Carina Francke

2 Corinthians 2:14-16:"But thanks be to God who always leads us in triumphal  procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him. For we are the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life."

The final metaphor to "make visible" His rulership on earth in the way we live, is to be an aroma or fragrance.

If you feel like a loser and hypocrite: you try to make the Kingdom of God visible on earth by being involved with people, whilst you yourself are struggling with unsolved issues in your life; or you play a supportive and spiritual role in someone's life, only to find out that he is backsliding into old habits.

Listen to what our verse for the day has to say:

If  you become one with Christ through faith, you are guaranteed to be part of God's triumphal procession, despite discouragements or defeats. Amidst your struggle with your own weaknesses, God still uses you as an aroma to spread the knowledge of Christ in a broken world.  By doing this, He declares his total involvement in your life, as well as his love for the lost, and He marches forth unstoppable in His triumphal procession.

You and I need not have sleepless nights over our seemingly inability to be successful with people and our own lives. Phil 2:13 says it like this:  God works in us to want to work and to work in such a way that He will be pleased (my paraphrase) - and that includes the work on one's own struggles and inabilities.

Our responsibility in spreading the aroma firstly lies in our willingness to be useful.  We have to be willing to spread the aroma, so that the two mentioned groups of people can grasp the message the aroma represents, and act accordingly. For those who are lost, your aroma smells like death, a reminder of their own spiritual death. The believer on the other hand smells a fragrance of life, because they recognize the Source of the aroma and know that they are the incense being burnt by Christ for God.

Secondly, we have the responsibility to know more about Christ.  After all, our aroma has to do with the knowledge we have about Him. This knowledge involves more than His death and resurrection, it requires an intimate and committed relationship with Him. It is a relationship where we obey His commandment of love without questioning and where we receive the promise that He will reveal himself to us. (John 14:21)

Prayer: Our Father, what a bewildering thought that You use human beings to introduce Jesus' aroma to people. Help us to never break the unity between ourselves, Jesus and You.  Amen.