How Do You Smell?

For Fragrance Day, I thought I'd go back to a post from September...

Flowering Cadaver*

Bunga Bangkai. It is an Indonesian name for a particular plant. The first word is translated as "flower," and the second, as "corpse." The plant in question is large -- larger in many cases than a person -- and appears to be a kind of giant flower. In its own way, it is even beautiful, a red interior splashing color against the outer petal.

Unfortunately for anyone near enough to inspect it, however, it also smells a great deal similar to an animal carcass sitting out in the sun.

Similarly, somebody who is religious, but lacks the love of Christ, appears Holy,  but is in reality dead inside -- a truth all too evident for anyone who gets close enough to examine him.

"Woe to you, Teachers of the Law and Pharisees," said Jesus. "You Hypocrites!"

You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. (Matthew 23:27-28)

How do you smell? Do you appear religious on the outside, but have an inside full of death and uncleanliness? Have you forsaken the Love of Christ and replaced it with rigid religiosity? Or do you have the fragrance of Grace, a Spirit made clean by the blood of Jesus, and made generous by His love?

*The title and inspiration for this post came from the song of the same name, by Tourniquet, off their excellent recent album, "Antiseptic Bloodbath."