A Fragrant Aroma to Your Husband

by Susan Sampson

I was thinking yesterday about different aromas that I love.  Burning leaves in the fall; jasmine; Christmas pine trees; Thanksgiving dinner cooking; Moonlight Path from Bath and Body Works; Pure Vanilla Extract; my husband’s cologne and my dogs feet:)  Don’t your favorite aromas minister to your soul?  Don’t they bring peace and comfort and joy?  These are gifts from the Lord.

“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” (2 Cor. 2:14).  I very much want the Lord to use me to spread the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ and of His gospel to my husband.  We are the “aroma of Christ” (2 Cor. 2:15)  It is Christ IN us, the hope of glory.  It is only when we put to death our stinking rotten flesh, that the aroma of life, the aroma of Christ will come forth.

My dear sisters, let us be vigilant.  The enemy is prowling around like a roaring lion seeking to devour us.  He is actively trying to destroy our marriages.  He is insidious.  He is subtle.  He does everything he can to distract us.  I am seeing how easily I get distracted!!  By the least little thing.  I can spend such sweet time in communion with the Lord, pouring over His word, thanking Him, praising Him, in tears of joy over His lovingkindness and then a mere two hours later (and even as I sit at this computer) my brain can hardly remember what was so wonderful just this morning!!

Listen to how James describes this very thing.  “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.  For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.  For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.  But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing” (James 1:22-25). 

This is why I believe with my whole hear that the Taking the Truth to Heart and Bringing it to Life pages in our study as well as the Taking the Truth to Heart cards are so vital.  We are sheep who are prone to wander.  We so easily forget.  We are weak.  Praise God that “he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14). 

My sisters, I exhort you and me to stand firm in the grace given to us in our Lord, Jesus Christ.  Let us submit ourselves to God and resist the devil and he WILL flee (James 4:7).  Do not be distracted.  Cling to Christ and His word.  Ask the Lord for His grace to bring the truths He is teaching you and showing you to life in your heart and in your marriage!  We have only 3 more weeks.  The Lord brought each one of us to this study for His purpose.  Let us thank the Lord for this study, for His word, for our husbands, for the mercy and grace we have been given in Christ.  These are all such precious gifts!  Let us pour ourselves into our study for these last 3 weeks, looking to Christ, the Author and Perfector of our faith.  Let us put our homework ahead of our agendas.  “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you” (Mat. 6:33). 

When Esther and the other young women were preparing to go before the king they spent “six months with oil of myrrh and six months with spices and ointments for women” (Esther 2:12).  Jesus has already done this for us!!  Christ loved the church and “gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:25-27).  Praise be to God!!

Love protects all things.  May we seek to protect our marriages and our husbands by immersing ourselves in the word of life and in prayer.  Love always perseveres.  Love believes all things.  “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers” (1 John 3:16). 

Let us reign in our brains and believe the truth of God’s words and stop believing the lies of the enemy.  Stop giving into our feelings, our flesh.  Let us truly be transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we will then be able to discern the will of God (Romans 12:2).  Let us seek to be that fragrant aroma.

So what is the Lord tenderly speaking to your heart?  What truth is He wanting you to take to your heart and bring to life?  How is He asking you to show your love to your husband?  Father God, help us!  Give us ears to hear, eyes to see, and humble hearts to receive your word.  Bring your word to life in us!  Fill us with your love that we will be a fragrant aroma to our husbands and to you!