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Four Aromas God
Loves Most
by Denise Kohlmeyer
Guest Contributor
Freshly-ground
coffee brewing in the early morning hours produces a powerful aroma, and I love
it.
The
scent reminds me of childhood, my parents sitting at our kitchen table,
leisurely sipping their cup o’ joe, sweetened with sugar and a splash of milk.
Content and at ease before their busy day began.
But it’s not just the aroma that I love;
it’s everything that I associate with it: contentment, nostalgia, memories. How
this particular aroma stirs me is beyond explanation. It runs deep.
It occurred to me that this must be how
God feels when our godliness ascends to him. Pleased beyond explanation — a
delightful aroma which he could breathe in all day long.
In
fact, all throughout the Bible, certain scents seem to hold specific meanings
for God. While some delight him, others, unfortunately, cause him to recoil.
The
Aroma of Our Prayers
In the Old Testament, God commanded the
priests of Israel to continually burn aromatic incense — made from a blend of
five exotic spices — on the golden altar inside the Holy of Holies.
But,
like my coffee, it wasn’t simply the fragrance itself that pleased God, but
what it represented: the constant prayers of his people.
In fact, the incense, associated with the
people’s prayers, was so pure and sacredly sweet to God that any deviation from
what God had explicitly commanded was met with swift death, as Nadab and Abihu
found out (Leviticus 10:1–2).
Just as God prescribed a specific recipe
for the incense, he also prescribes specific prayers for believers today —
prayers of:
Thanksgiving
(1 Timothy 2:1)
Forgiveness
(1 John 1:9)
Intercession
(1 Timothy 2:1)
Praise
and adoration (Psalm
148:1–14)
Utter
dependence (Matthew 7:7)
Seeking
wisdom (James 1:5)
Petitions
and supplications (1 Timothy 2:1; Philippians 4:6)
Seeking
peace (Philippians
4:6–7)
Salvation
(Romans
10:9–10)
These
particular prayers, in fact, are so pleasant and precious to God that he
lovingly collects them in “golden bowls”
in heaven (Revelation
5:8).
By
keeping them close, he can continually enjoy their blessed bouquet.
The
Aroma of Our Repentance
In addition to burning incense, Israel
was also required to sacrifice certain types of animals to atone for their
sins.
But,
again, it wasn’t the aroma from the sacrifices that pleased God as much as what
it represented: repentance, clean souls, changed lives (Leviticus
1:9, 13; 2:2; 23:18).
If performed properly, these sacrifices were “a pleasing aroma to the Lord” (Numbers
15:3).
Over time, however, Israel became careless with their
sacrifices, for which God sternly rebuked them. “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams. . . . Bring no more vain
offerings; incense
is an abomination to me” (Isaiah
1:11, 13).
The
principle is the same for today’s believers. God doesn’t want “vain” confessions — mere remorse — but
genuine repentance that comes from truly humble and contrite hearts (Psalm
51:17).
Martin Luther famously wrote in the first of his ninety-five
theses, “When our Lord and Master Jesus
Christ said ‘Repent,’ he intended that the entire life of believers should be
repentance.”
Repentance
is not peripheral to a life of worship. It’s at the very heart, which is why
God sees repentance as especially fragrant.
The
Aroma of Our Witness
In 2
Corinthians 2:14–16, the apostle Paul
charges Christians to spread “the
fragrance of the knowledge of [Jesus Christ] everywhere. For we are the aroma
of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are
perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a
fragrance from life to life.”
The knowledge that we proclaim is that
Jesus Christ was crucified for the sins of mankind, and all who repent and
appropriate his sacrificial death on the cross through faith will be saved by
God’s grace (Ephesians
2:8–9).
We
are witnesses of the knowledge that Jesus died to bring us to God forever, for
our greatest joy (1
Peter 3:18).
But, unfortunately, not everyone likes the scent of this truth,
even when it’s spoken “with gentleness
and respect,” as it always ought to be (1
Peter 3:15).
While
our witness always spreads the fragrance of Christ, it’s not always received
the same by its hearers.
To
those who are being saved, it is the lovely perfume of life everlasting; but to
those who are perishing, it’s the sour stench of death eternal.
Regardless of recipients’ reactions,
however, our testimonies produce a powerful fragrance which God delights in,
for truth always smells
good to God.
Nothing
pleases him more than to see his Son glorified in the courageous testimonies of
those he came to save. And if the Lord is pleased with us, “what can man do?” (Hebrews 13:6).
The
Aroma of Our Love
“Greater love has no one than this, that
someone lay down his life for his friends” (John
15:13).
The
greatest act of love ever performed was when Jesus voluntarily offered up his
life for the sins of his people, suffering untold emotional, spiritual, and
physical pain on a Roman cross.
“It was the will of the Lord to crush
him” (Isaiah
53:10), but Christ gave up his life willingly (John
10:18); and in being crushed, Christ’s loving sacrifice gave off the
sweetest, most sacred of fragrances (Ephesians 5:2), for Christ’s death is able to “make many to be accounted righteous” (Isaiah
53:11).
As
Christ-followers, we are called to give no less (Ephesians
5:2) — not that we are called to die for others’ sins.
But
we are called to demonstrate Christ’s suffering and sacrifice through our own
emotional, spiritual, and even physical sufferings on behalf of others, however
that may look in our daily lives (Colossians
1:24).
It is when we are expressing Christ in
this way that we too become a fragrant offering to God. And that, indeed, is an
aroma which he could breathe in all day long.
Denise Kohlmeyer is a former newspaper journalist, now freelancing. She has been published in several print and online publications and regularly contributes to Blogos.org, an outreach of Gotquestions.org. She is the co-author of two books in the Clues for the Clueless series.
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