OUR FRAGRANCE

While walking in my garden this morning I bent down to smell my beautiful red rose that my precious friend Rene Nell gave me the other day and I just felt the Father speak to me about fragrance, I straight away remembered a gift I received from a very special friend in my life, it is an old fragrance holder in a frame that was used when in the time that Jesus walk the earth in manly form, the women use to hang it around their necks, this was the same bottle that Mary used when she anointed Jesus with perfume and tears and even used her hair to rub in the perfume, I can just picture this woman with the most beautiful fragrance filling the room it must have been one of the most beautiful moments. I am sure that I am not the only one that has felt at times that I too would love to anoint Jesus with this perfume as well that my worship to him would also be a sweet smelling fragrance before the Lord.
Matt: 26:6Meanwhile, Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon, a man who had leprosy. 7During supper, a woman came in with a beautiful jar of expensive perfume and poured it over his head. 8The disciples were indignant when they saw this. “What a waste of money,” they said. 9“She could have sold it for a fortune and given the money to the poor.”

But not long after this Mary, has a different fragrance that she gives off, when Jesus arrives 4 days after Lazarus has died, the attitude in which she receives Him, is not the same Fragrance she gave off at the anointing just a few weeks or even days ago, she doesn’t even come out to greet him, and when she does see him, her words and attitude are not a well pleasing fragrance, but one that is accusing and even sarcastic. John 11: 28-32 28Then she left him and returned to Mary. She called Mary aside from the mourners and told her, “The Teacher is here and wants to see you.” 29So Mary immediately went to him.
30Now Jesus had stayed outside the village, at the place where Martha met him. 31When the people who were at the house trying to console Mary saw her leave so hastily, they assumed she was going to Lazarus’s grave to weep. So they followed her there. 32When Mary arrived and saw Jesus, she fell down at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Ladies is this not sometimes how we are, if things don’t go our way we give off a different fragrance to the one we should.

Lets take a look at 4 of my favourite fragrances:

BEAUTIFUL

The word says how beautiful are the feet of him that bring good news announcing peace. Romans 10:15.

When we bring the word of the good news, the Lord says how beautiful their feet are, the fragrance we give off is beautiful it brings peace, it binds up the broken hearted. This is one fragrance that we should have on everyday.

DREAMS

“Interpreting dreams is God’s business,” Gen 40:8

The word says that He speaks to us in dreams and visions, when we dream it is of God speaking into our hearts, the word also says that without vision His people perish, girls we need vision and dreams in our lives. It helps us keep balance when we can have vision we won’t be here there and everywhere. Let us believe in the dreams God has for you. Even in troubled times Gods dreams and desires for you are one of good and not of destruction.


WOMAN
Proverbs 31 has been used over and over but still remains a favourite, lately though I have seen that its not like I thought it was that I have to do all these things, for one I can cook but when it comes to making clothes well lets just say I just need a coffin I am dead in this area, I always judge myself think I was not worthy of the title of the Proverbs 31 women, but now I realise it is all of Gods girls working together united that gives off a beautiful fragrance of been women. The word says how good and pleasant it is for brothers (in this case) sisters to dwell together. Psalm 133:1-2
1 How wonderful it is, how pleasant, when brothers live together in harmony!
2 For harmony is as precious as the fragrant anointing oil

PLEASURES

Ecclesiastic 2
24So I decided there is nothing better than to enjoy food and drink and to find satisfaction in work. Then I realized that this pleasure is from the hand of God. 25For who can eat or enjoy anything apart from him?

Girls are we a pleasure to be around? When people see us walking up the road to them what was the last fragrance we left behind one of being a pleasure to them or was it one of doom and gloom. How do I see myself? The word says the Lord delights in us, takes pleasure in us.
What is the fragrance that we give off in our home, our work place, what fragrance do our children and grandchildren experience with us, what fragrance do we give off where our husband are concerned, but most especially what fragrance do we give off when we are totally alone, when its just me and I have to cope with daily living?

Today let us decide to change our attitudes to one of being more Christ-like so that we can give off that life giving fragrance of Christ that to those that accept it, it will be a live giving fragrance. I want to close with this verse in 2 Corinthians 2:14-16.

14But thanks be to God, who made us his captives and leads us along in Christ’s triumphal procession. Now wherever we go he uses us to tell others about the Lord and to spread the Good News like a sweet perfume. 15Our lives are a fragrance presented by Christ to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those being saved and by those perishing. 16To those who are perishing we are a fearful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved we are a life-giving perfume. And who is adequate for such a task as this?