Joy has a nice church building, especially its art glass windows. For me, though, Joy’s building doesn’t smell like a church. To explain, as a child I attended a church built in 1918. Naturally, it lacked air-conditioning. In the summer the temperature inside rose to the 90s which baked the heavily varnished wood pews releasing the odor of pine resin in the varnish. The heat also affected the 1918 hymnals producing a papery smell with just a touch of mildew. In summertime it was too hot to use the less expensive Styrene wax candles because they softened and twisted. Beeswax was necessary instead with its sweet, honey scent. All together that made the building smell like the church I remember.

The Bible is filled with references to the fragrance in worship. After being saved from the flood, Noah made a burnt offering. “And when the LORD smelled the pleasing odor, the LORD said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of humankind.’” In Exodus 30:34-36, God gives precise instructions for making perfumed incense for worship. Prayers are compared to the rising of incense in Psalm 141:2.

A most intriguing reference is to we believers as a fragrance: “[We] are like a sweet-smelling incense offered by Christ to God, which spreads among those who are being saved and those who are being lost” (2 Corinthians 2:15). Is that odd? Maybe, but try thinking of yourself as the wonderful perfume that sweetens the world. It’s a different way of understanding what God can accomplish with you.

Read Ephesians 5:2 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne