Devotional Song: ... Go to this link … Please take the time to take in a video of the Christ Church Choir singing … Sweet Aroma of Praise, declaring the hearts of the faithful to reflect God’s love as a sweet aroma of praise to His Name.
Highlight Passage Philippians 4: 18-19 [NKJV] …
18 Indeed I have all and abound. I am full, having received from Epaphroditus the things sent from you, a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. 19 And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
… The love of the Philippians was a “sweet aroma” of praise to Paul in prison in Rome
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Highlight Context - Philippians 4: 10-20 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… Paul’s thankfulness and love for the sacrifices of the Christians in Philippi
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Reference Passage #1 - Leviticus 2: 2, 9, 12 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… God’s sacrificial system for those who surrender in obedience, … the sacrifice producing a sweet aroma of praise to The Lord
Reference Passage #2 - Numbers 15: 3, 10, 13 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… More from the Old Covenant sacrificial system of offering praise in the form of burnt sacrifices
Reference Passage #3 - Romans 12: 1-2 [NKJV] …
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
… Now … the New Covenant method of producing a sweet aroma of praise for God … that our lives become a “living sacrifice” to our King Jesus
Reference Passage #4 - 2nd Corinthians 2: 15-16 [NKJV] …
15 For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. 16 To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things?
… What true Christians become to God and to others …
Reference Passage #5 - Ephesians 5: 1-2 [NKJV] …
1 Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.
… So, are we imitators of our Lord’s love and sacrifice to us to become a sweet aroma of praise to all who need His love?
My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread devotional entry, authored by Joe Stowell, reminded me just how powerful the olfactory system (i.e., the sense of smell) is to our perceptions. Often smelling something, like a lovely flower (in the attached photo) or the aroma of newly mowed hay or a savory meal, sweet memories of loving events in our lives are evoked.
I hope that seekers with me here today remember that God set up a system of sacrificial offerings on the altar of His tabernacle to be a “sweet aroma of praise” to Him (see the Leviticus and Numbers passages linked above). But when His New Covenant sacrifice was completed, God’s Son has become the only sweet aroma of sacrifice that God, The Father, needs to savor for eternity; and the only way we, as faithful disciples of King Jesus, can reflect and create that “sweet aroma of praise” in our lives is to become, as Paul described in Romans 12: 1-2, a “living sacrifice” of praise to our Lord.
Paul savored that kind of “living sacrifice” when the Philippians sent him a love offering to support him while he was imprisoned (see Philippians 4: 10-20 linked above). And when he was writing to other Christians (see the 2nd Corinthians 2 and Ephesians 5 passages copied above), he called on them (us) to become the “sweet aroma” of love to others, believers and non-believers alike, … letting others savor the love and sacrifice of Christ by our offering of love as that is the “aroma of praise” to God.
The question becomes … What is our fragrance in this world as we become “living sacrifices” of praise, … the sweet aroma emanating from God’s sacrificial love for all His children? How can we be that sweet aroma of love for someone today?
My Prayer Today: Lord, help all of us here today to be a sweet aroma of sacrifice and love for someone else 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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