{"id":9740,"date":"2012-05-07T20:55:50","date_gmt":"2012-05-08T01:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/?p=9740"},"modified":"2012-09-30T15:49:54","modified_gmt":"2012-09-30T20:49:54","slug":"the-fragrance-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/2012\/05\/07\/the-fragrance-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fragrance of Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/fragrance1.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9741 alignleft\" title=\"fragrance1\" src=\"http:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/fragrance1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"320\" srcset=\"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/fragrance1.jpg 250w, https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/fragrance1-234x300.jpg 234w, https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/fragrance1-156x200.jpg 156w, https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/fragrance1-62x80.jpg 62w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a>2 Cor. 2:15 For we are a\u00a0fragrance of Christ to God among\u00a0those who are being saved and among those who are perishing;\u00a0<sup>16\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is\u00a0adequate for these things?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are a fragrance of Christ.&#8221; \u00a0What an amazing thought. \u00a0God has scented us as Christians to be a fragrance of Christ in the world around us. \u00a0You don&#8217;t have to tell anyone you are a Christian, they can &#8220;smell&#8221; it. \u00a0We have an aroma. \u00a0It&#8217;s the presence of God, of live in us that gives off a scent to everyone we meet.<\/p>\n<p>I have often been with someone who didn&#8217;t know I was a Christian and shortly in the visit they will ask, &#8220;You&#8217;re a Christian, aren&#8217;t you?&#8221; \u00a0They can &#8220;smell&#8221; us! \u00a0But what is it they smell? \u00a0What is the fragrance we give off? \u00a0It&#8217;s the fragrance of life. \u00a0It&#8217;s a scent that isn&#8217;t common on our planet where everything dies. \u00a0The only smell we know is the stench of death, but when the perfume of life shows up it&#8217;s a smell everyone knows. \u00a0It&#8217;s a smell that reveals something the world is missing.<\/p>\n<p>For the Christian, as they &#8220;smell&#8221; the presence of another believer, they smell the sweet fragrance of life. \u00a0Another person who has life living in them, the presence of God. It&#8217;s a sweet fragrance and a wonderful reminder of the life we share.<\/p>\n<p>For the world, as they &#8220;smell&#8221; the presence of a Christian, it highlights the reality to them that they don&#8217;t have life, they live in death. \u00a0It&#8217;s a fearful awaking for their senses. \u00a0It&#8217;s a smell they don&#8217;t like, a realization of their lack. \u00a0Often it&#8217;s the reason those in the world disdain Christians&#8230;.we remind them of the truth that they do not have life, but simply await the final death.<\/p>\n<p>Without a word the presence of a Christian communicates that life is available, that we have something the world lacks. \u00a0Without a word the world &#8220;smells&#8221; the presence of life in us. \u00a0This witness of the fragrance of life calls us to a Godly lifestyle because the world is watching, their noses know who we are, it&#8217;s critical we live to the glory of God because we can&#8217;t hide who we are. \u00a0The world around us, by the fragrance of life that comes from our very presence, knows we are Christians.<\/p>\n<p>Live your life well, your fragrance precedes you&#8230;..the world already knows who you are. \u00a0Live in a way that glorifies the one who gave you life. Know that the fragrance of life oozes from your very presence and witnesses to the life you have. \u00a0Live as a child of life that the world will be drawn to the one who gave us life. \u00a0And never forget&#8230;..the fragrance of life precedes you as walk through your days.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Visit Mike at <a href=\"http:\/\/mikemesserli.blogspot.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Finishing Well<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2 Cor. 2:15 For we are a\u00a0fragrance of Christ to God among\u00a0those who are being saved and among those who are perishing;\u00a016\u00a0\u00a0to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is\u00a0adequate for these things? &#8220;We are a fragrance of Christ.&#8221; \u00a0What an amazing thought. &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/2012\/05\/07\/the-fragrance-of-life\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read more<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Fragrance of Life&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,25],"tags":[5173,2375,72,5176,5170,3409,5172,5169,5174,2898,926,2465,170,5175,5167,5168,5171,208,5177,5178],"class_list":["post-9740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archived","category-mike","tag-aroma","tag-believer","tag-christians","tag-cor","tag-death-to-death","tag-disdain","tag-final-death","tag-godly-lifestyle","tag-perfume","tag-presence-of-god","tag-realization","tag-reason","tag-reminder","tag-senses","tag-stench-of-death","tag-sweet-fragrance","tag-thought-god","tag-truth-2","tag-witness","tag-wonderful-life"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}