The Aroma

As I stepped out the door yesterday and smelled the lovely fragrance of roses in our front yard, I was again reminded of a post I did a few years ago. I can’t remember if there are any roses in the front yard of the rental house we will be moving into shortly, so I am enjoying the ones we have here while we still have them. I pray this post will be a blessing to you.

 

This is the time of year when I love walking out our front door and unto the porch.  “Why?”  you may wonder.  As soon as I step out the door, I can smell the wonderful fragrance from the roses in our front yard.  It is a sweet and wonderful scent.  Isn’t it funny how smells sometimes trigger memories?  Often when I smell roses, my mind goes back to some little dolls I had as a girl.  These dolls were only about 3 inches tall and came in little heart shaped plastic bottles.  There were several varieties of these dolls called LiddleKiddles and each one smelled like a flower.  They were named after the flower whose fragrance they emitted.  We had Apple Blossom, Rosebud and Honeysuckle, but I remember that my favorite was Rosebud.  There are certain roses that smell exactly as I remember my little Rosebud smelling.

 

The other day as I was standing outside breathing in that fantastic rose scent, a thought came to my mind.  What smells good to God?  I don’t know if God dropped that question in my mind or if I’m just weird.  I’ll let you decide.  Then I thought of the term “sweet savour” that I remember reading before in the Bible.  I decided to look up this term in e-sword, and I found 44 references to it.  In the Old Testament, it’s always mentioned in reference to some kind of offering or sacrifice being given to the Lord.  In the New Testament, this term is only mentioned one time in 2 Corinthians 2:15.

 

2Corinthians 2:15  For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish:

 

To make it a little easier to understand, here is the verse preceding this one and a few after it in the English Standard Version of the Bible.

 

2Co 2:14  But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.

2Co 2:15  For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing,

2Co 2:16  to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?

2Co 2:17  For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ. (bold emphasis mine)

 

 

Under the Old Testament law, the sacrifices that were offered to God according to His specifications were sweet and pleasing to Him.  I believe in The New Testament  church age that we’re living in, that as the born again church, we become living sacrifices (Romans 12:1,2)to God through which He desires to spread “the fragrance of the knowledge of him.”     This fragrance is the very aroma of Christ, and to those that receive the fragrance of this knowledge, I believe it will not only give spiritual life here but eternal life in the ages to come.

 

Maybe God was using those roses to remind me once again of my mission in life.  Dear Lord, please use me to spread your wonderful life giving aroma!

 

Edit:  Here’s a link to some Liddle Kiddles.

 

http://dollreference.com/kiddles_kologne.html

 

Tommy, I Miss You

Dear Tom,

You passed from this life on October 22, 2011. I can’t help but remember that today would have been your 51st birthday. It’s been almost 6 months since you left this earth, but I still think of you a lot and miss you. I am thankful that you were a part of my life. You were not only a great brother, but you became a wonderful friend to me during the last year and half of your life. I sure am thankful too that I was on that 14 page prayer list of yours that we found out about after your death. There is probably no telling how many times I was uplifted, encouraged or kept from danger because of your prayers.

I am sad on one hand, because I miss being able to talk to you and share times together, but I rejoice also, because I know you were ready to meet the Lord, and you are now in His loving hands! One day, we will be reunited with you in the presence of the Lord, and what a glorious time that will be!!! Looking forward to seeing you again in God’s time.

Your loving sister,

‘lynnie

 

I’m Expecting!

I’m expecting…………….

but probably not as you supposed.

I’m expecting that the 9 year old girl who received the Holy Ghost last night will be baptized in Jesus’ name on Sunday!

I’m expecting her parents to come and feel the touch of God in the service!

I’m expecting to have a good crowd in church on Sunday, some of them also being filled with the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues!

I’m expecting that we will see even more baptized in Jesus’ name very soon!

I’m expecting God to work things out concerning our housing situation and my husband’s employment. I don’t know how He will do it, but I know that He will!

Doesn’t a woman in the natural have expectations for the child she is carrying before it is delivered? Nobody faults her for decorating the nursery, buying those cute little outfits and making arrangements for that new arrival.

So in the spiritual realm, I will prepare……………………

through praying

through fasting

through witnessing

through faithfulness

and through speaking my faith.

Yes, I’m expecting,

and I’m looking forward to seeing the birth of His promises!

