A SWEET AROMA

 It is the desire of every true follower of Jesus Christ to please Him – to be a sweet aroma to Him. But what does it entail to be a sweet (soothing or pleasing) aroma to the Lord? If we take a look back to when the children of Israel were in the wilderness, we see that the Lord gave them specific instructions as to their offerings they were to bring to Him, and how each offering was to be presented. Every offering that was a sweet aroma to the Lord involved burning the offering with fire. “If his offering is a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish; he shall offer it of his own free will at the door of the tabernacle of meeting before the Lord…And the priest shall burn all on the altar as a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the Lord.” (Leviticus 1:3,8).

We see from the example of the Lord’s instructions to the children of Israel that every sacrifice that was a sweet aroma to the Lord involved being burnt on the altar with fire. If you have ever been burnt with fire or any kind of very hot liquid or substance, you know how painful it is. I remember when this happened to me. I was attending a Bible Conference for disabled and able-bodied people. We were in the dining room for our evening snack. My cup of tea had just been poured from the pot. It was steaming hot. When the person next to me moved her arm, it knocked my cup of tea all over my lap. I let out a stream of pain which the entire dining room heard. The Conference nurse and some other people rushed over to me and pulled down my pants right there. As they did, I could see layers of skin peeling off my legs. The nurse rushed me up to the nurse’s station where she dressed the burns and called the Doctor on Call. The Doctor prescribed an ointment and something for pain. My legs were painful for quite some time.

If we are going to be a sweet aroma to the Lord, it is going to involve going through some painful experiences in our lives. “Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.” (Isaiah 48:10). Notice, it is the Lord Who says, “I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.” Some Christians do not believe that the Lord tests His people, but He does. The Lord’s testing can be anything that we are going through. When the Lord says He will test us in the furnace of affliction, that speaks to me of pain and a lot of it. Believe me, I know what its like to be in pain.   

 The Lord always seems to test the people who are already a sweet, or pleasing aroma to Him. For example, take Abraham. He was the first patriate of Israel. The Lord tested him. “Now the Lord had said to Abram: Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1).  If there ever was a test for a Jewish family, this was it as Jewish families are very tightly knit together. When the Lord gave Abram this command, it must have torn his heart out, as well as his family’s heart. This is a clear test of who Abram loved more; his family or the Lord. “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” (Matthew 10:37). Abram did leave his country and his father’s house and followed the Lord’s leading to the land the Lord had promised him and his descendants after him. But the Lord could not show Abram the land until Lot parted from him. That was Abram’s mistake – taking Lot with him as the Lord did not tell Abram to take anyone with him. After Lot separated from Abram, then the Lord showed him all the land he and his descendants were to inherit. “And the Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are – northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever.” (Genesis 13:14).  

Some Christians have no choose in the matter as to whether or not they are going to pay the price to be a sweet aroma to the Lord as suffering and pain just seems to be forced upon them. May I use myself as an example here? I was born with Cerebral Palsy and am confined to a wheelchair. The only choice I had was how I was going to react to the situation. I could react positively and be thankful for all that I am able to do, such as being able to type with one finger, and therefore I’m able to serve the Lord and His people with my writing. Or I could have reacted negatively because I couldn’t do as much as others and just waste my days away. There was a time when I used to feel sorry for myself because I could not do what others could. But as time progressed, I choose to react positively and spend my days writing. I pray every morning that I would please my Heavenly Father that day.

There are many Biblical examples of people having negative situations forced upon them and they reacted positively. Remember when Joseph’s brothers sold him into Egypt? He could have complained and became bitter. But instead, Joseph remained positive and was a slave to Potiphar. When Potiphar saw that the Lord was with Joseph, Potiphar trusted Joseph with all his affairs. That tells us that Joseph was a sweet aroma to the Lord. 

