Do You Know The Smell of Success?

Do You Know The Smell of Success?

Good Morning Friends,

My mother-in-law brags about me because I bring her daughter, my wife, breakfast in bed every day I am at home. But it is no burden for I love to cook. I make my wife lunch to take off to school and cook dinner as well. It is at dinner that the taste buds really get going. I enjoy it when the aroma draws the family to come and get it. Do You Know The Smell of Success?

Scripture: but my mind could not rest because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said farewell to them and went on to Macedonia. But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so may, peddlers of God’s word; but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.

2 Corinthians 2:14-17 (NRSV)

Message: The aroma of Christ is to be in us drawing people to the message of love in scripture manifested through sincere actions and worship. God has a sense of smell and scripture explains that what is pleasing to God is when we demonstrate our knowledge of God and therefore our love of God through Christian actions. Here our life is to smell of success, service, sacrifice and sincerity so that it causes people to think of Jesus. For me smells of moth balls and lavender brings me back to memories of my mother’s mother. Smells of oranges and pipe tobacco bring back memories of my father’s father. Memories of fresh mowed grass brings me back to my childhood. The smell of glue brings me back to my early school days. And the smell of homemade mashed potatoes and cooked steak brings back memories of family at dinner. I think that all of us would agree that smells have the power to vividly bring back memories and images of people and places. Today we explore how to acknowledge Christ through our actions. Today we explore how we can be a sweet smelling fragrance of life that calls others to remember Christ. Today we explore how we can attract others to the table. Today we discover how to be as a spice on a grilled steak. Today we help others to remember through the senses we have been given what life…what love is really about.

Pray the next time we smell fresh baked cookies, spring flowers, popcorn and pleasing perfume…the next time we smell a good home cooked meal we think of Christ. Pray that the smell of life…the success, service, sacrifice and sincerity of the aroma of Christ permeate our lives. Pray our actions not smell of fear but of love. Pray our actions smell of life not death.

Blessings,

John Lawson