Everyone has a favorite aroma. What’s yours? Is it freshly mown grass or crisp, line-dried laundry? Is it warm chocolate chip cookies or a steaming loaf of bread straight from the oven? How about the downy crown of a newborn’s head? 

On the flip side, what’s your least favorite aroma? Is it the outside garbage can in the dead of summer or your son’s sweaty football pads, uniform, and cleats after they fester in the trunk of your car all weekend?

Good or bad, an aroma permeates everything. I know this involves science regarding molecules that’s beyond my understanding, but simply put, an aroma winds itself in, around, and under everything near it. It has the power to either attract or repel.

In an interesting metaphor, the book of 2 Corinthians urges us to be the attractive aroma of Christ to the world around us: “But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing” (2:14,15).

Unbelievably, when Jesus returned to heaven after he rose from the dead, he entrusted the work of spreading his gospel message to us stinky, sinful human beings. What a privilege. What a responsibility. All of our words and actions are to be an enticing aroma that attracts others to Christ.

What kind of aroma are you?