What’s That Smell?

My oldest son saw a bottle of Gucci Bloom I had received from one of the girls on my birthday, in my closet. His eyes lit up and he was super excited. Baffled, I asked why? He said “you have a Gucci perfume!!” I responded “yes, so?”. He replied “Oh it smells so good. Gucci is a good one” I said “ok, bye”. Lol.
Everyone loves the smell of good perfume, I think. God does too. Well, not Gucci or Ferragamo but the sweet smelling fragrance of our lives and our worship! Noah made a sacrifice to God after the floods subsided and he finally came out of the ark. The bible describes it this way : “And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake…” Genesis 8:21a. Wow. God was so pleased with Noah’s offering that He determined not to destroy the earth with flood again.
John 12 tells us that when Mary opened that bottle of costly spikenard, anointed Jesus’s feet with it and wiped His feet with her hair, the fragrance of the ointment filled the whole house. She had brought her best.
Ephesians 5:2 describes what Christ did for us, i.e., His sacrifice on the cross, as a sweet smelling fragrance unto God for us. If we are saved then our lives, our worship must be to God a sweet smelling sacrifice. God expects us to present ourselves as living sacrifices unto Him.
When we come before God, when we lift our hands in worship, when we present our sacrifices, what does God smell? Does He smell something amazing or does He smell unforgiveness, lies, gossip, sexual immorality, bitterness, etc? Our worship is inextricably tied to our lifestyles. How we live daily impacts our worship; do our lives honor God?
No one likes imitation perfume, neither does God. No one will buy imitation perfume when they can afford the real thing. In Isaiah 1, as the Israelites, God’s chosen people, continued to wallow in sin and continued to present sacrifices to God, He rejected their sacrifices. He said to them, “Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me;…” The smell of their incense was like imitation perfume and abominable.
In this new year, let each of us determine to do our best to give God our best each day. May He give us the grace to live lives that please Him and only Him. Blessings.
Love, Lady Monica❤.