A Smell that Sticks

Today, as we continue to Prepare 90 Days for Easter (P90E), we read John 12 and Colossians 4.12.
When I was very young, we lived on an Air Force base in the upper peninsula of Michigan, not far from Canada.  We had very cold winters with snow drifts that would cover the side of a house  and snow that stayed on the ground for months.  Pudgy was the legendary dog that was in our home as I was growing up.  Dad would walk Pudgy in the 'little woods' right behind our house every night.  The 'big woods' were across the road and were good for longer strolls earlier in the day.  The difference for me: I could go in the little woods but never go to the big woods.  Kinda a Wizard of Oz kind of thing.  Anyway, one night as Dad and the dog made the late night pit stop, they met a friend.  The friend had black and white fur and a stink sac right around its tail that it could aim very well.  Immediately the dog and the Dad's life was changed.

No longer were they welcomed into their own home.
The dog that was so used to be petted was now shunned.
The Dad, ol' reliable, did not have the same magic to him anymore.
When the wind chill is below zero and your aroma is so bad that the family wants the windows down in the station wagon, you stink.  No two ways about it.
I know what they say, but you can bathe in whatever kind of juice you want to...you stink.  We threw rotten tomatoes at them, but as they said of Lazarus, "But they stinketh."  The aroma filled the house, or at least their lives, for a time.

Let me tell you about another aroma that filled a house.  It is in John 12.3- Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

It was a precious perfume that she was using and its fragrance was wonderfully strong, but so was her  sacrificial service for the Lord.  When you are willing to serve the Lord, no holds barred, and lay all you are at his feet, the sweet aroma of sacrificial service will effect many lives.  It will change the aroma of a household.  It will sweeten the smell of a church.

Serve the Lord today with gladness.  You'll be smelling fine!