What is that smell???

I walked in from our garage into the kitchen and immediately smelled something awful! It was permeating the whole house.  I figured it was either coming from the garbage or the refrigerator.  I checked the trash and didn’t find anything too smelly in there.  So my next exploration led me to the fridge, it took some sorting out but I finally found the culprit!  We had a nice science experiment going on in our refrigerator with a few spoonfuls of refried beans!  I couldn’t believe that such a little amount of food could cause such a great stink in our house!

Smell is a powerful thing.  A small whiff of an odor or fragrance can take you back to a memory from long ago - your Grandmother’s perfume, laundry hung on the line to dry, bread baking in the oven. 

 

The Bible talks about the aroma that a believer, who is a captive of Jesus Christ gives off.  Look at 2 Corinthians 2:14, “But thank God! He has made us his captives and continues to lead us along in Christ’s triumphal procession. Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume.”

 

Have you ever stopped to consider what kind of a smell you are giving off?  Is it a sweet fragrance of surrender to Jesus Christ or an acrid repugnant odor of sin hidden in your heart? 

 

Holding onto our sin is like carrying around a big smelly bag of trash.  We get used to carrying that bag and it actually feels good at times, we feel justified in our attitudes and our behaviors.  We don’t even realize that that big bag of trash is causing us to stumble and fall and to miss out on so much more that God wants to give us.  

 

How easy and comfortable it is to wallow in our sin, to justify it and excuse it while never realizing that it is weighing us down, tripping us up and holding us captive.

I have found that in my own life, when I allow sin to take root that it quickly takes over and I need to surrender to Jesus Christ and allow Him to dig it out and expel that odorous sin from my life. 

 

Just as a refrigerator cannot rid itself of its own smelly contents, we cannot clean up our life on our own.   We need a Savior to rescue us from our depravity, our foolishness and show us where we need to go - that Savior is Jesus Christ. 

 

Have you given over your bag of trash to your Savior?   Have you surrendered those areas in your life that are holding you back from wholeheartedly following Jesus?  What’s stopping you?

 

Exchange that smelly bag of trash for the fragrant aroma of following Jesus – I guarantee you won’t miss it!