When I think of our identity in Christ as salt of the the earth, I’ve always thought about it in line of adding flavour. Adding God-flavours to the earth, which means showcasing fruits of the spirit to everyone we encounter and allowing them have a taste of Gods love through us.

A few weeks ago while listening to a sermon, the teacher said “Christian’s are the only reasons why this earth is still habitable”, and in the same breath he quoted the “we are the salt of the earth” verse.

I almost jumped out of the chair after meditating, remembering that this was just another powerful quality of salt, from time immemorial it was even the preferred means to preserve food before we advanced to other sustainable and digital means.

Salt preserves food, and if God likens the believer to salt, it means we also preserve this earth. This revelation gave my purpose fresh energy, because I truly believe that the world has decayed to such a scary point, because the things I read about Sodom and Gomorrah in the bible, I read and hear same on the news today, but the difference with that time and now is that God has made preservation possible through His creation by inhabiting us and declaring us preservatives of the earth.

This morning I was reading Gods decision to destroy Sodom and I saw that God did make an allowance after Abrahams plea to reconsider destroying the righteous together with the wicked, and God said “if I find 50 righteous people in Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake”. After which Abraham interceded to far less for God to reconsider destroying.

From this, I see that even when these people were not made preservatives as we’ve been made in Christ, the Lord found a reason to make them preservative, because He is a just God, and what He decided to use was righteousness; “if I find 50 righteous people…”

In the two stories, preservation of the earth is achieved through righteousness, because what makes the believer capable of being salt of the earth is the inhabitation of The Holy Spirit in us which makes us the righteousness of God.

Righteousness is what preserves. Not just the earth, but every person as an individual. In the armour of God from Ephesians 6, what protects your chest and bodice region is the breastplate of Righteousness. We need to see that the call to righteousness is more than a spiritual call or responsibility, it is actually Gods design to protect His people.

Righteousness will protect us from the decadence of the world, but also from some of the earthly consequences that come with unrighteousness.

When next you’re tempted to think of yourself just as a God-flavour over the earth, remember also that you’re preservative against much that the enemy plans over this earth.

May God never lack a reason to preserve this earth because He couldn’t find righteousness. May our saltiness be effective and may it last till He returns.