The Covenant of Salt: The Story of God’s Relentless Pursuit of His People

By Nguumbur Lovette Ikongo

In the Covenant of Salt, Nguumbur takes you on a journey that will give you hope and encouragement. She explores with authority insights on Gods ways and shows by biblical examples and personal experiences how He relentlessly pursues the people He created. She breaks down in practical terms what the salting process means for us today and its relevance in navigating the painful and daunting challenges of life – from confronting and defeating giants to the art of living at the Table, to discovering your true identity and actualising your true purpose.

This book is for everyone who has ever struggled with either sin or pain and thought, “God is not able or willing to help me with this.” It is for everyone who has ever been in deep crisis and cried out for help and, finding none, resigned themselves to their situation. It is for everyone who has ever been delivered from shame and disgrace, and then found themselves in the same mess all over again, no matter how hard they tried. It is for everyone who has suffered abuse, lost spouse, children, friends, job, and possessions trying to find themselves in this world. It is for everyone who finds themselves perpetually asking, “Why me? Why am I here? Will I ever make it?”

Hopefully, this book will provide the answers you seek. You will discover that God is real. He is still as active and potent in our day and in our individual lives as He was in the days of the Bible. You will find that he is the healer of hearts, binder of wounds, and restorer of lost lives and fortunes. He flows through our lives and fills every part of it with His relentless and wild love.

This book will not only change the way you see God in your life, it will give you hope, encourage your heart and deepen your relationship with Him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jul 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728383439

Nguumbur Lovette Ikongo

Nguumbur Lovette Ikongo, is the first of 8 siblings, a God lover and successful professional. She has a First degree in Animal Production from University of Agriculture Makurdi and an MBA in International Business from the UK. She also holds several professional qualifications in Banking, Accounting, International Tax, Governance and Business Management. Having served in several churches and ministries in Nigeria and the United Kingdom in various capacities including Church Administrator /Newsletter Editor and Teacher of the word, she now devotes her time to discipleship and encouraging others to develop an intimate relationship with God. The Covenant of Salt is her first book and was inspired by her personal experiences and subsequent revelations and insights from God and the Word over many years of adversity including sexual abuse, bereavement, addiction, sickness and abandonment. In her greatest moments of confusion and anguish of soul she reached out to the Church but instead of help she found only more abuse. But then Jesus and the Father took her up as a ‘babe in arms’, bringing healing and restoration of many lost years and teaching her how to stand. She now enjoys an intimate relationship with the Father and writes engagingly about her walk with him, the insights He has given about many issues of life and His relentless love and pursuit of mankind. Nguumbur has over 25years career experience in banking, project management, private sector and business. She is the founder of Prime Quorum Consulting UK Ltd a management consulting firm in Milton Keynes and Mnena Lupus Foundation (MLF), a charity for helping the poor and victims of Lupus disease and their families. She is also an avid supporter of various ministries and kingdom initiatives. She loves travelling, journaling and spending quality time with her daughter and two sons.

Book preview

PART I

It All Starts with Salt

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Salt is required in food for flavour and preservation. It has been used to preserve food for thousands of years, and it is the most common seasoning in the world. Salt also plays other, lesser-known roles in the food we eat. It is an essential nutrient. It provides texture and enhances colour.

Salt is vital in our everyday lives. Pause for a second and imagine what our homes, communities, and in fact, the world would be like without salt. No wonder Jesus calls us to be the salt of the earth. Salt is an essential quality for living an abundant life. You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be trampled underfoot by men (Matt. 5:13 NKJV).

How, then, can we be salt to the people we relate with or to the world we live in daily? Colossians 4:5–6 (NKJV) tells us, Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. Let your speech always be seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.

Being salt can mean committing to helping others, giving counsel, making sacrifices, or supporting those less privileged. These are things any good person should do as part of living in a community. Most importantly, being salt requires that we speak and walk wisely among people who do not share our ideals or beliefs. We must be an extension of God’s hand to a hurting world. Being salt requires living intentionally and making each day of our lives on earth count.

When we can see the world through the eyes of God, we see that hurting people are sometimes held captive by wicked spirits (principalities, rulers, and spiritual wickedness in high places) who are empowered by their wrong attitudes, sins, transgressions, and careless lifestyles. These things make it impossible for them to free themselves. They need a savior, in the same way, anyone who is held captive by powerful forces needs someone to rescue them.

They are the reason Jesus came. Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick do. You cannot receive healing if you refuse to acknowledge your disease and receive the treatment required.

