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Friday, August 20, 2010

Covenant of Salt

Ought ye not to know that the LORD God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David for ever, even to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt?  2 Chronicles 13:5

We are the partakers of a unique covenant in the Bible.  A covenant is an agreement, a contract, a promise.  In this passage, God is detailing that He had made a promise using a 'covenant of salt'.  This is a covenant of protection, of promise.  If the two parties were to literally place an offering of salt in a common pile, you wouldn't be able to tell them apart.  They would be joined, permanently.  That's how God sees this agreement, permanent.

How does this apply to us today?  When we place our faith in Jesus and call Him Lord, we bind ourselves to Him.  We enter into His covenant of eternal life.  We are His.  In Matthew 5:13, Jesus says, "Ye are the salt of the earth".  We are called salt.  We are in the covenant because we are the offering.  That was our part.

Are you, as the saying goes, worth your weight in salt?  Are you working for God's glory?  Are you ready to change?

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Focus on Jesus

We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.  2 Corinthians 4:8-10

God is good.  Period.  It's often easy to look at trouble in the world (pain, disease, death) and question how there could be a God.  How could He be called good?  The problem with that comes from looking at God from a human perspective.


We view God from our rules, our mindset.  We think He should behave a certain way because that makes sense to us.  However, we forget the trouble that lead to where we are today.  That trouble is the fall of man in the Garden of Eden.  When man sinned against God we were separated from Him.  Even worse, we placed ourselves under the plans of the enemy.  It is our enemy that brings pain to our world.  It is our Lord that loves us enough to send His son to die for our redemption.

That is why I focus on the first from second Corinthians.  It does not say that Christians are shielded from pain and suffering.  It says the opposite.  These trials will come.  It is our reaction to them that is different.  We are not confused, beat down, self-pitying any longer.  We stand in the power of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  His sacrifice.  His blood.  His love has given us power over these attacks.  Our reaction is a testimony to Him.

So.  How's your testimony?  Do you react as a redeemed Christian, or as a victim in the world?  Focus on Jesus!  He will carry us through.