 Daniel and his three friends were brought from Judea to serve King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. While they were there, King Nebuchadnezzar made a decree saying that whoever did not fall down and worship the gold image at the sound of all the musical instruments, which the King had made, would be cast into the fiery furnace. (see Daniel 3:4-6). The Chaldeans accused Daniel and his friends for not bowing down to the image before the King. When King Nebuchadnezzar heard this, he brought the Jewish men before him and asked if this report was true. When Daniel’s friends told the King it was true, the King commanded certain mighty men to heat the furnace seven times hotter, then to bind the three Jewish men and throw them in the furnace. When the King looked into the furnace, he saw four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire. The fourth man looked like the Son of God. The King then called the men out of the fire. When they came forth from the fire, the three men did not even smell like smoke and their hair wasn’t even singed. (see Daniel 3:24-27). These three men remained positive even though they were thrown into the furnace. I am sure they were a sweet aroma to the Lord.

We have all read of how much Paul suffered as he served the Lord with a positive attitude. He did not let his tribulations deter him from serving the Lord, or change his positive outlook on life. When Paul had his thorn in the flesh, he did ask the Lord to remove it three times, but when the Lord responded by saying, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul responded positively, “Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Not only did Paul have a thorn in the flesh, but he was being put in prison numerous times for preaching the gospel. He did not waste his prison times. He used these times to write epistles to the churches he had founded. These same epistles are still teaching and exhorting Churches and Christians 2000 years later. Paul faced many tribulations, of which he could have become bitter. But instead, Paul remained positive in each situation. I am sure his responses to his situations must have been a sweet aroma to the Lord.

Even Peter says in his First epistle, “Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trials which is to try you as though some strange thing happened to you.” (1 Peter 4:12). Trials are not a choice, they are a given in the Christian life. Whenever we are placed in negative situations, whether temporary or permanent, we can choose to either react negatively or positively. By reacting positively, we will be a sweet aroma to the Lord.

LIVING WHERE YOU ARE

 

          

 Are you living where you are today? Or do you wish you were somewhere else or even someone else? So often we have our eyes focused in the past, or on the future, that we miss what the Lord wants to do in and through our lives in the present moment. When our eyes are anywhere else but in the present moment, we are wasting time as we are not fully engaged in what the Lord wants us to be doing right now. I’m not saying that you can’t think or dream about what you desire in the future. Just don’t let it take up all of your time and attention. The Lord tells us that if we delight in Him, He will give us the desires of our heart. Maybe you don’t like where you are at the moment, and you are so sure the Lord is going to change your situation, you aren’t making any effort to put down roots. You are even questioning why you are there.

Apparently, the children of Israel were going through the same thing when the Lord caused them to be carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon. The Lord says in Jeremiah 29:4, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon:” It was the Lord who caused Israel to be carried away captive. Do not believe people who say that the Lord would never cause His people to be in captivity in some form or another because we see the Lord doing this to His people, especially those who were greatly used, all through Scripture.

 Remember Moses. The Lord caused him to be captive in the wilderness for forty years with nothing or no one around him but his father in law’s sheep. The Lord knew what He was preparing Moses for – to lead the children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage, but Moses didn’t know until the end of that time in the wilderness. The Lord often puts us in situations to prepare us for His purposes but without telling us what those purposes are. Sometimes we may think we know what those purposes are, but in the end, we find we were wrong.  All Moses knew was that day after day, he was in the desert with a flock of sheep who couldn’t talk to him, and he couldn’t talk to. Moses must have wondered why he was there. But, despite his not knowing, Moses was faithful in leading and taking care of the sheep right up until the day the Lord appeared to him and revealed what he was to do.

Remember Joseph. He was sold into captivity by his own brothers. He eventually found himself in Potiphar’s house in Egypt. All was going along alright until Potiphar’s wife falsely accused him and he got put in prison. Like Moses, Joseph did not know that the Lord was preparing him to sit on the throne of Egypt, be second in authority and be used to save many people alive during a seven-year famine.