Our world is hurting because people are so steeped in generational vices. They are held captive by forces they can’t explain, unable to save themselves, yet refusing the solution that is extended. Wrongs such as stealing, murder, incest, sexual perversion, anger, addictions, and more make people extremely difficult to love. They keep hurting those around them over and over again. Only Jesus and His special, true ministers can break the hold of these spirits and set them free.

Life requires that we go through a salting process in order to become what God created us to be. This process leads to a state of true personal wholeness. It is a requirement that preserves and adds flavour to our lives and our relationships with our Maker and others.

Jesus said that we are to have salt in ourselves and that we should be at peace with each other. What this means is that we are not to be dependent on our environment or anything external for life’s taste. We are to draw upon the life-giving spirit of God within us in order to successfully navigate the rapids of life. Having salt in ourselves means we are emotionally stable and wise.

Salt is also used to cleanse. In most cultures, for example, newborn babies are cleansed with salt to prevent infection and to heal skin diseases and burns.

Conversely, in biblical times, salt was used to spoil the land of a captured enemy city so nothing could ever grow there again. So the same salt which is a cleansing, purifying, healing, and preserving agent also has the power to destroy or make enemy lands barren. All that day Abimelek pressed his attack against the city until he had captured it and killed its people. Then he destroyed the city and scattered salt over it (Judges 9:45 NIV).

In the same way that King Abimelek pressed his attack against an enemy city until he captured it, so does God call on us not to give up. We are to sustain our battle against sin, trials, giant situations, and challenges in our lives until we overcome them. Then we use the salt of personal holiness to gain complete and eternal deliverance from those situations—that is, to destroy the enemies in our land forever.

Salt as a Symbol of Covenants

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In Palestine and other mid-eastern countries and Africa, salt was used in making covenants. If people dined together on food with salt in it, they became friends, every animosity had to end. The Arab expression, There is salt between us, or He has eaten of my salt, means partaking of the hospitality which cements friendship. Covenants were generally confirmed at sacrificial meals and salt was always present.

In the Jewish tradition, salt was a symbol of covenants and goodwill between God and humankind. The covenant of salt depicted the everlasting promise of preservation and friendship between God and His people.

All the holy offerings which the people of Israel present to the Lord I give to you, and to your sons and daughters with you, as a perpetual due; it is a covenant of salt forever before the Lord for you and for your offspring with you. (Num 18:19 RSV)

God required salt as a mandatory part of offerings brought to Him. Every cereal offering you shall season with salt, a symbol of preservation; neither shall you allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your cereal offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt (Lev. 2:13 AMPC).

Consider this instance in the Bible, in which the purifying power of salt was clearly demonstrated. A certain city had issues with its water source. The people of the city came to the prophet Elisha and spoke to him.

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.’

NIV. And the water has remained pure to this day, according to the word Elisha had spoken.

(2 Kgs 2:19–22 NIV)

This is no doubt one of the greatest miracles recorded in the Bible. There are two things I want you to note as the prerequisites to this miracle: one is the new bowl, and the second is the salt.

A new bowl denotes a container that has never been used. This is much like the new birth in Christ required in the new covenant, which is a prerequisite to becoming partakers of the promise of eternal life and becoming joint-heirs with Christ. When we hand over control of our lives to God, we become brand-new. In the same way, when the men of the city made a decision to hand over their situation to the God of Elijah, God asked them for a new bowl, denoting a new beginning for them.

The second prerequisite to their deliverance was the salt, which is a symbol of God’s purifying power, ultimately leading to the bloodshed on the cross. Therefore if anyone is in Christ [that is, grafted in, joined to Him by faith in Him as Savior], he is a new creature [reborn and renewed by the Holy Spirit]; the old things [the previous moral and spiritual condition] have passed away. Behold, new things have come [because spiritual awakening brings a new life] (2 Cor. 5:17 AMP).

Furthermore, seven days of cleansing were required to make atonement for the altar when it was built. It was cleansed with a sin offering to consecrate it. The sin offering was usually a young bull and a kid of the goat whose blood was sprinkled on the altar. The priests could take portions of the meat, but the rest was burned outside the camp of the Israelites, denoting how sin ought to be dealt with—total repentance and then removal from our lives.

After the altar was cleansed, salt was cast on it. Then the priests were required to offer a burnt offering to dedicate the altar to God. A burnt offering, as the name indicates, was to be completely burned. No portion of it was eaten by the priests or anyone else, and it was salted before burning it completely.

This is highly instructive. In the same way, when God calls us into the new birth, He requires that we repent and deal with sin in our lives. This process of repentance is repeated until we are cleansed and purified (salted) and made ready for consecration. But our hearts have to be