The other day I was making gullettes, a Belgian cookie, from a recipe handed down through my father’s family. The house smelled so good. I was so enjoying the cookie fragrance inside. Then I went outside to get the mail.
We live a few miles (as the crow flies) from a sugar beet factory. When the wind blows from a certain direction, the “aroma” from that factory makes it to our house. I don’t know if you have ever been blessed by a sugar beet factory aroma, but it can be a bit unpleasant. (I rate it up there with the aroma from a pulp mill and a dairy farm.)
Today the wind was blowing just right for the sugar beet factory fragrance to reach our house. Thankfully it was outside!
Yesterday I wrote about Ephesians 5:1-2. “Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children. And walk in love, as the Messiah also loved us and gave Himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.” [HCSB]
As God’s dearly loved children, we are to imitate that love by having a walk marked by self-sacrifice. That sacrifice when offered to God is a fragrant or sweet-smelling offering.
The Greek word used for “fragrant” or “sweet-smelling” carries the idea that God is pleased with that sacrifice. When our sacrificial offering is made to God from a right heart motivation, God is pleased. In other words, our sacrificial lives are a fragrance well-pleasing to God.
God always loves us, nothing will change that. But to know that what we do can please our LORD and Savior – Wow!