Today, I wanted to talk to you about being a little salty. The title of this sermon is, “How Salty Are You?” I wanna ask: How salty are you - how salty am I today?

Sometimes we hear about somebody being salty right, what's the first thing that comes to mind? We think of it in a negative sense. We think of it as somebody that's bitter, or maybe somebody that's just really got a bad attitude, right? But, see in the Word of the Lord, bein’ salty is a good thing. He actually calls us to be salty. We are called to be salty in a way that our lives bring glory to God - that our lives are pleasing to Him. Is there anybody that is salty today you see, Jesus says in Matthew 5 - He says, “‘You are the salt of the earth.’” Salt is so pure. Salt is flavorful, right? It brings flavor to foods and things that we eat. See, in a bitter world, in a dark and sinful world hallelujah church we are called to be those who are pure - who do not intertwine with it. We should be those who are flavorful in all of our relationships. Flavorful in all the things that we do because we bring the Lord Jesus Christ into all of it.

To be salty in the Lord is to be filled with the Lord Jesus Christ so I ask again: How salty are you today? How salty am I?

Now as we begin to go I would like to read a story a little bit of a short passage here, and it's about a people who were in need of some salt. Now they didn’t need salt for their food but they were in need of salt for their souls. And here we’re gonna find the prophet Elisha, who was approached by the people of this city. They approach urging him to help with a situation to help with a problem a circumstance that they had. I pray today that we like these people would be truly blessed by the power and presence of God amen.

So let's look at 2 Kings chapter 2 for a moment. And we’ll be reading verses 19 to 21. The story goes it says, “The people of the city said to Elisha, ‘Look, our lord, this town is well situated, as you can see, but the water is bad and the land is unproductive.’ ‘Bring me a new bowl,’ he said, ‘and put salt in it.’ So they brought it to him. Then he went out to the spring and threw [the] salt into it, saying, ‘This is what the Lord says: “I have healed this water. Never again will it cause death or make the land unproductive.”’”

Incredible. This town this city they had a main water source and that main water source the heart of the land - what would feed the crops, what would take care of the agriculture and the people themselves - it was a polluted water. It was a bad water that was causing unproductivity, it was causing problems, it was causing havoc - death! But we see that Elisha comes, and he hears the Word of the Lord you can imagine, he's listening to God and God says, ‘Get the bowl of salt.’ And he throws the salt on those waters, and they are made pure.

You see I couldn’t help, as I was reading this story, listening to the description that the people of the city gave their town. What did they say as they approached Elisha - they said, ‘Listen sir. You know, as you look at our city it’s well situated right? It’s a good-looking city. I mean we’re in a good spot. We’re the place you really wanna be.’ But still even though it looked good on the outside, it was dying on the inside. It’s where many today maybe thinking even within the church, ‘You know, I feel like I'm doing pretty well, I feel like I'm doing okay - I mean look at my life. I have a decent house. I mean I’m living decently but you know what I just can't connect to God.’ But see that’s the very thing that matters in our life: Are we alive in Christ are we flowing with the waters of God not from the outside but truly from the inside - salted with the blessing of God?

See, when you look at this water we have to ask ourselves also: What does this water I mean in our lives? Now Proverbs 20 verse 5 says, “The purposes of a [person’s] heart are deep waters…” You see this water that was contaminated this water that was so bad is a reflection of the heart of man. The heart of man that must be tested. It must be tested to see if it's been salted with the power of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Gospel that is able to take that which is bad, the Gospel that is able to take that which is unproductive and that which is death and now bring it into the Kingdom to be fruitful for God - to be effective for His Name amen.

Now I don't know, but maybe there’s somebody here today who's been well situated as this city. When I say well situated, maybe you're “well situated” in making money. “Well situated” in our homes nice and neat. We have a decent living. Everything looks so good on the outside yet we are so far from the Lord Jesus Christ. We’re empty of God as a result of being into everything else. Church today I don't wanna be well situated with man. I don’t wanna be well situated with the world; I wanna be well situated with the Lord!

And so can we turn to the Lord Jesus Christ today? That He would salt the waters of our heart, just as Elisha did in this miraculous moment? Are we able to turn to God today that His presence would come and bring a transformation in our lives?

"He loves the one who is so devoted to Him. And so we are salted with a devotion and we are made salty by our devotion to God."

See it’s important, when we’re looking at how all of this happened, we’re looking at the waters of our heart - maybe today we’re looking and going, ‘Man we need our waters to be purified we need this heart to be touched by God,’ we have to look - I really believe it's important - and dive into what that salt that Elisha threw into the water really means. It's important that we see what it represents because you see God is still in the business of transforming today. God is still in the business of taking that which is no good and turning it into something for God.

So as I began to search the Scriptures I was so excited to share with you all just some of the significance of salt in the Word of the Lord. And so as we dive into these waters looking for God to heal to touch to change today, I want to be able to share with us what this salt means - what this salt was that Elisha had thrown into the waters.

And so the first thing we must recognize is that it is a salt of devotion. A salt of devotion. If we look at 2 Chronicles 13:5, it says, “Don't you [know] that the Lord...has given the kingship of Israel to David and his descendents forever by a covenant of salt?” He had given the kingdom of Israel to David He said, ‘You will rule you will always have somebody on the throne from your family,’ - and God made a covenant with David by a covenant of salt.

You see salt represents just that - covenant. A covenant is an agreement between two people, two parties to be devoted to each other, not much different than a marriage covenant. And see our God is a God of covenant. He loves the one who is so devoted to Him. And so we are salted with a devotion and we are made salty by our devotion to God. See before Elisha poured the salt into these waters, remember the waters were unproductive. They were causing a fruitlessness in all the land - you can imagine crops were dying. You can imagine that agriculture that some of the animals that the farmers had they were drinking of this water, you know, unable to reproduce, unable to be healthy - but not only was it affecting the crops in the land and the animals, but even the people were affected in their bodies. Many were made barren by this can you imagine that these waters were causing miscarriages? Can you imagine the people just could not be fruitful in their lives - they could not be productive because of the water that they were taking in.

You see those waters? They are the heart of man. They are the flow of man that tries to live in this world without God. It’s where you know that God is calling you for something deeper with Him. It’s where you know that God is looking for you to come into a deeper place with Him, but in order to do so see we can't be so devoted to everything else. We need to break our devotion that is so deep with the world, our devotion that is so deep with ourselves and begin to come into Christ and be salted! To be changed and touched. You see it’s gonna be a devotion to God it’s gonna be that covenant that we make with Him to say, ‘Father! No longer am I looking to run away from You. Father no longer am I looking to be separated but God, let me be salted with devotion. Let me be brought close to You, God, never again to try and to live without Your presence.’

See Elisha salted that water and it was transformed - but we must remember that that salt was a symbol of covenant. See we cannot produce fruit, we cannot bring anything good apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. I love how Pastor Kris really just opened up with this verse, you know, ‘Remain in Me. If you remain in Me you will produce fruit.’ See if we do not remain in Christ if we do not remain devoted to God, if we are not devoted to living for Him, we will remain fruitless but hallelujah today church - He is calling us to come deeper with Him. He is calling us to repent from our old ways - to turn from our walking away and our lack of covenant with God, our lack of devotion, and to truly be set free to serve Him and Him alone.

Can we be finished today with all those things that would hold us back from being devoted to God? Maybe it's our fears. Maybe it's our flesh, maybe it's our pride and our arrogance - whatever it may be - may we call upon the power of the Spirit of God to break away the covenant with everything else, and to truly come close to God.

See unless we are devoted to Him, unless we are faithful to the Lord we will never produce that fruit. Have we produced fruit in our lives? Have we been productive in the Kingdom? I'm talking about God being able to do things in our lives that we can't normally do. Where maybe you've always had to have the last word in the argument. Maybe you just couldn't hear anything from anybody - you couldn’t take a word of correction - but God salts the waters of the heart. And now, not only are you willing to take whatever correction from wherever it may come from, but you don't even need the last word because you are following the Word of the Lord. Maybe you’re one where when the presence of God would move and the voice of the Lord would come forward, you were sitting just stony. But now the fruitfulness of God is coming where even just a whisper melts your heart to worship and praise and to bring Him glory.

There came a point in my life where I had to realize just how unsalty that I was. I was devoted to everything but God. It’s where it was the salt that lost its saltiness. I was unable to be used in the Kingdom - fruitless, useless before God! But see that's exactly what the world would do to you. It would leave us empty! It would leave us bitter, and dark, and away from the Lord. But hallelujah today church of God, I praise God for His mercy of touching these waters, and calling me to serve Him. Calling me to be devoted! We have to come back to the God of covenant! He is, yes the God of power. Yes He is the God of the Spirit. Yes He is the God who heals and does so many things but He is the God of covenant that calls us to be in covenant and devoted to Him and to Him alone.