 

What Kind of Influence?

I thought this was interesting. It’s amazing that 2 men born on the same day could have such opposite effects on society. We may not have quite the sphere of influence that these men had, but our lives will influence otheres around us as well. What kind of influence do you want to have?

 

Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the exact same day, February 12, 1809, but their lives had opposite effects.

 

Lincoln is best known for freeing millions of slaves by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, claiming all men are created equal.

 

Darwin’s theory of evolution claims men are not equal as some are more evolved, and has been used by totalitarian regimes to enslave millions.

 

Lincoln’s last act in office was to put on all National Coin the motto, “In God We Trust.”

 

Darwin’s theory has been used to deny of God.

 

Lincoln, the first Republican President, addressed the Indiana Regiment, March 17, 1865:

 

“Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”

 

On April 6, 1859, Lincoln wrote to H.L. Pierce:

 

“This is a world of compensation; and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and under a just God, cannot long retain it.”

 

After the Battle of Antietam, Lincoln told his Cabinet, September 22, 1862, as reported Treasury Secretary Salmon Portland Chase:

 

“The time for the annunciation of the emancipation policy can no longer be delayed. Public sentiment will sustain it, many of my warmest friends and supporters demand it, and I have promised God that I will do it.”

 

When asked by Secretary Chase to explain, Lincoln replied:

 

“I made a solemn vow before God, that if General Lee were driven back from Pennsylvania, I would crown the result by the declaration of freedom to the slaves.”

 

In his Second Inaugural, March 4, 1865, just 45 days before his assassination, Lincoln stated:

 

“If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove,

 

and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came,

 

shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?…

 

If God will that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsmen’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said

 

‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’”

 

Lincoln stated in his Second Annual Message, December 1, 1862:

 

“In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free…We shall nobly save – or meanly lose – the last, best hope of earth…The way is plain…which if followed the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless.”

 

In his Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863, Lincoln stated:

 

“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

 

In contrast, Darwin published his “Origin of Species,” 1859, and in 1871, his “Descent of Man,” in which he wrote:

 

“With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated…

 

We civilized men, on the other hand…build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick…Thus the weak members propagate their kind.

 

No one who had attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man…Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed…

 

Civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world…

 

The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.”

 

Darwin’s concept justified the racism of the Dred Scott v Sanford Decision, 1856, written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, who was appointed by Democrat President Andrew Jackson:

 

“Slaves had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order…so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the Negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.”

 

Darwin’s theory influenced Margaret Sanger, who promoted “eugenics” and “forced sterilization” to eliminate inferior races. Sanger founded a 501(c)3 called Planned Parenthood.

 

Margaret Sanger, in her book Pivot of Civilization, 1922, called for the:

 

“Elimination of ‘human weeds’…overrunning the human garden; for the cessation of ‘charity’ because it prolonged the lives of the unfit; for the segregation of ‘morons, misfits, and the maladjusted’; and for the sterilization of genetically inferior races.”

 

Sanger advised Nazi Party member Ernst Rudin, father of “racial hygiene,” who educated on the dangers of hereditary defectives.

 

Nazi’s considered the German “Aryan” race as “ubermensch,” supermen, being more advanced in the supposed human evolution.

 

When Germany’s economy fell, Hitler’s national healthcare plan of socialized medicine had to cut expenses, such as keeping alive handicapped, insane, chronically ill, elderly and those with dementia. They were considered “lebensunwertes leben” – life unworthy of life, and sent to the gas chambers.

 

Soon criminals, convicts, street bums, beggars and gypsies, considered “leeches” on the State, met the same fate.

 

Eventually, in a perverted effort to rid the human gene pool of less evolved “untermensch”- under mankind, Hitler’s immoral plan sent 6 million Jews, along with millions of others, to the holocaust gas chambers and ovens.

 

Joseph Stalin followed suit in the Soviet Union, exterminating through intentional famines, forced labor and executions an estimated 27 million “inferior” Ukrainians.

 

Mao Zedong followed this example with his atheistic Communist Party policies causing an estimated 80 million deaths in China.

 

These not too distant genocides resemble the Islamic teaching that Jews are from apes, Christians are from swine, and Kafir infidels are inferior “dhimmi” – not equal to believing Muslim males, which led to a sharia political system that in 1,400 years contributed to an estimated 270 million deaths.

