in gracious speech, I am called as a believer in Christ to give an answer for God and bring His salvation to a perishing world.

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