Stop! Smell The Rose!

There is an expression in the world where people tell you to stop and smell the roses or smell the coffee. What they are saying to you is this: slow down and enjoy right where you are. Look around you and actually see the sights and smell the smells and hear the sounds. Learn to appreciate the experiences of that day.

We live in a very busy, stressful world where so many people are living at a frenetic pace. Do this; do that; go here; go there. In the United States particularly I see everyone racing around like those speeded-up videos on television.

In my generation people worked hard and had much to do. They were also busy, but I can remember my mom and dad sitting on the front porch in the evening after work was done. We children would swing in the porch swing or play in the yard. And there was a time of relaxation for everyone before bedtime. What has happened to that time?

Today I am particularly thinking about our need as Christians to stop, take time for Jesus and breathe in His fragrance. Even if you only have 15 minutes, get a pillow, lie down on the floor, put a worship CD on and enjoy the Lord’s presence. He longs for fellowship with each one of us. In the Song of Solomon 1:3 in the Complete Jewish Bible we read these words: Your anointing oils have a wonderful fragrance; your name is like anointing oil poured out. Isn’t that beautiful!

As we spend time with the Lord, His Presence becomes a part of us even more so than before. And it is called the anointing. Actually it is the Holy Spirit. He is a very real personality in the Godhead. He longs to impart His essence to you. In the perfume industry, essence is the key to good perfume. Essence determines the lasting fragrance. The essence of the Holy Spirit, His Presence, doesn’t just linger with you. He stays with you. The more you get to know Him and yield to Him, the more you smell like Jesus.

Look at 2 Corinthians 2:14,15 in the Amplified Bible concerning fragrance. I have personalized it for each of us.
But thanks be to God, Who in Christ always leads me in triumph as a trophy of Christ’s victory and through me spreads and makes evident the fragrance (an aroma of life) of the knowledge of God everywhere.
For I am the sweet fragrance of Christ which exhales unto God, discernible alike to those who are saved and those who are perishing.

The life of God, which is as a sweet fragrance in the spirit realm, is what the world is looking for. The only way they can sense that fragrance strongly is to be in the presence of someone who has gotten a fresh impartation of the anointing that day. Aw, the anointing! Christians long for the anointing on them and through them. It’s easy. Spend some time with the One Who is the Anointing. You are a carrier of the anointing; you give off a sweet scent of His Presence. Everyone can smell it, even those who are not born again. Sometimes it will agitate them because they are convicted of their need for someone other than themselves. And there are those who do become offended because they aren’t willing to give up their sinful ways, which they enjoy. But, oh those who partake of His Presence----they are rewarded with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

There are those who have actually smelled with their physical senses, their smelling sense, a sweet fragrance when they are around someone who is full of the Spirit of God to overflowing. But, what we are talking about here this morning is the spiritual sense that people get that you are different. They may not know what it is, but they know. And, of course, the difference is Jesus and the time you spend with Him.

So, today, stop and take a rose break with Jesus. His anointing gives off a beautiful fragrance.