See we are made salty by our devotion to God and our devotion even to His Word. I've heard many Christians even nowadays complaining about how the Word of the Lord is no longer allowed to be posted in public places and in schools. Now some of you might be a little too young for this, but I do remember a time when I was younger where I could walk into certain public buildings or even schools and you would find the Ten Commandments posted on the wall - framed. And whether people honored it or not it was posted. But see, here goes the reality - no longer is that a thing that is allowed to occur but the thing is this: It wouldn't matter if we were so devoted to God's Word in our lives.

See the Word doesn’t produce fruit framed up on a wall - it was meant to be followed and believed. The Word of the Lord was meant for us to covenant with that Word - to come in agreement with the Word of the Lord, an agreement to say, ‘This is the standard of God for my family. This is the standard of God for my children, and this is the standard that we shall live by!’

Psalms 119:37 says, “Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to Your Word.” Our prayer should be the prayer, as the psalmist said, ‘Lord turn us away from everything else and let us come into Your Word. Let the Word come deep - let me covenant with the Word of the Lord. Let the Word of the Lord be on my lips. Let the Word of the Lord be the fragrance that comes off of anything and everything that I do and say.’

We are to be salted by our devotion to the Word, upholding it in our households. It's where we stop making decisions according to what we think is right apart from the Lord. It’s where we stop deciding to do things in our lives because, ‘Hey, that's the way I’ve been doing it,’ and come back to the Word and begin to say, ‘God what does Your Word say? Begin to speak.’ It’s where we stop making excuses for our sinfulness. Excusing ourselves saying, ‘Well it's my mother my father my past my this and that,’ and come to the living Word that says if you turn to Christ, if we repent, hallelujah He can break the hell. He can break the curse. He can break and shatter all the sin!

But we cannot be fruitful apart from it. See as Elisha was in this town, the town was well situated as we said it looked good, but it was rotten to the core. That is the heart of man apart from the Word of the Lord. But I praise God today that the hearts - that water - does not need to remain impure, it does not need to remain unfruitful, but we can come this day and join with the Word of the Lord. We can pray and say, ‘Lord I didn't get ‘til now. Father join me with the Word of the Lord. Father I’m repenting for all the ways that I’ve gone apart from You - from thinking and doing my own thing but Lord today let the Word of God be demonstrated in my life.’

See we are salted by a devotion to God, a devotion to His church. Romans 12 says, “Be devoted to one another…” What makes us salty is being filled with God through our devotion to one another. A devotion that says, ‘You know what? I'm not only responsible for my own household, but we are also responsible for the health of the church.’ You see, if one part of the church is contaminated - if one part of the church is not doing well - it affects all of us. You can't have just a little bit of water in a glass with just a little bit of poison. If there’s just a little bit there, we need to be salted. Somebody needs to stop and begin to pray, ‘Listen I may be doing okay right now, but my brother isn’t. I’m about to salt those waters. I'm about to pray and fast for them. I’m about to push for them,’ - ‘cuz we wanna be devoted to the church.

See it’s one thing to look at the way that the world functions. We know that if we turn on the news just for five minutes we see how poisonous the world is - we see how poisonous the waters, the heart of man is. But church of God, we were not meant to live that way. We were not meant to be the same. We were meant to be the refreshing salted waters to one another - the refreshing salted waters to God as we long to be with God but also long to be with each other, devoted to one another in covenant with one another. Maybe we’ve never cared before this day. Maybe we've never connected to each other in such a way. But I plead, church. I plead today that we would pray and ask God that He would allow us to be so connected. I pray and plead that today we would say, ‘Lord salt these waters,’ that we would be able to connect with one another.

I couldn’t help but to be reminded: You know there’s so many ways that we remain devoted to one another in the church, but God really just caused me to really rejoice in something. As I was going through this Word, I was thinking of how we are devoted to one another in prayer, right? And I've had the opportunity and the blessing to be able to pray with some different people in the church or different groups. And what happens? Right where sometimes when we start praying, there’s waters that are a little dirty. There are some bad waters, maybe a bad situation, maybe something happening - but as we begin to devote to one another in prayer, oh hallelujah those waters begin to flow. All of a sudden salt is raining down. All of a sudden as I’m praying with my brother, my sister, my friend, I'm reminded of the Word of the Lord, I'm reminded of His faithfulness. All of a sudden I'm reminded of the power of God, and all of a sudden the waters of God begin to flow because we are salted with a devotion to the King of Kings.

