Nothing Left to Prove
“But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not peddlers of God’s word like so many;but in Christ we speak as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God and standing in his presence.”
I woke up today feeling stressed out about needing to post and needing to provide groundbreaking-yet-accessible theologically sound content so that people would be able to understand the Gospel and that this page wouldn’t be misleading in any way, shape, or form. Plus a beautiful, eye-catching graphic that would draw people into the message EVEN THOUGH I AM NOT A GRAPHIC DESIGNER.
This page is always walking a fine line, because I basically just write whatever God is teaching me through my personal reading of the Bible. It’s authentic and real, but it also means it’s hard to read the Bible and just RECEIVE without the little part of my brain starting to fire up with ways to PRODUCE.
I spent some time in prayer about this before I opened my Bible (back to 2 Corinthians, the book I started before Holy Week), and I feel like God poured out so much grace for me today.
Paul intended this passage to remind the Corinthian readers of the processionals Roman armies would march through the streets after a victory. They would burn incense to the gods as they celebrated through the streets. To the losers of the battle then, this incense smelled like death; to the winners, this incense was the scent of celebration.
Paul uses this image as context for his point: wherever we go, we walk in victory that JESUS won. Wherever we go, just by living the lives that we live through the power of Christ, we are the aroma of Christ, the final offering.
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
To people who know God, who belong to His kingdom, we bring the fragrance of life itself. To people who are still resisting the truth of His kingdom, we bring a reminder of their mortality.
Simply by being in the presence of God, by learning His ways and watching His work, we are able to speak with sincerity about His power and the life He gives.
I am not a “peddler” of Christ, trying to bring benefit to myself. I just show up to talk about what He’s teaching me.
Who is sufficient for such things?
I know I am not. And yet Jesus won the victory for me. And the Holy Spirit dwells in me because I said yes to Jesus. So I just show up and be who I am, because God automatically begins sanctifying us when we give Him our lives. And I speak honestly about what He’s done, and I don’t hide the fact that it’s all for His glory.
That’s it. That’s my job. I don’t need to be sufficient because I AM NOT THE AROMA, it’s CHRIST. I just carry the incense through the street, knowing the victory was won.
I have nothing to prove, nothing to polish up, nothing to disclaim, nothing to “spin.” And neither do you.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”
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