THE STENCH OF SHAME

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In Christ, Mark

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

The righteous hate what is false, but the wicked make themselves a stench and bring shame on themselves.

When wickedness comes, so does contempt, and with shame comes reproach.

Proverbs 13:5, 18:3

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

NOTE: I am heading overseas today and then to sea for a few weeks. I hope to be able to post while away but if not, I will continue The Christian Walk when I return in early November. Blessings to all the readers of the word of the Lord that I share every day through this ministry.

Think about some of the ways we connect the senses with life through our sayings:

“I found that hard to swallow” – referring to some difficulty one had to deal with that was particularly hard.

“I think you’re out of touch with reality” – not saying that a person can actually touch reality but just saying that they are not looking at a situation realistically.

“Something doesn’t smell right (or even taste right) about that” – Not that we smell or taste situations but we can sense when things don’t seem to be as they should be.

Yes, we use the senses a lot to talk about life. So does the Bible and today we’re going to look at just one sense used: the sense of smell. Look at our proverbs for today:

The righteous hate what is false, but the wicked make themselves a stench and bring shame on themselves. Proverbs 13:5

When wickedness comes, so does contempt, and with shame comes reproach. Proverbs 18:3

We know that sin is unacceptable and detestable to God. We have received that message over and over again in scriptures we have studied here in the Book of Proverbs.

God hates sin, plain and simple, and those who engage in it will be seen as contemptible and receive His reproach, rebuke, and judgment. People who reject God’s offer of righteousness, opting instead for wickedness, are nothing short of shameful but look at what else we learn about them.

They make themselves a stench.

I bet sinners don’t usually think about themselves this way but they should. That includes all of us as we all have sinned and fallen short of deserving God’s favor. That’s what makes His grace so very amazing.

But think about being a stench to God, that when He gets a whiff of you the smell is simply awful. No amount of deodorant can cover over our sins and the smell they bring. Only repentance and a turning back to obedience can bring us back to a place where we begin to smell right with God.

Go back to the Old Testament scriptures and you can see where God enjoyed the aroma from the offerings dedicated by His people, offerings which represented their repentance of sin and commitment to getting right with God. Here are a few excerpts:

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. Genesis 8:20-21

Burn the entire ram on the altar. It is a burnt offering to the Lord, a pleasing aroma, a food offering presented to the Lord. Exodus 29:18

Then Moses took them from their hands and burned them on the altar on top of the burnt offering as an ordination offering, a pleasing aroma, a food offering presented to the Lord. Leviticus 8:28

Yes, the Lord does like the aroma of His people trending toward righteousness and away from wickedness, those who choose to follow His will and way.

So the question is, “How do you smell to God?”

When He smells you is it a pleasant aroma or a stench of shameful sinfulness?

As Christians, we had better be that pleasing aroma for that is what we are called to be. As I close this devotion, look at these words of Paul to the church in Corinth:

Thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of Him everywhere. For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. 2 Corinthians 2:14-16

As Christians, when we carry out the calling of Jesus, the One who is the way and the truth and the life, we spread His aroma everywhere because in our obedience to Him, we become a pleasing aroma to Him as well as among those who are being saved. In other words, the aroma of Christ is everywhere, blessing others with His beautiful fragrance while bringing eternal life to all who breathe it in.

It’s a beautiful vision but we need to make it more than that. We need to make it a reality, turning from stench-producing sin and instead becoming the aroma of Christ that saves sinners and furthers the Kingdom of heaven here on earth.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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