Can God salt our lives today as we are devoted to Him? We cannot be made salty unless we come into true covenant with Him. But I tell you one thing: When we covenant with God, when we are so devoted we will never be the same. The waters were healed! The waters were never gonna go back. Hallelujah through the power of Christ, we don't need to go back! We don't need to be the same!

And so, this salt is a salt of devotion. Secondly, it is a salt that purifies. A salt that purifies. Mark 9:49. This is a short one but very powerful. Jesus said, “Everyone will be salted with fire.”

See when we put the cleansing capabilities of salt together with the purifying power of fire, we can see so clearly that God wants to purify His people. Fire is still used today to purify gold and silver. Salt is still used today as a preservative, even to cleanse things from bacteria and keep us from harmful viruses - it's still used that way today. And it made me think about this: We will one day all stand before God, and He's gonna strip us down and purify us from all that is not of the Lord Jesus Christ. Church, why not today, before that time comes, we be salted in purity? Salted with the presence of God? Salted with the truth as God begins to touch our lives? See this salt, it purifies our perspective. Are you with me? It purifies the way that we see things.

As I was reading this story, I had to ask myself, ‘How long did the people of this city continue to drink that water?’ I mean it was poisonous, it was impure it was bad - someone must've realized a long time before Elisha that it was bad no? Was it that they were looking at it the wrong way? Was it that they were just seeing how bad the water was that people were dying? That things were really just bad because of it but they were seeing it as, ‘Hey, it's a situation or problem that may take care of itself. It’ll go away, we'll just kinda live about and just keep going.’ It’s where some of us may say, ‘Listen I know that there's nothing new really happening in my spiritual life. I know that I've been unproductive but listen - it’ll work itself out. Somehow, some way God’ll do His thing. At least I’m not as bad as the world, right? At least there’s some water there. At least I'm not as bad as I was.’ But God says, ‘No!’ God wants to purify our thinking the way that we see things and cause us to wake up, and truly move. To begin to see the poison, to begin to see the darkness, but also see His light!

I was talking to a man a week or two ago, and it was interesting - didn’t know the man, just met him in the moment but we started talking about the Lord, he actually began to talk about the Lord right away. And as we were speaking, one of the first things he begins to say is, ‘You know, I just know we need to get the world ready for Jesus' return.’ Now when I first heard it, I thought, ‘This is really good yeah that's good stuff.’ But then somethin’ hit my heart, and I said, ‘But wait a minute: How can we get the world ready if we don't even get the Christians ready?’ And I remember just thinking and as we were speaking I started to talk to him, I said, ‘You know how can we touch the world if our own waters are muddied up with darkness? How can we touch the world if we don't even see how bad the waters of our own hearts or the waters that are flowing through our homes are so bad?’ And as I’m looking at him and I’m thinking, ‘How can we talk about evangelizing anybody else if we ourselves have not been evangelized? How can we talk about evangelizing our neighbor if our own children have not been evangelized by the power of God, salted by His presence?’

"The mind of man is impure without the Lord Jesus Christ but see, when God salts the mind, when He touches us, He purifies it."

And it even woke me up to just think, to see and to perceive in light of the truth of God. You see the Lord wants to purify the people of God. He wants to purify the way that we see things. Where we don’t just examine ourselves and then walk away and forget what we see. Thinking that somehow or some way our issue or problem, that darkness is just going to take care of itself. Remember these people who were in this city, they saw what was happening. They saw what was bad, and they saw that it was causing death. But they must've just stood aside, they must've gotten so used to it. Are we so used to those muddied waters today in our lives? Are we so used to the waters just being so unproductive that we've given up? Have we been so used to the wickedness and the sin that we’ve been blinded to see that there is more? That there is more in the Lord that there is more than just standing by and wallowing away and dying? There is more in the Lord Jesus Christ!

I pray today that the Spirit of God would touch us! I pray today that He would move us to change our perception! That we would begin to see in our households differently. We would begin to see the muddied waters. We would begin to see the poisoned waters and say, ‘God no more! Father, have mercy! Pour out the salt! Touch this life! Touch this mind, oh God!’

See this salt purifies not only our perception but it purifies our minds. How does the mind of man relate to these waters? I tell you: See these waters were impure. The mind of man is impure without the Lord Jesus Christ but see, when God salts the mind, when He touches us, He purifies it.

