Saturdays with Ashley
MMmm that smells good
The majority of you have been to a Mexican restaurant, if you haven't this also applies to coffee shops, and if you haven't been to either then well that's really impressive. When you first go into a mexican restaurant usually the first thing you notice is the smell. Depending on who you are this can either be a very pleasant thing or a very unpleasant thing. However every time you leave the Mexican restaurant someone will come up to you and say, "Hey you smell like Mexican!" You've already gotten used to the smell so you can't really smell it anymore, so you smell your clothes and come to the conclusion that well they must be crazy because you don't smell it. However if you go and change clothes and then come back to ones you were wearing earlier you end up saying, "Man I sure am glad I changed so I didn't smell like Mexican all day."
Some of you probably already know what I'm going to say, but for the people who are completely lost here is what I'm getting at....As christians we give off a smell. Now don't try smelling yourself because it's very rarely a real scent. This scent comes from sitting at the feet of Jesus like Mary of Bethany did. The more we sit at His feet and as our relationship goes to a deeper level with Him, His scent begins to cling onto us. When I came back from my first mission trip to Guatemala two of my friends kept talking about how I looked different. They went down the list: haircut, tan, loose weight, crest whitening strips, new clothes, taller? They couldn't figure out what it was. I didn't realize at the time, but I realize now that I had been sitting at the feet of Jesus and that made me different. My heart had changed and I was now giving off a different fragrance.
Unbelievers are drawn to Christians, and they don't know why. It's because we have something that is satisfying, we have something that fulfilling that deep yearning inside of our hearts. They don't have that, but they can sense that we have some sort of fulfillment, and the fulfillment that they have been craving. They've been filling it with other things, but nothing seems to satisfy. Their spirit recognizes the fulfillment that we have in Jesus and it draws them near to us, they usually don't know why they feel drawn to us but they just know something is different. When you become a christian and enter into a relationship with Jesus you begin to realize how much your other fragrance STUNK. You thought you were doing ok then, and that everything was going pretty good, but in the end you realize it really stunk. You weren't getting the fulfillment that you wanted, and you really weren't happy.
The sad thing is a lot of christians are still wearing their smelly clothes. They chose to follow God, but they didn't leave their old man behind. They decided to carry the things that they think satisfy them along with them. They aren't able to walk into the pleasing fragrance because they aren't willing to first let go of the smelly one. They don't even realize how much they're missing out. They think they're doing fine keeping those smell clothes. Why would you want to keep those when you can have new clean ones? Because you don't think that He can satisfy. You aren't willing to let go of the temporary fulfillment that this world is giving you because you're afraid that when you do Jesus won't be enough. That He won't be able to give you the satisfaction that you need. He is the only one that can satisfy, it's not just a nice phrase, this is reality. We choose to do the things of this world because we would rather feed our flesh than our spirit. We are satisfied with this because we haven't experienced the one thing that will really satisfy. When you experience this deep satisfaction, you'll wonder why you ever did anything else. Try to wrap you mind around a God who knows you, He knows everything about you and He has chosen to love you with everything that is in Him. Why don't we want that? Why aren't we accepting that? We need an eternal mindset, we get so focused on this world and what it has to offer us that we forget there is a life after this one. We're on this earth for....maybe 90 years if your lucky. Yet we continue to invest everything that we have into this temporary world instead of investing into eternity. Umm hello? Is this making sense? It sure doesn't make sense to me. ETERNITY! We are going to reap what we sow for ETERNITY. Stop sowing into your flesh and begin to sow into your spirit. Don't go out on a friday night, spend time with God. You might think it's a waste of time, but what's a few hours compared to eternity.
Sit as His feet, take off your smell clothes, accept His new ones, sow into your spirit not your flesh.
God Bless
Ashley