My Fitbit watch buzzed, flashing streamers across the screen, congratulating me for reaching my step goal. I felt triumphant! Elated, I sang “Unstoppable” along with the DNC, playing a little too loudly in my ears.
"Woke up feeling incredible Felt like I was unstoppable Like a hunger I wanted more As if they were screaming Go, go, oh oooh Took off as if I had to go That's how to be unstoppable"
As I neared my home, I turned onto a side street and cut across the golf cart lane of the third tee box so I could come in on the back side of my house. I knew I could sit on the back patio to cool off a bit and enjoy the spring air. This was my favorite route this time of year. I removed my earbuds to focus on what was coming-my neighbors had planted gardenia bushes along their entire fence row, and they were in full bloom.
By this point I was breathing deeply. The fragrance permeated my nasal passages firing the “Ah, this is awesome” endorphins in my brain. I smile even now at the memory and know that the next time the gardenias bloom my husband will bring me a few at an unexpected moment without necessarily handing them to me. Often, he will just sit them close by, knowing the fragrance alone makes me smile. While the flowers are beautiful it is the smell I treasure. So, sometimes I put the gardenias in my hair or break the petals and rub them on my skin so that I might savor their perfume even longer.
It reminds me of 2 Corinthians 2:14-15. Paul tells us we are like sweet perfume used of God to spread the knowledge of Christ. Our lives and our worship are a “Christ-like fragrance” rising to God.
Wow! God sees us as the fragrance of Christ! We smell like Him!
But that smell doesn’t just happen.
How can we smell like another? We’ve got to get up close and personal.
I recently spoke with someone whose house had been flooded out during a storm. They continued to live in the home without running water or electricity. This person reeked of the mold and mildew in which they were living.
Only when we are up close and personal will we begin to take on the smell of another or of the atmosphere around us. In the same way, when we position ourselves in intimacy with Christ, in prayer, worship and spending time in His Word, will we begin to smell like Him.
He breathes on us and the fragrance spreads to those who are living in death without access to living water or who may be perishing in darkness. They may smell of mold and mildew-rotten death! But when the presence of God blows upon their lives, they begin to catch a whiff of the sweetness of the Rose of Sharon.
Those who are living in death can choose to either remain in the darkness or to embrace the sweet fragrance of life.
God always makes his grace visible in Christ, who includes us as partners of his endless triumph. Through our yielded lives he spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of God everywhere we go. We have become the unmistakable aroma of the victory of the Anointed One to God—a perfume of life to those being saved and the odor of death to those who are perishing. The unbelievers smell a deadly stench that leads to death, but believers smell the life-giving aroma that leads to abundant life.
2 Corinthians 2:14-16 TPT
I implore you, choose the unstoppable life! How very sweet it is!
Jamie Lyn's Inkwell 