Week 48: Sweet Perfume
Weekly Reading:
Romans 14 - II Corinthians 4
Opening Prayer
Father God,
Thank You for providing us with opportunities to love deeper in You. Your word brings us Your truth. Give us a heart open to Your love and Your desire in our lives. Thank you for providing for us. Help us be content in Your desire for our lives.
Amen
Study
But thank God! He has made us his captives and continues to lead us along in Christ's triumphal procession. Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere like a sweet perfume.
II Corinthians 2:14 NLT
We are the ones with the ability to spread the sweet perfume.
Growing up I loved Jean Nate. It was an eau de cologne, a dime store brand of cologne, a highly watered down, high alcohol-based budget cologne and I loved it. I learned later that there are different grades of perfume based on alcohol and oil content.
Perfume or Parfum,
Eau de Perfume or Eau de Parfum,
Eau de Toilette,
Eau de Cologne,
The length of time that a fragrance will shed fragrant notes depends on the content of the alcohol and the oil. Perfume or Parfum has the highest content of oil Emitting fragrant notes longer. For example, perfume can emit fragrance notes for 24 hours while an eau de cologne will only emit fragrance for 2 to 4 hours.
Since we are the ones spreading the sweet perfume, I wonder if we are spreading eau du cologne or the purest perfume as poured on Christ by a local woman ( Mark 14), Which was so valuable that it would equate to a year's worth of wages.
Paul goes on to say:
"Clearly, you are a letter from Christ showing the result of our ministry among you. This "letter" is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is carved not on tablets of stone, but on human hearts. We are confident of all this because of our great trust in God through Christ. It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God. He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant. This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the Spirit. The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life."
2 Corinthians 3:3-6 NLT
You are a letter, not one that could be lost or discarded but one that is carved on our hearts forever. Not anything that can be done on our own, but only through Christ.
When I think of who I was before I became alive in Christ, back when I claimed Christianity but did not live like one: What was I demonstrating to others? What kind of example was I being? Was I spreading eau de cologne with more alcohol than a fragrance, barely there and not demonstrating the floral notes that makes perfume so sweet? I know sometimes I was a stench, maybe even repelling others, meaning if I was demonstrating Christianity I may have been a deterrent to bringing others to Christ's love.
My eyes are so much more open by the fragrance of the new covenant. I hope today I am more like a sweet perfume rather than the stench of who I once was.
Closing Prayer
Father God,
Only in you can we spread the sweet perfume of eternal life. We pray that You give us the words to say, remove the foul odor from our message and replace it with Your sweet message of love and grace.
Amen
Homework
Are you the sweet perfume of God's love?
How can you spread God's sweet perfume today?
