The smell of Jesus is powerful. For one, it's the only thing that makes our worship acceptable to the Father. Without HIS smell in us, our worship is garbage. I don't care how beautiful your singing or worship program is. No Jesus' smell, garbage worship. Photo by Ruslan Zh on Unsplash.
Among the most powerful blessings we have is Jesus' smell. I have smelled Jesus, in fact, a lot of times. I was so close I would often catch his scent--even his breath. Like when he met the Samaritan woman, Nicodemus, the rich young ruler, Zacchaeus, when he called Peter, when he multiplied bread and fish, when he rebuked the wind and waves--I was there, up close. I smelled HIM.
Get closer to Jesus and get his smell by being God's flesh on earth.
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And the smell is yours if you receive him in your life and surrender yourself fully to him.
For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. [2 Corinthians 2.15]
To God we have Jesus' smell. We don't just smell "like" Jesus. We have his very smell. If you're not genuinely born again---if you're not a genuine new creation in Christ (the old is past, the new has come)---you don't get his smell, and anything you do for God is zero.
God is smell oriented, especially with worship. He showed this in the old testament. Worshipers had to offer animals prescribed by heaven, without defect, and slain and burned. It's no use bringing a heaven-prescribed offering, even without defect, if it's not slain. It should be slain. And burned.
Burned!
Burned flesh like that is always a "pleasing aroma" to God. Without that aroma worship is nothing. God is after that smell. He looks for it during worship and is found when we worship in spirit and in truth. This pertains to his spoken Word. The words Jesus speaks "are spirit and they are life" [John 6.63], and truth is his spoken Word. And Jesus is The Word, and Jesus was offered as a pleasing sacrifice.
5 Then Aaron’s sons are to burn it on the altar on top of the burnt offering that is lying on the burning wood; it is a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the Lord. [Leviticus 3]
God rejected Cain's worship because it lacked the smell. And without Jesus' smell in us as we are also offered by fire (Paul said offer your bodies as living sacrifices), we can never please God. The smell is part of genuine faith. God is a consuming Fire, and as we expose ourselves to His presence we become a burnt offering, an aroma of Christ pleasing to the Father, not because of us or anything we do or achieve, but only because of Jesus.
It's not enough to be the right offering passing heaven's prescription. We have to be slain and burned. "Slain" is the Jesus cross (the Jesus Life) and "burned" is the presence of the Father, consuming and transforming us, forming Christ in us. Many believers are merely the right offering--having the right teaching, doctrine, theology, etc. But they're not slain and burned. Their egos still live in them, not Jesus.
So their worship is garbage.
The smell of Jesus is also what scares devils and demons when they see us. We are covered with the blood of Jesus, and blood has a strong smell. Have you ever smelled flesh blood? The moment devils smell Jesus in us (because we are covered by his Blood), they scram, knowing that Jesus is present around somewhere. Well, they either run away or run to us, kneeling, and shouting, "What have you to do with us, son (or daughter) of the living God? Have you come to torture us?"
The smell enables us to be "part with" Jesus. It confirms us being part of him, being part of his body. So we need to be washed by him, not just with water, but with his blood. Because we need to get his smell to be part with him. That's among the spiritual identifying marks of a genuine child of God--the smell of Jesus.
Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me." [John 13]
Here are other renditions:
“Unless I wash you, you won’t belong to me.”
“If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.”
You want to be light and salt of this world? The vital prerequisite is to have Jesus' smell. Among other things, being light and salt means we become instruments in putting people right with God. We become conduits, helping them connect with their Creator. Jesus is the only Mediator between them--but then Jesus is 100 percent in us. The Mediator should be able to do his work in us.
Mediating means knowing what appeases God's wrath and what helps people avoid God's wrath. With the smell of Jesus in us, we're able to do this ministry of reconciliation. We are ambassadors, representing Jesus on earth and representing man in heaven. We become blessed peacemakers, called children of God. The smell of Jesus in us quickly soothes God's wrath and easily accesses his favor and mercy.
20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 21 The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. [Genesis 8]
