what fragrance are you?

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   I know that seems like a strange question to be asking yourself, "what fragrance are you?" However, in light of scripture, and in terms of spiritual fragrance there is no better question we should be asking ourselves today. 
   In fact, the Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 2:14-16:
“Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, (which means through Christ we can have victory) and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God THE FRAGRANCE of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are THE AROMA of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life...”
   This is how we are supposed to be living within the world, victorious, and influencing others towards life with Christ! We are called to give off the fragrance of Christ, an aroma of life that leads to life. However, when we as men and women of God are seeking first the things of this world (cf. 1 John 2:15-17), and allowing our lust for physical pleasure, or our lust for material objects, or we allow self-centeredness to rule our lives, these things will take over our life and absolutely shipwreck our relationship with God. The Bible tells us in 1 John 2:15-16; 
“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – is not of the Father but is of the world.”
   Many believers are uniformed about the reality of worldliness in their lives. They think that it is limited to “external behavior”, like the physical pleasures of life, the material pleasures of life, and the self-centeredness in a persons life. However, worldliness first begins in the heart! It is an internal reality within each person which begins in the heart and is characterized by three attitudes that contaminate us. The three attitudes of the heart that contaminate us are:
  1. Craving for physical pleasure (outside of marriage)
  2. Craving for material objects
  3. Craving for self-promotion (self-centered living)
   When a Christian is living a carnal life, consumed by the things of this world, they give off an ugly fragrance no matter how much they try and cover up their life with Christianese. A Christian that is full of worldliness is no different than the food that spoils in our refrigerator. There is just this spiritual aroma to their life that is just wrong.
   In fact, it kind of reminds me of the times when Lyndsey and I have been out of our house all day, and I forget to take out the trash that has leftover food in it. By the end of the day when we get home we find that there is an incredibly foul odor coming from our kitchen area. Do you know what I am talking about? Have you ever come home and opened the door, and the moment you do, there is the horrific smell of death that smacks you right in the face and pushes you back out of the house? And when you locate that awful smell you realize that it is coming from your trash can? This smell doesn’t belong in a kitchen, it belongs in a dumpster, or in a morgue, and yet, here we are at home, being attacked by a horrific smell of rotting food!
   And what is it with some people that like to hoard left-over food in their fridge for weeks at a time? I love my wife to death, but there are times when she is one of those people! I don’t think she means to be. I think she just forgets about certain foods that are in our Refrigerator. But whether she forgets or not, it is the foulest smell that has ever reached my nostrils. I don’t ever need to cut my nose hairs, because anytime our kitchen gets like this, it singes my nose hairs right off! I mean the smell of our trash is sometimes so bad you could literally set it up around the perimeter of your house, and never have to worry about criminals ever breaking in again. Forget about carrying a loaded weapon, or mace, you just get a jar of some of the junk we pull out of our refrigerator and you throw that into somebody’s face and they will never bother you again! We could probably market this stuff and sell it as a self-defense tool!
   One of the things that we have tried to do in order to help fight those moments, is we have spent extra money on special kitchen bags that are made to stop such smell from leaving the trash, by keeping the odors in. Have you ever seen those commercials before? The GLAD “ForceFlex OdorShield” bags with “Febreze Freshness”. 
   It says right on the bag that there will always be a “Fresh clean scent”. I am telling you that this is false advertising because not even those trash bags can stop the foul odor that comes out of our fridge at times! I don’t know why this happens, but what I do know is that when Lyndsey and hold onto the trash with contaminated food for too long, our quality of life pays the price because we have to live with that miserable stench until we take the trash out, and light the scented candles in our house which eventually takes away the odor.
   This is much like a person who tries to have a relationship with God, and at the same time is caught up with the things of the world. When we who profess to love God end up lusting after the things of this world, a spiritual stench begins to build up in our lives, and rather than giving off the fragrance of life as Scripture says we should, we end up giving off the fragrance of death. 
   These worldly distractions and the devastating effects that they have upon the lives of believers that are listed in 1 John 2:15-17 are the same things that Satan tempted Eve with in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:6), and what he tempted Jesus with in the wilderness (Mt. 4:1-11). And according to the Bible, when we have a love for the things of this world it means that the love of God has not been influencing our lives. However, when a person experiences the love of God, there is nothing they wouldn’t give up in order to hold onto that love (cf. Matthew 13:44). That is why we must be people who allow the Love of God to inspire us to live as Christ lived, and forsake the things of this world, so that we will not contaminate ourselves with this world, but instead give off the fragrance of Christ, and the fragrance of life to all whom God sends us to minister to. 
  May this week be a week were we claim the promise of God, that He “always leads us in triumph in Christ” (2 Cor. 2:14), and may we give off the fragrance of Jesus to others, and not the fragrance of this world! This is how you can truly begin living for eternity today!

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