 Another person who was taken captive by the Spirit was Jesus Himself. “Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.” (Luke 4:1). During His forty days in the wilderness Jesus faced three temptations of Satan. He had to face these temptations so Jesus would be able to identify with man – those He would be ministering to. In Luke 4:14 it says, “Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and the news of Him went out through all the surrounding region.” It was Jesus time in the wilderness which prepared Him for His earthly ministry.

  I think all of us, at some point in our lives can recall times when we have been in a place where we were sure the Lord must have put us there, as left to ourselves, we would not be there. In fact, we would have never left where we were. If someone would have told me a few years ago I would be living in Long Term Care, and actually be content here and be thriving in what the Lord has called me to do, I would not have believed it, but here I am and I’m doing better than I have been in a long time. We would have missed what the Lord had planned to do in and through our lives had we not followed His leading. Then the person or people the Lord wanted you to minister to would have never had their needs met. Allow me to give you a personal example. When it was first suggested that I should be living in Long Term Care, I honestly did not know how I felt about it. But if I hadn’t come here, the roommate I had for the first year, before the Lord provided me with a private room, would never have heard the gospel before her time comes to pass away. Yes, there was a price to pay as she screams a lot. As she could not ring the call bell herself, I watched out for her. Even after I moved into LTC I wasn’t sure that this was where the Lord had put me until about eight months later. One day in the Fall, I had my music on while working on the computer and looking at the beautiful Fall colours. That was when I knew this was where the Lord put me.

  The children of Israel must have been wondering whether or not living in Babylon was to be temporary or permanent. The Lord speaks to these captives and says, “Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so they may bear sons and daughters – that you may be increased there, and not diminished.” (Jeremiah 29:6-7). It sounds like the Lord is telling the captives that they are going to be in Babylon for a long while. They were to live in Babylon as if it was home. They were to build their houses to live in and plant gardens to eat from. Those were their immediate needs taken care of. But the Lord goes beyond their immediate needs and tells them to raise families in that land as well. This sounds like the Lord is telling them that they were going be there for quite a while. It must have been hard for these captives to get used to a new culture and language, and even new food.

These captives must have been thinking, “We are captives here in Babylon. We want out of this situation as soon as possible – we weren’t planning to put down roots and stay for any great length of time.” But the Lord had other plans for them. He even told the captives that they would be in Babylon for seventy years. Can you imagine being told that you had to stay in a strange land for that long? The captives were probably saying, “Why so long? We are going to miss all the traditions we grew up with, everything that makes us who we are, the children of Israel.” Yet the Lord encourages them to go on with their lives right there in Babylon, and I believe that would mean to go on and celebrate all their traditions just as if they were still in Israel.

But the Lord assures the children of Israel that the captivity would not last forever, it would come to an end, not in their timing, but in the Lord’s timing. “For thus says the Lord: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place.” (Jeremiah 29:10). The Lord’s timing is always much different than ours. The way you tell which timing is ours, and which is the Lord’s. Ours is always the fast track while the Lord’s is the slower pace. Even when we think we can’t handle the situation we are in any longer, the Lord still seems to take His time in providing a way of escape. Even though the Lord seems to take His time, He will not forget us or the good word He has promised to perform toward us. Just keep believing the Lord to fulfill all that He has promised to do and more. The next verse says, “For I know the thoughts I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11). Whenever we are in seemingly hopeless situations, we need hope that the situation will change. Without such hope, we can become discouraged, or even depressed. In the four years I lived in Barrie, I was depressed as the building I lived in was isolated in the sense that there was nothing close enough to the building that I could wheel to. I was so depressed, I tried to re-apply to the building I had moved from in Burlington. But we have a faithful Father who always keeps His promises towards His children no matter how long He seems to take. In 1 Corinthians, it says, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” Just keep being faithful in doing what the Lord has called and anointed you to do and He will be faithful to reward you.