A Pleasant Aroma

As I have spent the last week cleaning up vomit and diarrhea from my children due to a stomach bug that raged through our home, I thought about the smell. I have used Lysol, Clorox and candles to try and rid the smell. Not until you clean all the surfaces, sheets, pillows, trash cans, clothes, etc do you finally get the smell out of your nostrils. You must also clean the person. Each time AJay, my infant, would throw up, I would have to put him in the bath tub to get clean. Babies can't control their vomit zones! I wouldn't have been wise to take off his dirty clothes and put clean clothes on his dirty little body. That all got me to thinking. God says He will put the stench of our camps in our nostrils (Amos 4:10). I don't think that I ever want to smell what the smell of a war camp must be like after several months of no showers, poor bathroom facilities, and blood, and rotting corpses nearby. Can you imagine? That rotting, sewer smell is what we smell like to God when we continually live in sin. I like to think of it in today's terms, like the smell of a dirty diaper or stale vomit. Make you gag? Think about what God must do. Until we shower in His blood and wash with the soap of righteousness offered through Jesus Christ, then we will continue to smell that way. Putting fresh clothes on our dirty, vomit stained bodies, does no good because eventually the stench comes through. I want to strive to be a sweet-smelling, pleasant aroma in the nostrils of our Lord. Ephesians 5:2 says that we should live a life of love, like Christ who offered Himself up as a fragrant offering to God. I want to be more like Christ. I have striven through Jesus to clean myself up, but sometimes the enemy comes before me holding that stinky old shirt and waving it before my nose to remind me. I tell him that God, my Abba Father, doesn't even remember that I wore that old thing and that the victory has already been won. Satan has been defeated!!! So, take that and burn it! Don't let the scent enter God's nostrils again! Sometimes, I think that believers live in defeat. They get used to the smell. Anytime you live your life in continual disobedience, you get used to the smell. I urge you, DON'T!!!! Ask God to clear your nostrils so that you can see where you need to clean up. He will! He wants you to be pleasing to Him. Are you? The next time you smell something that stinks, consider if that is how you smell to God. Likewise, with something pleasant to you, isn't that the way you want to smell?