Salt Water
By Grant Gaines
“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,’ [Elisha] 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.” And the water has remained pure to this day, according to the word Elisha had spoken” (2 Kings 2:19-22, NIV).
Saltwater covers roughly 66% of our earth and yet we can’t drink any of it because salt and water don’t mix together to form a good combination for drinking. In fact, if you were stranded on an island or boat in the middle of the sea, survival experts strongly advise against you drinking any salt water because the salt that is in the water will only dehydrate you more than the sun and heat will.
Isn’t it strange then, that God had Elisha use salt of all things to purify water?
I believe that the Lord used this short little story that we often would read over in 2 Kings 2 to give us an incredible illustration of what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 5. You see, it would certainly be awesome if God allowed all His children to have that same cure-all salt to take with us everywhere we went, wouldn’t it. Go to a third-world country that has dirty water, throw some salt in it, and watch the Lord purify the water from any filth that polluted it in the first place. Miracles like that would give atheist and sceptics little room to continue in their doubt.
But instead of giving us some magical all-surface cleaning salt He actually made us salt to purify contaminated situations. Just as Elisha dropped salt into a polluted pond of water, Christ strategically drops His people into broken, hopeless circumstances so that they can purify those situations with the love and truth of the Gospel.
God didn’t just give us the answer to the world’s problems, he made us the answer as we shine the light of Christ onto a darkened world. No military tactic, political campaign, or economic policy can do anything to purify the hopelessness of our world. It takes love. Martin Luther King Jr said it best when he poetically said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
If you want to see a change in the world, take the advice of the great “theologian” Michael Jackson and start with the man in the mirror. No longer are we to run and flee from those who are unclean as they did in the days of the Old Testament. With Christ as our example, we are to run to the hurting, the broken, and the needy with love and hope that can only be found through the life given by Jesus Christ.
He is the answer we’re all looking for, He is the hope of the nations, He is the only solution to our problems. And God designed it in such a way that you very well might be the only way that someone will see, hear, and experience this answer.
God has made you salt so that you could go purify contaminated situations, preserve broken lives, and invoke a spiritual thirst amongst your peers, coworkers, and strangers.
Are you living as salt today?
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©Grant Gaines 2013