 

History reveals that the consequences can be frightful if a government adopts Darwin’s utilitarian value of human life and departs from President Lincoln’s belief, “that all men are created equal.”

 

He Knows Best!

God really does know best. Do we really believe that? I got this e-mail the other day from my sister-in-law that illustrates this point. The next time you or I are having a bad day or experiencing a series of events that we don’t understand, I pray the Lord will bring this to our minds.

 

Me: God, can I ask you a question?

God: Sure

Me: Promise you won’t get mad …

God: I promise

Me: Why did you let so much stuff happen to me today?

God: What do you mean?

Me: Well, I woke up late

God: Yes

Me: My car took forever to start

God: Okay

Me: At lunch they made my sandwich wrong & I had to wait

God: Huummm

Me: On the way home, my phone went DEAD, just as I picked up a call

God: All right

Me: And on top of it all, when I got home ~I just want to soak my feet in my new foot massager & relax. BUT it wouldn’t work!!! Nothing went right today! Why did you do that?

God: Let me see, the death angel was at your bed this morning & I had to send one of my angels to battle him for your life. I let you sleep through that

Me: (humbled) OH

God: I didn’t let your car start because there was a drunk driver on your route that would have hit you if you were on the road.

Me: (ashamed)

God: The first person who made your sandwich today was sick & I didn’t want you to catch what they have, I knew you couldn’t afford to miss work

Me: (embarrassed) Okay

God: Your phone went dead bcuz the person that was calling was going to give false witness about what you said on that call, I didn’t even let you talk to them so you would be covered

Me: (softly) I see God

God: Oh and that foot massager, it had a shortage that was going to throw out all of the power in your house tonight. I didn’t think you wanted to be in the dark.

Me: I’m sorry God

God: Don’t be sorry, just learn to trust me…. in all things, the good & the bad.

Me: I will trust you.

God: And don’t doubt that my plan for your day is always better than your plan.

Me: I won’t God. And let me just tell you God, thank you for everything today.

God: You’re welcome child. It was just another day being your God and I love looking after my children…

 

New Food Page

I met a minister’s wife in December who shared with me a special “diet” that she has been on for a number of years. Actually, it’s more of a lifestyle change. After listening to her, asking her questions and doing some reading on my own, I decided that during the month of January I would try going on a mostly raw vegan diet. It has been a challenging but fun experiment. I am finding that I have more energy and am enjoying this change more than I thought I would. With that in my mind, I have renamed the former “Favorite Family Recipes” page to Raw and Cooked Vegan Dishes and will be sharing some of the recipes I have made. Feel free to visit the page, and if you decide to try any of the recipes, let me know what you think. Bon appetit!

 

It’s So Easy To Believe God………

for other people’s “impossible” situations, isn’t it? I know there have been many times when I have said things such as “Trust God. He’ll make a way” or “I’m praying for you, and I know God will work something out.” I have been pondering lately why it seems so easy to trust God to move in somebody else’s difficult situation but it’s a little harder when it comes to trusting Him with our “Red Sea perplexities.”

A favorite portion of Scripture that I have leaned on through the years is found in Proverbs 3:5,6

 

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

I think sometimes it’s easier to trust God to move in other people’s situations because we don’t have a complete “understanding” of all the details involved in their trial. My husband shared a story a few years back that will illustrate the point I’m trying to make. One day he got a phone call from a lady who was attending our church, and she asked him if he could come and pray for her Uncle ”Joe” who was very sick in the hospital. When he arrived in Joe’s room, several relatives were there who seemed pretty downcast, and Joe appeared to be sleeping. My husband talked to these people a few minutes, sharing with them some things that the Bible has to say about faith. Then he asked them to join hands with him and pray for Joe. He just said a simple prayer, asking God to heal Joe and give him a chance to come to church and hear the gospel,and when he was done, Joe woke up and asked for some water. Not wanting to be in the way of things, my husband quietly ducked out of the room and left. A short time later, he got a call from Joe’s niece who had asked him to come and pray. She began to tell my husband that her uncle had been in a coma for 3 days, the doctors had said that he wasn’t going to make it, and a Catholic priest had actually come by and given him last rites before my husband was there. She said it was a miracle that her uncle had woken up, and her family was very excited. Joe was released from the hospital a couple of days later and did end up visiting the church. When my husband was relating this story, he mentioned that he was glad he did not know the full extent of Joe’s condition, because he may not have had the faith to pray as he did. It was a blessing that he did not have that “understanding” of Joe’s condition.

