There is a restaurant on this island that serves the best steaks. It’s not a fancy restaurant. It looks like an old barn. The interior is rustic, the tables worn. But, oh that food!

This restaurant happens to be on the only road going north/south on the island. So any time I want to go anywhere, I pass Bennie’s Red Barn.

When I read, “…an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the Lord,” I get it. I’ve been known to slow down and roll down my window when I pass Bennie’s just to get a whiff of that meat on the grill. That is a pleasing aroma to me.

The Old Testament sacrifices hold so many precious reminders of Jesus, the fire of God’s holiness, the Blood, the Sacrifice of the Spotless Lamb. Jesus’ work on the cross was and is a pleasing aroma to the Father.

Paul says, in 2 Corinthians 2:15:

For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.

I’m wondering if that’s true of me. Am I the pleasing aroma to God that Jesus is?

I have a friend whose husband absolutely demands that she never, ever eat garlic. I’ve never met anyone who can eat a bite of food with garlic in it, then reek of garlic afterward like she can. Not just on her breath. It pours out her pores like a garlic diffuser.

That has me thinking this morning. Is what I am ingesting coming out as a pleasing aroma to God, or not so much? Do I spend time with Him, read and think about His Word, communicate with Him, so that I give God the same pleasure His Son does? Does God want to roll down the windows of heaven to get that whiff of me? Or do the windows go up because I smell like the world?

I want to be a pleasing aroma to God. And I want to be a pleasing aroma to people around me, too. Because I want to spend so much time with my Savior, that they’ll be drawn to to the scent of Him pouring out of me.

I want to smell like Jesus.