By Grant Gaines
My goal by the end of this blog is to convince every one of you to stop using deodorant. No, I’m not talking about the type of deodorant you wear in your arm pits. As a matter of fact, for the sake of all those sitting around you right now, please continue to use that type of deodorant! The type of deodorant I’m talking about, however, is a spiritual deodorant that many of us wear without even knowing it.
This idea finds its roots in 2 Corinthians 2:14-16 (NLT) which says, “…Now [God] uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume. Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume…”
From this passage we learn that a mark of being a true, authentic Christian is the fragrance we give off. But it’s not a physical smell that can be covered up with a deodorant such as Old Spice or Gillette. It is a spiritual fragrance that transcends our physical sense of smell and rouses our spiritual sense of salvation.
And just what exactly is this scent that we give off? Well, it is the “…knowledge of Christ…” (2 Cor. 2:14, NLT), or the Gospel of salvation (understanding that only Jesus can save us from our sin), which is being spread through the way we live our lives—both through our actions and words—differently from the unbelieving world. But according to this passage, our scent produces two conflicting responses.
To many non-believers we are the smell of death because a prerequisite to accepting the Gospel is first acknowledging the fact that we are all sinful and in desperate need of a Savior (Romans 3:23). This is not a painless process to realize that the heart beating inside your chest is described in the Bible as, “…deceitful above all things and beyond cure…” (Jeremiah 17:9, NIV). And because people fear their own evil, sinful deeds being exposed, “…The word of the LORD is offensive to them; they find no pleasure in it” (Jeremiah 6:10, NIV).
On the opposite end of the spectrum, we are a “life-giving perfume” (2 Corinthians 2:16, NLT) to those who are eager to be saved by the Gospel. When this group hears God’s truth, it’s like scales fall off their eyes and they are able to see clearly for the first time. Like a piece of fruit during the harvest, they are ripe to the Gospel.
To one group, the Gospel we proclaim is frightening and intruding, but to another group, the Gospel tells of God’s unending love and amazing grace. Or as 1 Corinthians 1:18 (NIV) says it, “For the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
But do you know how we become that life-giving perfume to some? We must be willing to be the fragrance of death to others. This is not an “either-or” choice, it is a package deal. And because of the fear of offending some, so many Christians today cower away from being a light to others (Matthew 5:14-16).
Take a good look around you and you’ll see traces of this “spiritual deodorant” everywhere. We don’t pray in public before meals. We don’t pray in school. We don’t say “in God we trust”. We don’t point out the life-depriving sin patterns in our loved ones lives. We don’t tell the lost (or “non-believers”) that the only way to avoid eternal suffering is a relationship with Jesus Christ (Ephesians 4:12), all in the name of not offending someone.
However, in our efforts to mask our fragrance of death to some, we also hide our aroma of life to others. Are you beginning to see the problem? When we use a spiritual deodorant, we lose our ability to be salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16). Or in other words, we lose our ability to stand out from the non-believing world. And do you remember what Jesus said about us if we lose our saltiness? “[The salt] is no good for anything, expect to be thrown out and trampled by men” (Matthew 5:13, NIV). Not quite the, “…Well done, good and faithful servant…” (Matthew 25:21, NIV) response you were looking for, huh?
The bottom line is this, if you want to make a true, eternal difference in someone’s life, the fear of momentarily offending someone with the Gospel has to be far outweighed by the potential of saving their souls by that same Gospel.
So as you take an inventory of your life, are you making a true difference in the lives of non-believers? If the answer to that question is, “No”, then you just might be wearing more spiritual deodorant than you thought.
Comments? Questions? Suggestions?
©Grant Gaines 2013
