ON THE AROMA OF CHRIST

What changes when you feel God’s presence?

What is different between then... and now?

Is it a paradigm shift?

Or is it a matter of intensity, or distance, or awareness?

For me, there are times when I sense His touch, His tears, His boundless love... His hope.

What is it?  

What is the impetus that transports us from where we were, to where He is?

Is it truth?

Is it authenticity?

Is it surrender? 

Is it solitude?

Is it the euphoria of worship?

Or is it our need (or His)

Is it our hope, or faith, or love the impetus sensing his presence?

Or is it something He does, or reveals, or sows?

Is He, (or we) playing Hide and Seek?

Someone wrote these words, “This garden universe vibrates complete. Some we get a sound so sweet.   Vibrations reach on up to become light, And then thru gamma, out of sight.  Between the eyes and ears there lay, The sounds of colour and the light of a sigh. And to hear the Son, what a thing to believe.  But it's all around if we could but perceive.  To know ultra-violet, infra-red and X-rays, Beauty to find in so many ways..  Two notes of the chord, that's our fluoroscope.  But to reach the chord is our life’s hope.  And to name the chord is important to some.  So they give a word, and the WORD IS...”

The “instant” we sense his presence, our paradigm changes, He IS with us... 

What is the impetus for the “instant” or put another way, the space between where we are and where He is?

Friday night I experienced authentic worship.  Today, I am asking what was different between a normal Sunday go to church worship service and Friday’s worship?

This may sound corny to many of you, but there were moments where I felt His presence!  Not imagined, Not hoped for, Not as though I was watching a movie... but that I was transported into his presence.

It wasn’t supernatural, or spiritual, or hallucinogenic... it was genuine, it was authentic!

But how did He bring me from where I was a few minutes earlier, into his presence?

And how do I KNOW my experience is genuine?

Truthfully, I do not know... but that’s not true... because I know!


During worship, He touched me, and my perception of reality changed.

Changed from a bystander looking in, to a participant who was joyful.

With spontaneous tears streaming down my face, He touched me, and I began to perceive how great His love IS.

Big enough to forgive ME, not because I deserved it because of what I have done or could ever do, but because of who HE IS.

Who is He?  He is the creator of the Universe.  He is our Father and He loves us even though we don’t deserve His love, He forgives us, even though we don’t deserve forgiveness, He Comforts us, He encourages us, He touches us down deep where our Soul lives and we Know Him because He IS.

It is impossible to Not recognize Him, there is No choice, when He chooses to reveal Himself... who He IS is undeniable.

But... the question still remains... how does this happen?  


What is the difference between the understanding, and the knowing?

The way it happened last night is when a broken man, who at 16 years, had murdered his mother, and spent the last 23 years (of a life sentence) behind bars, shared his testimony.  His story was devastating, much, much worse than most of ours...

But God touched this man, and he will never be the same again... 

This authentic testimony is one of the ways God’s AROMA spreads... 


Each of our personal testimonies reveals the AROMA of Christ and his work in the world today.

That is the difference between where we are, and where He IS... 


it is our authentic testimony to His truth.

***  You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.  John 8:43-45

***  Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.  John 3:21

*** If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 1 John 1:7-9

***  But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. John 16:12-14 

*** And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, Ephesians 1:12-14 

*** For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.  2 Corinthians 2:14-16 

***  Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.  Psalm 25:4-6 

***  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  John 4:22-24 

***  You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.  Nehemiah 9:5-7