Now I’m not just talking purifying our mind from lustful thoughts. I'm not just talking purifying our minds from angry thoughts, but I'm talking about this: See, impure thoughts aren’t just thoughts that are thinking bad things, but see impure thoughts are godless thoughts. See it's not just about what you think, it's about the lack of thinking. It's about having no room for God in the mindset - muddied up, ‘Who’s gonna play in the game today? Who won the game last week? Who’s gonna win the Grammys?’ just a mindset on everything and anything but God. No room for Him to speak. No room for Him to begin to touch our minds, to renew us! Is there anybody looking to have their minds purified today, salted by the presence of God? May God fill us this day.

See we must be salted with purity in our minds to become a Kingdom-minded people. Where we’re not just so consumed with how much we’re gonna prepare for work and every other thing that we get into, but that our thought process begins to revolve around the Lord. What freedom! The Word of the Lord commands us; it says that, ‘Whatever is pure, whatever is noble think upon these things.’ You see, it's not about thinking all day about how many views we got on our TikTok account. It’s not about just thinking all day of how many people saw our brand new smartwatch and how shiny it is. It’s not about just thinking of what I’m gonna eat, what I’m gonna do when I’m gonna sleep - it’s thinking upon who has been touched by God. It’s thinking, ‘God have I come into Your glory today?’ It’s thinking, ‘God have I received a new Word?’ A mind purified to see and receive the things of God!

"And so this salt not only purifies our perspective in our minds but it also purifies our hearts."

I have to be so thankful this morning, that you know so many times when my family and I, when we get together, we bring something to the table. Now listen: We bring food to the table, right? And you better salt that food, right? I’ve been one who wasn't really good at salting the food before, listen I’ve learned. And we always bring the food to the table and we salt that food and we begin to dine with one another but there's something bigger than the food that we bring to the table - we begin to bring our thoughts. Our thoughts that have been purified by the Lord, the things that God has been speaking to one another. How the Lord has been salting my thought process, how the Lord has been giving me this new word of worship, this new word of seeking Him deeper. And I’m telling you as we’re sitting at the table, listen the food is good, but the presence of the Lord is even better. There begins to flow just a sweet presence as the sweet waters of God. And I can tell you it's just so amazing how God purifies the minds and we join together to speak of God. To hear of God, and to come closer.

And so this salt not only purifies our perspective in our minds but it also purifies our hearts. See that water - it was not pure. If you hear anything today, listen that water was mixed with all sorts of things. It could've been all sorts of bad metals, who knows it could have had lead in it. It could’ve been contaminated from a leakage through the earth - I don't know but whatever it was, that water was not pure. It was not plain, it was not okay. But see that salt that Elisha threw forward - now listen it's not even about the salt it’s the fact that it was the presence of God, that God was about to do something through the prophet. It’s the fact that God when He shows up on the scene, miraculous things begin to happen. You see, that salt? It did something to the water. I can imagine it started to separate all that poisonous contamination, right, with the same thing that God begins to do in our own hearts where God is able to take something bad and turn it into something good.

See that's the miracle of the Lord Jesus Christ. He can purify the sinner. He can purify the arrogant. He can purify the selfish heart and make it a heart after God for those who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ! Is there anybody ready for a miracle today? Is there anybody ready to be salted by the presence of God? Is there anybody ready to turn from a wicked heart to the heart of gold - to the heart of Christ?

See when God enters in, listen there is a shifting of ownership. It's where you might be mixed up like that water was - part of you giving some time to God, but maybe the other part of your heart going, ‘I can't wait for this time to run out so I can get back to everything else.’ You see God is not looking for us to just behave better. He’s not looking for us to be a little better than we were yesterday - God is looking to fill the heart. God is looking to salt the inside. He wants to enter in! He wants to purify us to the place to where we have Him in His rightful place. That is the purity God is calling us to, to where God is seated on the throne of our heart - pure!

See purity isn't demonstrated by just staying out of trouble. Purity isn't just demonstrated by staying away from bad people or bad things - true purity is demonstrated by a heart that recognizes, ‘I cannot serve two masters. It is the Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone.’

I’ve learned more than ever in my life that we can have things. We can have our families. We can have all sorts of possessions, that's fine but when we examine our hearts - when we examine and we find that any of these things or all of these things excel our passion and our desire for God, then it has been contaminated! It has lost its flavor, and God is not in it! The waters are muddy! The waters are poisonous and unfruitful and dead!

