PRAYER PROMPT ••• On the rare occasion you can find me in a mall, you’ll learn that I avoid two places: the perfume counter and the candle store.
The combined scents are overwhelming.
Between watery eyes and a screaming headache – well, it’s the quickest way to cut a shopping trip short.
With that said though, like most women, I do have my favorite perfume that I wear on special occasions and date night with my husband.
This morning, I read 2 Corinthians 2:14-16 about spreading The Gospel like a sweet perfume.
I read the NLT version and cross-compared to a few others, but this line from the NLT version of verse 15 was beautiful: “Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God.”
The Apostle Paul wrote about how this fragrance smelled differently to believers and sinners.
The message of Christ smelled beautifully to believers, but to those who were unrepentant, it smelled terrible.
I think our current culture speaks volumes to how true this example still is 2000 years later.
Now, I started this message off with a negative assessment of perfume and scented candles.
Let me come back to that while borrowing Paul’s analogy…
When our faith is sincere, it really is a beautiful fragrance.
It’s the bottle that has escaped the perfume department and it can be enjoyed by many for its pure scent that is unpolluted by a hundred others.
But when we allow our faith-fragrance to be polluted by the world’s standards, we taint it.
It’s like pouring a bottle of Clinique’s Happy, Chanel No. 5, and Elizabeth Arden in a bowl.
Oh and let’s add a few Yankee Candles to the mix too.
It would be terrible.
What was once good is ruined.
Our faith in Christ, when we mix it with what the world deems good, stinks to the high heavens.
We have to be pure to God’s word in order for our faith-fragrance to truly be enjoyed.
Sure, there are those who won’t like it, as Paul said.
But you’re wearing your faith-fragrance for God, not man.
Today, as you pray, ask the Holy Spirit to help you wear an untainted faith-fragrance.
Ask Him to let you be a walking example of verse 15, a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God.