I think too many times when it comes to our own personal impossible situations, we feel we know all the details, all the ins and outs, and that “understanding” can limit us from trusting God. Our family is facing one of those situations now with our house that looks impossible. It’s either a short sale or foreclosure. We just had someone make an offer on our house, so it looks like we’ll be able to avoid a foreclosure, but we still have the situation of finding a place to live that we can afford. With bad credit and an income that is not always consistent, things do not look good, but I am not going to lean on that “understanding”. I know that God is able to make a way where it seems there is no way, and I have these promises in His Word.

 

Psalm 37:25

 

I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.

 

Philippians 4:19

 

But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

So I am praying(and I’m thankful for many others that have said they would pray for us)and believing God that He has a plan, and He will take care of us. He always has!

 

 

 

Living On The Hallelujah Side

Sometimes things will happen in our lives to prompt us to make changes. I didn’t have anything major happen in my life to make me want to change my eating habits. I think it was the fact that I am getting older and that my husband’s brother had a heart attack recently that got me thinking more about the foods that I eat. I also met a minister’s wife recently who told me about a diet she had been on for a long time. It’s called the Hallelujah Diet, and you can read about it here. With those things in mind, I started thinking, “Do I really want to wait until I have a major health problem to start taking care of myself and eating better?” I decided for me that the answer was no, so when January began I stared my journey on the Hallelujah diet. To my surprise, I find that I’m really enjoying this change, even though I have been spending a lot more time in the kitchen preparing food. I definitely have a lot more energy than I have had in a long time, and I’m not depending on coffee for it either.

It’s funny how we tend to put off things like dieting or changing our eating habits, even though we know we need to do so. Many people do wait until they have heart problems or other issues before they think seriously and make the choice to make some dietary changes. It seems like when it comes to our spirituality that we are even more hesitant to make changes. People can be living in sin, knowing it, knowing that they need to make a change, but yet they won’t seek after God until something major happens in their life, such as health problems, death of a loved one or a financial crisis.

My question today is, “Why wait?” Do you want to wait until a catasprophe happens in your life before you turn to God in repentance? The real truth is that not a single one of us have the promise that we will even live to see tomorrow. If we keep putting off getting our hearts right with God and decide to wait, one of these times it might be too late.

Putting off eating healthier is one thing, but putting off living for God is a decision that can affect us eternally. Scripture urges us not to put off concerning our soul’s salvation.

2Co 6:2

(For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)

 

I know not everyone is going to make the choice to be a vegetarian and go on the Hallelujah diet, but I urge you today to work out your soul’s salvation and obey Acts 2:38. Then, as the old hymn says, you can truly be “Living On The Hallelujah Side”.

 

 

Living On The Hallelujah Side

 

Verse 1

 

Once a sinner far from Jesus I was perishing in the cold

 

And the blessed Savior heard me when I cried

 

Then he threw his arms around me and he led me to his fold

 

Now I’m living on the hallelujah side

 

Chorus

 

Oh, glory be to Jesus let the hallelujahs roll

 

Let me sing my Saviors praises far and wide

 

For I’ve opened up toward Heaven all the windows of my soul

 

And I’m living on the hallelujah side

 

Verse 2

 

Here the sun is always shinning and the sky is always bright

 

Tis no place for gloom in Christians to abide

 

For my soul is filled with music and my heart with great delight

 

And I’m living on the hallelujah side

 

Verse 3

 

And when this life is over and we’ve reached the other shore

 

And have safely crossed old Jordan’s rolling tide

 

You will find me shouting glory just outside my mansion door

 

For I’m living on the hallelujah side

 

 

Happy New You!

This new year has started with a bang for our church. God answered a long standing prayer request for one of our sisters . It was so exciting! I’m not going to tell you the story myself, but you can read it here.

I am looking forward to seeing more people born of the water and the spirit in 2012!!

 

My Favorite Prayer Poem

There’s a holy, high vocation needing workers everywhere,

tis the highest form of service, tis the ministry of prayer,

there’s no weapon half as mighty as the intercessors bear

nor a broader field of service than the ministry of prayer.

Author unknown