Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.  For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.  To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. 2 Corinthians 2:14-16

One morning I woke up with this “fragrance and aroma” verse on my heart, and felt the Holy Spirit was impressing me that I should find out just exactly what makes flowers produce their fragrance!

   Thank heaven for Google!!  Armed with a cup of coffee and a mouse, I began my research. It wasn’t long before I was rewarded with an amazing answer!  In a nutshell, I learned that at least some wonderfully smelly flowers are actually flowers that don’t have long to live!  For instance, petunias produce the hormone, ethylene, which aids the flower in producing its lovely scent.  Unfortunately, the reason the flower becomes so fragrant is because the ethylene has also launched its demise! Horticulturists have actually used this knowledge to create hybrid flowers that don’t produce ethylene so that their shelf life will be much longer than their “fore-flowers”.  Sadly, they may live longer, but they aren’t nearly as fragrant.  

After learning this, I understood that God was showing me that I will only be “the fragrance of Christ” to God and those around me as I yield to Him and die to me.  Though  I’ve learned to make myself look very spiritual, if I don’t produce the fragrance of Jesus, what good is that?  

In Matthew 10:38 Jesus said, “And whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” Take up my what? Cross? Wait, the cross was a symbol of death.  Carrying one meant only one thing—you were about to die!  Of course, Jesus wasn’t talking about physical death (though for those who would be martyred for their faith in Him it surely did mean that). He meant death, not to our bodies, but to our thoughts, words, choices, etc. that put ourselves above Him. In this kind of death we walk away from things that God sees as hindrances of our love relationship with Him.  

Isn’t it an amazing thought to realize that as we choose daily to “die” rather than preserve the “shelf life” of whatever the Holy Spirit is shining His light on, that very death brings glory to God as He diffuses the fragrance of His Son to the dying world around us?

In the “greenhouse” of my heart, there are hundreds of “flowers”.  Large ones for the major areas of my life, and smaller ones for each little hurdle I come to.  While I want my heart to be a home for Christ, full of intoxicating fragrance for my Beloved, truthfully, I know that some flowers are less fragrant than others as I work to prolong their life.  But I also know that there are flowers in my heart that have wilted and died.  Each of these are testimonies to moments in time when I’ve chosen to release something to God and allow death.  Somehow, I believe that these flowers are precious to God, and the fragrance they produced has pleased my King.

The thing is, I don’t believe that the Lord wants us to please him by walking away from all our hopes, dreams, ambitions, etc. Because after all, so many of those ambitions are actually part of His loving plans for us! But I do believe that whether they are ours to hold on to or whether they are to be laid down, our heart attitude is to be the same. “They are Yours, Lord, to do with as You desire.” Isn’t that what Romans 12:1 is all about? “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice–the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.” We are to be a living, breathing sacrifice! And as we “carry our cross” we are producing a fragrance that God both loves and uses to attract others to Himself. 

Things to ponder:

So, how fragrant are you?  On the balance-scale of fragrant death / scentless life, what areas are the biggest struggle?  What do we think we gain by preserving shelf-life?  What makes the death of an area seem so scary or at least distasteful to us?  Does God intend for those deaths to be distasteful?  How would our world be different if those around us “smelled Jesus” in us?

Heavenly Father. How I love Your word! Thank You for this beautiful understanding You have given of the pleasing aroma I diffuse to You each time I choose the fragrance of dying to self over the scentless preservation of things that hinder my walk with You. Give me grace to daily…hourly…embrace the fragrance of death!