Perfume

What kind of perfume do you wear? What about your cologne? Many people have their signature scent, as they have been giving themselves a spritz of the same perfume or cologne for years. When those people walk into a room their smell precedes them; you know they are there because you smell Calvin Klein or Gianni Versace. Sometimes the very thought of your grandmother might cause you to smell her Estée Lauder, even if she has been gone for many years. 

I don’t have a signature scent. At any given time I have a half dozen different bottles of cologne, and I spray on whichever one I grab. I might smell like Cool Water today and Acqua di Gio tomorrow. My cologne doesn’t announce my arrival like it does for others. 

Richard Chenevix Trench, Archbishop of the Church of Ireland in the late 1800’s, once said of Jesus, “Like perfume betrays itself, so He whose name is perfume poured out cannot be hid.” Like a strong perfume, people knew when Jesus was in the area. During His ministry on earth Jesus tried at times to get away so He could pray, spend time with the Father, and just rest from the demands on Him, but He was rarely able to get any alone time. Even when His cousin John the Baptist died and Jesus went off by Himself, there was soon a crowd of maybe twenty-five thousand people wanting to be healed. Perfume betrays itself, and Jesus, whose name is perfume poured out, could never be hidden. 

Jesus is in heaven now, sitting at the right hand of the Father. Even still, like a strong perfume, people can smell Him. As Christians we have the opportunity to give the world a little spritz of the Savior whenever we minister in His name. When the church is impacting its community, people should sniff the air and say, “Jesus must be around here somewhere.” When we love our neighbor as ourselves, those neighbors should have the feeling that they are in the vicinity of our Lord. The good things we do should not be about getting noticed, but about making sure the world knows about the God we serve. 

We let our “light so shine before men, that they may see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16).”

Jesus is like a sweet-smelling perfume, and so are we when live the way He told us. Don’t leave the perfume in the bottle; spray it often, and let the world know how good our God is.