See we live in a culture of excessiveness. It's so easy to be excessive with our food, so excessive with our money, so excessive with our shopping, excessive with this that - so excessive with ourselves but I ask today: Who will stop and be excessive with God? Who will excessively go out for His presence? Who will be excessive with overflowing with His goodness? Overflowing with a word? Overflowing with His presence?

My prayer today is that if that has not been us we would repent. We would come back to God. ‘Father forgive us for our impurity. For being okay with the waters and the way that they’ve been the waters of our heart - so contaminated, so mixed! So caught up with the world and all the other things that we dabble in! But Father today, forgive us! Let us be cleansed! Salt us with the power of Your Spirit. Salt us Lord God, to be purified by Your presence and glory.’ Is there anybody looking to be salted? Is there anybody that is salty today? Are you salty?

And so, this salt that Elisha threw in the water,, it is a salt of devotion, it's a salt that purifies, and lastly, it's a salt of Christ. It is the salt of Christ. It says in Matthew 5:13, and this is Jesus' words, “‘You are the salt of the earth…’” I love that. You and I are the salt of the earth. We are not those who live and do our own thing. Yes we may be bosses in our jobs, yes we may be a plumber, yes we may be a mechanic whatever it may be - but over all things you are the salt of the earth.

"See when we are salted with the presence of the Lord, it means that we are willing to submit to God every chance that we get."

Now listen when the Lord calls us to be something such as salt, it's always a result of the work that He does in our lives. To be the salt of the earth is to be salted with the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the salt of Christ. It's the salt of His humility in our lives you see, we have to reference back just for a moment to that city in 2 Kings. Some of your versions in your Bible, as you read it later or you’re reading it now, see mine says ‘the city’ but some of your versions might actually give it a name: Jericho. This city was the city of Jericho now Jericho had some history right? I don't know if you recall, but I remember the walls of Jericho had to come down. I remember God had to do something in order to bring that city down to its knees. You see those walls of Jericho, they were a representation of the stubbornness and pride against God.

Now I can't help but to correlate and put these two together. I believe that that water was a byproduct of pride. You see, pride does one thing in our lives: it causes death. Pride does one thing in the lives of anybody, it causes death and destruction. The Word of the Lord says, “God gives grace to the humble” hallelujah, but He also, “opposes the proud.” You see we cannot be the salt of the earth - we cannot have Christ - and have pride. We must be salted with His humility.

See when we are salted with the presence of the Lord, it means that we are willing to submit to God every chance that we get. It means that we take all of our circumstances, all of our situations whether good, bad, up or down - we take it all as an opportunity to humble ourselves before God, all as a chance to go before God and bow and say, ‘Father here I am. It doesn't seem to be going well, but here I am. Father things are going well, but Father here I am I bow before You.’ It's where you may be receiving some truth or some instruction or some correction of something that God wants to deliver you from, and our response is, ‘Lord I see it. Father, have mercy. Come and salt this wicked heart. Come and salt this prideful heart and allow me to walk as You walked.’

See, how many times when we think about this, have we missed the opportunity? How many times does God give us this opportunity to be the salt of the earth, but we missed it? We’ve missed it because we’ve decided that rather than heed to the Word of the Lord we’ve disregarded what He’s been speaking for us, for months at a time or years at a time saying, ‘Lord no, not right now!?’ How many times have we missed the opportunity by lashing out at the very truth that was looking to set us free, by lashing out in our pride and stubbornness? Not willing to listen and heed to the Word of the Lord and not willing to submit that God would allow us to be the salt of the earth?

But I truly believe God is calling for something bigger today. He's calling us to come out of the pride, to come out of the arrogance to be a people looking to God for hope. You know in my own life, I have to thank God for His great mercy. There came a time where I realized the waters of this heart were so polluted with pride. So poisoned. Disregarding any other way or any other thing but my own way and my own thing, but I praise the Lord Jesus today! By the grace of God, by the mercy of God He has come and touched this heart - no longer salted and dirty with pride and darkness but now salted to be the salt of the earth! To be the one walking in the humbleness of Christ walking in His power, willing to receive His Word! Church today will you be salted in the humility of God? Will you be salted in the presence of Christ? Will you allow Him to touch, to humble us and to walk bowing and living in His Word and truth?

