Your Fragrance

 

In our downstairs bathroom I have a soap called, “Fresh Balsam”, that I am obsessed with. It is, indeed, the single thing that remains from the holiday season and I’m not upset about it.

When I use the downstairs bathroom, which is regularly since it is the one closest to my home office, I use this soap… and I remember.

Smells do that for me.
You too?


They take me back.

They take me to a time and a place in my past.

This smell, in particular, takes me back to happy times.
Good times gathered around the tree with my family.
Joy-filled moments of snowfall, and cozy evenings by the fire, and gift-wrapping until midnight.

When I smell this soap, I am suddenly right back to those peaceful moments of loved ones and baked goods and holiday music and Christmas movie marathons.

Fragrance is captivating and serves to direct our attention in unmistakable ways.

And I thought about it this morning.
What aroma do I leave?
What fragrance is my life?

When others have an encounter with me… do they leave with the fresh aroma of Jesus?
When they spend time with me… is the fragrance of Jesus so evident that it takes them to a place of joy and peace? Does it invite them in to a story of healing and redemption, grace, mercy, and genuine love?

An encounter with you, dear Christian friend, ought to leave a sweet scent behind.

2 Cor 2:14-15 (NLT), “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing.”

Eph 5:2, NKJV, “And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.”

It matters.
It’s worth thinking about.