The other day, I walked into my house after physical therapy and I was excited to see my husband. Shortly after crossing the threshold to our home, I was hit with a nasty smell that threw me back. Stephen had a head cold, so needless to say, he didn’t understand when I bolted out of the room grabbing my nose. We both quickly tried to figure out what the smell was. Stephen had just made a simple lunch with some veggies wrapped inside corn tortillas. I darted into the kitchen to try to find out where the smell was coming from. The kitchen was filled with the stench. Unable to determine which ingredient was the problem, I began to get ready to leave the house again for our next meeting. Stephen followed me to the back of the house with his plate of food and the smell followed him. Since the smell had filled the entire house now, we both determined to find the culprit especially since he was digesting whatever this raunchy smell was. With one blow of the nose, Stephen could identify that I indeed wasn’t being dramatic and he knew it was the broccoli. Broccoli?! How on earth did a small portion of broccoli stink up the house?I quickly realized that the broccoli had been in a pyrex for a week hence the smell. We laughed and decided it would be best if our friends who were coming to pick us up didn’t enter our house :-)

Not unlike the broccoli, it sometimes only takes one small area of my heart to stink for it to effect my entire heart or attitude. Stephen had about 6 ingredients in his food that day, but only one that really stunk. What was even worse is that Stephen’s clogged nose prevented him from smelling the bad food. Once I pointed this out to him and he was able to smell on his own, he wished he had known the broccoli was bad. Sometimes we aren’t able to know when our hearts and attitudes stink. We can tell that other areas are in check and flourishing, but if we aren’t careful even those areas can begin to be infected as well. It just takes one wrong motive, one repetitive negative thought, or complaint to begin to work it’s way into other areas.

2 Corinthians 2:15(NLT) says, “Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God.” This means that the sacrifice of our lives, by denying ourselves, taking up our cross and following Jesus is pleasing and acceptable to God. Our lives when lived in our flesh give off a displeasing odor that repels the glory of God. It’s when we yoke ourselves with the Spirit of God and follow in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus, that we exchange our filth for a beautiful aroma. A heart that is whole, pure and lovely.

I recently hugged someone who means a great deal in my life and has been a mentor to me. When you stand around this person, you can’t smell their fragrance at all, but when they hug me, I’ll smell like them the rest of the day. It’s not an overpowering “Woah! Too much cologne/perfume!” reaction, but one that softly lingers on my coat or sweater sleeve the rest of the day. If we desire to obtain the fragrance of Christ, we must not simply be “around” Him in His word, but be close enough to His heart to receive His embrace and thus, leave smelling like we’ve been near to the One.

Principle for today: Take inventory of what “stinks” in your heart today. Close friends and family who LOVE you are often good people to go to for examining your heart. Above that, Holy Spirit is faithful to search your heart and reveal areas where you could surrender and receive the grace of His spirit.