Obedience Brings Sweetness

Obedience! The Lord loves to smell its sweet savor ascending on high. We can send it to Him by gladly praising Him when it’s difficult, loving others when they don’t deserve it, and giving when it involves sacrifice. This kind of sweetness doesn’t come cheap. It calls for giving God your whole self and being willing to be broken.

Give yourself to God

The churches of Macedonia gave to Paul with abundant joy and riches of liberality though they lived in deep poverty. They begged Paul to receive their offerings when they could justifiably have been beggars themselves. Here’s the secret of their exuberant giving: they had already laid themselves on God’s altar. “They first gave themselves to the Lord, and then to us by the will of God” (2 Cor. 8:5).

That’s just what God wants from you.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present [lay on the altar]

your bodies a living sacrifice [set afire by burning love for Christ], holy, acceptable unto God,

       which is your reasonable [logical] service. (Rom. 12:1)

Laying yourself on the altar is a rational response to Christ’s sacrifice for you. But it’s not easy, for it means abandonment of your own will and surrender of all you are: your hands, feet, mouth, eyes, and ears; your energy, abilities, and gifts. It is relinquishment of your rights to do as you please. It is your promise to obey.

God will accept this gift of yourself. That’s by grace, for you are not giving Him something fabulous. Here’s what the Bible says about you (and me, and all of us):

There is none that doeth good, no, not one. (Psa. 14:3)

In me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing. (Rom. 7:18)

God wants and receives you just as you are. But He doesn’t leave you as you are. He transforms your naturally-stinky self into a supernaturally-fragrant one.

To make the sweetest scents, perfumers begin with a base that anchors the fragrance and gives it longevity. Two of these are caproic acid, which smells like a barnyard, and butyric acid, which they tell me smells like vomit or smelly feet. (I’ll take their word for it.)

Then there’s ambergris, found in the intestines of sick whales. Sperm whales eat cuttlefish but can’t digest their little beaks. The whales accumulate, then regurgitate, a greasy mass of beak bits, which floats across the ocean and eventually washes ashore. Ambergris is so rare that it is worth up to $40,000 an ounce.

An expert perfumer takes these disgusting, evil-smelling substances and transforms them into expensive perfumes—glorious products made from disgusting raw ingredients. Your God can transform you, too, if you will willingly lay yourself on the altar, then take this next step.

Be willing to be broken

The sugar in the bowl on your table got there through a process of breaking. Sugar cane and sugar beets are cut, chopped, ground, shredded, crushed, heated, clarified, evaporated, concentrated, centrifuged, separated, and crystallized until they conform to the sugar maker’s image of pure sweetness.

Not many things in your refrigerator are sweeter than strawberry jam. How do you make it?

You rise early to drive out to the strawberry fields where you choose the reddest, ripest berries, admiring their beauty. You place the flats gently on the backseat of your air-conditioned car and carefully drive them home. You gently rinse a few and set them out for breakfast. Your family adds sweet cream and declares them the best ever.

Then they’re off, and you get to work. First you drown your strawberries in cold water. Then you pull off their little green wigs, cut and slice them, crush and smash them, stir and boil them, seal them tightly into jars and boil them again.

Can you hear those berries? “I thought you liked me! I thought you said I was beautiful and perfect! Why are you torturing me?” You, the master maker of strawberry jam, know that they will not be useful unless they are broken. Their value (and the joy for your family eating hot biscuits on cold winter mornings) comes from their brokenness.

Suppose one shocked strawberry said, “Not me! I’m getting out of here!” She rolls away when you’re not looking and hides under the toaster. Cleaning up crumbs a week or two later, you find her: shriveled, rotten, and useless. Only good for the garbage can.

No one wants to be like her. If you are willing to be broken, you can be useful to God and nourishing to others, like the broken bread and fish that fed thousands on the hillside, like the broken body of Jesus Christ.

He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. (Isa. 53:5)

Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for       a sweet-smelling savor. (Eph. 5:2)

Lay yourself on His altar. Obey. Allow your sweetness to grow through your troubles. You will become a sweet-smelling savor offering to God, and He will be pleased.