Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … … Please take the time to take in a video of Crystal Lewis and Ron Kenoly singing, Beauty For Ashes, … declaring how God, through our Christian lives. let’s the world see and sense His love and beauty. … And ON TO THIS LINK where Steve Green sings the truth that People Need The Lord … and they will only experience Him through us today if we are His fragrance and show His love in what we say and do.
Highlight Passage: 2nd Corinthians 2: 14 and 3:3 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… Christian living is God’s fragrance and a love letter for others in our lives
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Highlight Context – 2nd Corinthians 2:14-3:3 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… We, as Christians, should be God’s fragrance in a very smelly world … His love letter, written by God’s Spirit in how we think, speak, and live.
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Reference Passage #1 - John 13: 34-35 [NKJV] …
34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
… The world senses God’s Spirit in us when we show His love in a growingly love-starved world.
Reference Passage #2 - Ephesians 4: 1-3 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
... When we walk worthy to our calling as Christians, we become God’s fragrance in a very stinky world … we are His love letter to others who need to hear from Him.
My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread author, Lawrence Darmani, begins his devotional entry today with the following observation: Every time I get close to a rosebush or a bouquet of flowers, I’m unable to resist the temptation to pull a flower toward my nose to savor the fragrance. The sweet aroma lifts up my heart and triggers good feelings within me.
I’m the same way; … how about you? The world is becoming an ever stinkier place, isn’t it? And when we have the opportunity to “stop and smell the roses” … or possibly the wild flowers, as depicted in the attached photo, it becomes a welcome respite of God’s fragrance; and we get a little of what Crystal Lewis and Ron Kenoly sing in the linked song above, … God’s “Beauty for Ashes.”
The Apostle Paul realized this when we wrote to his beloved fellow Christians in Corinth, … a group of Christians who were falling prey to the stench of the world; and God, through Paul’s writings, was helping these fellow Christians to recognize that when they lived as true, born-again and Spirit-filled Christians, they became God’s fragrance and a love-letter, sharing His love and beauty with a growingly smelly world in need of God’s love.
Fast forward over 2000 years; and we smell the stench of this world and we experience how love-starved it is. And so, we need to recognize and realize how we become the very fragrance of God when we live and love as Christians; … and we write His love-letters to the unloved when we think, speak, and live in a Christ-like manner.
So, let’s go out and be God’s fragrance and His love-letter to someone today.
My Prayer Today: Oh, my Lord, … Let others sense You in me as I live - for You - today. … Amen
Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
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