See this salt - this salt of the Lord Jesus Christ - is not only a salt of His humility, but it's a salt of repentance. It's a salt that causes us to repent, to come and to reconcile with God.

"We, in the light of His heart and working are to be salted with repentance."

You know Jesus says again, “You are the salt of the earth…” I began to think how Jesus Himself was the salt of the earth. He healed so many people. He empowered His disciples He had done so many things but the endgame for Him the whole goal for Him was to reconcile the children of God back to the Father. This to God was the salt of the earth. This to God was so sweet, to see His Son give Himself as a sacrifice - to pour out His blood literally to salt the earth, to salt our wickedness that we would no longer be far from God, but be able to repent, to be able to reconcile with the living God.

We, in the light of His heart and working are to be salted with repentance. We are to not just be those who just ask God for things and kinda just move on but to touch truly the heart of God. To have that broken and contrite heart that will not relent, that broken and contrite heart that looks to reconcile - but not just reconcile myself - but looks to reconcile others! To pour out our lives to be the salt of the earth! To be those that God can take and throw into the waters! That those waters that were dying, those waters that were so wicked - be it the waters of our children, be it the waters of our neighbors - to be purified!

I believe that in this time and season that we can change the waters of our homes. I believe we can change the waters of our communities, and I believe even possibly the waters of our nation. I recall numerous times in my life through the years, that every time God had called us to enter into a city - just like Elisha - He called us to go to different places be it Honduras be it, you know Staten Island some of the worst places in terms of murder in terms of just crime and all sorts of bad things! Churches dying and just people running around going their own way! But every time we were called to go to such a place, the first thing God would have us do was salt the land. Before we could do any ministry, before we got to know anybody before we got to speak we would literally begin to lay our hands on the ground! I remember being in an open field just the group of us just so young, fourteen, fifteen years old, laying our hands on the ground beginning to repent! ‘Father we are sorry for the drug addiction! Father, we are sorry for the hatred of God! We are so sorry for the churches that are dead and lost! Father, have mercy on this land!’ - beginning to salt it for God!

And I remember before we would go into those places just the waters being so murderous. I remember those waters of children just being children impoverished. Children who knew nothing of God. Children literally in abuse and in darkness away from the Lord Jesus! But I remember the power of God! As we became the salt of the earth, how children who were so far began to be drawn in! By the tens by the hundreds! I remember the most murderous of places, where people were literally dying, to see grown men putting the guns aside, putting the gang aside to come and say, ‘Who is this God you speak of? We’re seeing those waters that you are pouring out here - we’re tired of these mucky waters, these waters are dead. We want a taste of the waters of God!’

He has called us to be the salt of the earth church! Not only to be salted in our own lives, but that we would be able to salt even this community- even Barnegat New Jersey even Manahawkin! I look at the waters of these communities! Listen - waters have flowed from this place that have been bad for too long! We've been dying for too long! Our children have been dying! Unproductive and fruitless for too long! God is saying, ‘It is time for the miracle!’ It is time for the church to arise! But will we be able to salt? Will we take serious the call? Will we be the salt of the earth? That God would just be able to take us and pour it out? That we would see the miraculous wonders of God taking that which was so dead, so poisoned and so bad, and turning it into something for His glory?

Who will stand in the gap? Who will stand on behalf of the voice and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ will that be us today church? See, this salt of Christ is a salt of repentance, to stand in the gap for others. It's a salt of perseverance.

I'm learning, so deeply, that the power and the importance of perseverance in the life of a Christian is so precious to God it is so flavorful. See Christ He endured troubles. He endured betrayal - a whole lot of bad things - but yet, He was salted with perseverance He kept those waters so pure because of the joy that was set before Him. He was looking forward to this day - this day right now - to see that His sacrifice, that the salt of the earth that He’d become would now salt us that we also would salt others. He persevered, He kept the course He kept going, because He knew what would happen.

See Christianity isn’t about running away during a time of trial or affliction. It's where we stand it out with God, it's where we stick it out no matter what because we know that Elisha is on his way. We know that the prophet is about to enter the city, and the city is about to be overturned!

We persevere in the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't abandon our post just because things don't seem to work out, just because maybe it didn’t turn out the way that we thought. Or maybe the miracle doesn't seem to have happened yet, or the deliverance - it doesn't matter, we stick the course because we know that God is going to do something. We stick the course because the prophet is gonna be tossing some salt, and we need to remain salty. We need to remain in Christ. We need to not let go no matter what is happening!