Posted on

The Aroma of Christ

 

My daddy smelled like strong coffee, cigarettes, and Coalgate Foamy shave cream. I loved to pat his soft cheeks and kiss him goodnight after he shaved at night. The memory of my daddy’s smell is still strong in my mind and my nose after all these years.

Have you ever noticed that your body picks up smells just from being around them? If you hang around a cigar smoker, you’ll smell like smoke. If you stand over the barbeque grill, cooking hamburgers, you begin to smell like hickory smoke. Have you ever picked up the telephone after someone with strong perfume has used it?

This is why children hug their mom’s nightgown to go to sleep at night when their mom is out of town and widows refuse to wash the flannel shirts their husbands always wore.

In the 1600’s in France, Brother Lawrence entered the monastery as a lay brother, where he was assigned to the kitchen. There he found God, not in the sanctuary in prayer, but amidst the pots and pans, going about his daily duties, speaking to God frequently and learning to hear God’s voice. His letters and writings kept by others of their conversations with him were compiled into a booklet The Practice of the Presence of God, still available as a Christian
 classic.

“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.” Acts 4:13 KJV. Peter and John smelled like Jesus, too.

The best way to become like Jesus is to spend time with him every day, wherever you go, whatever you do. Whether you are washing dishes, changing dirty diapers, or serving hamburgers at the local cafe, you can be in the presence of Jesus until you begin to smell like Him. The more you hang around with Jesus, the more you will smell like Him, act like Him, talk like Him, walk like Him, do the things He did.

 
2 Corinthians 2:15 NRS says “For we are the aroma of Christ to God.”

 
 We smell just like Jesus to the Father God.  

Posted on

Do-It-Yourselfers

 

The first time I tried to butcher my own meat I found out the importance of the right equipment. We used a hatchet to detach the joints and a hacksaw to cut through the bones. I discovered that the knife I owned commonly known as a butcher knife wouldn’t cut soft butter.

Mom had a meat grinder. At least it was shaped like a meat grinder, had holes like a meat grinder, a handle that you turn like a meat grinder, but this meat grinder did not grind meat. It turned meat into mush.

When the afternoon was over, I had the smell of wild meat in my nose, the remains all over me, and I had only saved myself $35. Although the meat was edible, it would have been so much nicer if it had been in recognizable cuts of meat.

My husband and I agreed that the next year the carcass would go to the butcher where it would be cut and neatly packaged for a reasonable price. Our part was to deliver the carcass to the butcher, then pay for it when it was finished.

I come from a long line of do-it-yourselfers. I grew up believing that with the right information and the right tools I could do anything. We are that generation, no, that nation of people who believe we can do anything.

And working our way to heaven is one of the things we think we can do.

Ask the man on the street, “How do you get into heaven?” He will probably answer, “ By being a good person.” Or “Obey the Ten Commandments.” Or “Do good deeds.” But there are some things you just can’t do for yourself and gaining entrance into heaven is the main one.

Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:3 and16 “Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”  There it is in Jesus’ words, what you have to do to get everlasting life and see the kingdom of God–simply believe in God’s Son Jesus.

You cannot do it yourself. Nothing you do or don’t do will get you into heaven. You must simply believe in Jesus Christ, the only Son of God.