Aromas

We all like things that smell good.  Fresh roses, homemade bread or cinnamon rolls, the smell of fresh cut hay (though that smell invokes a nasty round of hay fever with me) a good cologne or perfume, or any of a thousand of other scents that bring us pleasure. 

The other side of that coin are the things that offend out sense of smell.  Rotten food, a boys locker room or teenagers room, and the one that gets me, a dead animal decaying.  Any of the smell makes you recoil and back away to different degrees, but we do not want to be around them. 

This last week a passage out of 2 Corinthians has been twirling around in my mind.  I have contemplated verses 14 - 17 of chapter 2.  Read these verses with me.

¹⁴ But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. ¹⁵ For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; ¹⁶ to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things? ¹⁷ For we are not like many, ^[d]peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God.

As I have meditated on these verses especially in light of the events of Easter week and the profound realization that Jesus Christ died and was raised from the dead, paying the price I owed for my sins.  I would be dead if not for His sacrifice, dead with the "aroma of death".  That smell of rotting flesh and decay!

Thinking of this, verses 14 - 16 jumped up at me.  We as believers should have the sweet aroma of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  That aroma should be "sweet and enticing" as we live our lives for Christ, spreading this among the people around us.  In the real world I have come to see that verse 16 is so true.  As I go through my daily routines, work, home, errands, and even church there are two responses to our "aroma".  To many it will be the "aroma from life to life", but to many more we will be the "aroma of death to death".  Unfortunately to many of those around us our witness will turn them away.  They have or will reject God and Christ for a multitude of reasons and whether consciously or not we will be the smell of death to them.

The reaction of those individuals is at the least indifference and to the extreme persecution of believers.  They smell the aroma of death and instinctively back away with revulsion as they head down the path to destruction and judgment due to their rejection of Christ, often striking out in various ways at those who bring the truth of God's word to the world.  This is a sad situation but we should not take it personally.  Rejection from those around us will happen. Christ told us through Luke 10:16 "“The one who listens to you listens to Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me; and he who rejects Me rejects the One who sent Me.”  We can only hope that those we do come in contact with will smell the "sweet aroma of life"