YE ARE THE SALT OF THE EARTH – Matthew 5:13

The Lord calls believers the salt of the earth. Salt has many useful properties. Salt is used as a preservative. The Lord preserves the whole earth for His elect’s sake. God will not destroy the earth with fire until all of His elect have been taken out of it.

Until that day comes, God’s people should strive to be useful in this world just like salt is useful. Don’t be satisfied with grace only in the heart and mind. Put that grace into useful service. Show kindness and tenderness to make this life less bitter for those around you. Show love and compassion to make trials softer and easier to bear for those being tried. Show genuine love for God and love for others to make each day taste better. If we don’t put grace in the heart into action we will become salt that has lost his savor and is “thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” (Matt 5:13)

Pastor

Young Parents

“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Prov. 22:6

Young parents: Raising children is not easy. It requires wisdom, patience, consistency, and most importantly, love. Many mistakes will be made along the way. No honest parent can look back without many regrets. I have heard it said that it is the most important job with the least amount of training one can have. Yet, as believers, we do have a perfect example in our loving Heavenly Father. May the Lord give us the grace to follow Him.

There are three things children will not learn unless they are taught. Our loving Heavenly Father teaches each and every one of His children these same three things: 1) respect for authority; 2) take responsibility for their actions, and 3) be considerate toward others. Jails are full of men and women who have never been taught these three basic lessons. The ultimate form of respecting authority is to bow in submission and worship to our sovereign and omnipotent God. The ultimate form of taking responsibility for one’s self is to be made a sinner. No excuses, no exceptions. When the Spirit of God makes one a sinner they have no one to blame but themselves. And, the ultimate form of being considerate toward others is the unfeigned love the Lord puts in our hearts for all the brethren. This love is manifest not in word but in deed and in truth. 1 Jn. 3:18.

Though we will fail many times in training a child in the way he should go, our God has never failed. When we are brought to see, in the preaching of the gospel, what the Lord has done for us in Christ, we will bow in grateful submission, we will willingly confess our sin, and we will love God’s people. To our young parents: do you see why it is vital to have your children under the preaching of the gospel? It is the only place for them to be taught of God.

Pastor Greg Elmquist

God says of every heaven-born soul, “ye are unleavened,” without corruption, because “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.” Believers, though utterly corrupt by nature, are without sin because Christ was made sin for us and took away our sins. And that new man created in us by grace is “created in righteousness and true holiness.”