There has been a skunk (or skunks) traveling back and forth by my bedroom window all summer. In fact, they decided to dig a nice hole right outside my window for storing things that skunks store for later.
Now, skunks aren’t unattractive - in fact, they are kind of cute. Especially the baby ones. I’ve seen little kids see them and say, “Awww, look at the kitty cat”. You almost want to pick them up and cuddle them. But don’t let the appearance fool you.
Sooner or later, they will turn around. And you will experience what’s inside that comes out.
As Christians, do you realize that sometimes we do the same thing?
Do we dress up in our Sunday best, go to church every time the doors open, have the ability to speak “Christianese”, and still stink?
Do we know the books of the Bible, have the ability to quote Scripture, sing all the hymns, serve on all the committees, have a fish on our cars, a cross around our necks, and still stink?
I was recently in a store and saw someone that I know is very active in church, even preaches at times. Sometimes when I see this person, they speak to me and hug me; other times they avoid me and go the other way. This time when I saw them, they chose to ignore me and go the other way. Before they turned around, I saw that they had on a t-shirt that said:
“Actions speak louder than words”
This hit me where it hurts.
Right back to “You better walk the talk”.
Now don’t get me wrong. I know what everyone says. Sometimes people are in a hurry, sometimes we have other things on our minds, sometimes we don’t notice people around us, etc. I understand this. But for me, I am trying to break this cycle.
Because these excuses for me show me just how much I need to get my mind off of myself and onto what is going on around me.
We need to show people the Jesus inside us. That smile we give someone might change their day. That 5 minutes we stop to chat whether we know them or not might renew their faith that someone really cares.
Is it God’s fault when we stink? When we make bad decisions that cause our lives to fall apart? When we treat others badly? When we don’t have compassion? When we don’t share the Gospel? When we ignore our brothers and sisters in Christ? When we go places or do things that leave the stench of sin on us?
Pastor Brian Warren of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Tyro, VA, shared this one night at an evening service:
“When you go out and grab a skunk by the tail, don’t blame God when you stink”.
Don’t blame God when you don’t follow the guide to life that He has already given us - The Holy Bible.
He not only gave us a guidebook, but Jesus came to us to save us from sin and lived out His earthly life as an example for us to follow.
One thing I learned early in my true Christian walk is that there is no such thing as a reaction. We choose each action, each response that comes out of us. We are accountable for our actions.
And our responsibility as Christians is to share Christ. Through words and actions.
The Bible often speaks of offerings to the Lord - in the Old Testament, there were burnt offerings. One example is what we see after the Flood:
Genesis 8:20-21 And Noah built an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the LORD smelled a sweet savor; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.
Noah had been obedient to the Lord’s instruction, and now he built an altar and offered a sacrifice to the Lord, the Lord regarded this as a “sweet savour, or more literally, a smell of satisfaction” (KJV Study Bible, 1988)
We should be a living sacrifice to Jesus Christ.
Romans 12:1-2 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
Because of His sacrifice for us, burnt offerings were no longer needed. Jesus was the perfect sacrifice to save us from our sins. When we ask Jesus to be the Lord of our lives, He fills us with His Holy Spirit. We should not only live our lives for Him, but allow Him to live through us.
Our lives should provide Him with a sweet savour. Our lives should show the saved and the lost that He lives inside us.
2 Corinthians 2:14-17 Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savor of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the savor of death unto death; and to the other the savor of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.
We take baths to stay clean. We use soap and water to wash our bodies. We use shampoo to wash our hair. Some of us use lotions and perfumes and cologne to enhance our outward fragrance. But if you skip the bath and just put on the smelly stuff, sooner or later, the stink is going to seep out. You didn’t cleanse yourself. You just covered up your stench.
We should do this spiritually also. We should spend time in prayer and communion with God, confessing our sins to cleanse ourselves, and measure ourselves against Scripture. How do we know what Scripture says we should do? We should study God’s Word and live our lives as He has instructed us to do. The Holy Spirit inside of us will emit that sweet fragrance to God, and to those around us. It will show in our words and actions.
But if we just know enough to get by, never praying or spending time with God, believing that we never do anything wrong and just have an outward appearance of being a Christ follower, we have not cleansed ourselves. We have tried to cover our filth with the righteous Word of God, but we have only put it on the outside. The heart is still dirty. And soon that stench will seep out.
As I am writing this, I think of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11:1-46). When Jesus told the people to remove the stone from the tomb, Martha said, “Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days”. I think about us being buried in our sin, about our hearts being dead to the Holy Spirit and to the Word of God.
We stinketh.
So, let’s think about our sacrifice for the Lord. We must live our lives in service to Him and Him alone. When we do this, others can’t help but smell the sweet savour of Christ in our lives.
What is in our hearts is what comes out in our words and actions - we must strive each day to allow ourselves to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Our lives must be sweet smelling sacrifices to Jesus Christ; they must not stink.
