Of Fruit and Flowers

Before we left for our trip, I emptied the water from my vase of roses, leaving the flowers there. When we returned a week later, I found the roses had dried, but their heads were lolling in a permanent droop over the bent stems. I put a ribbon around them and laid them on a bookshelf. Lying there, the full faces of the roses are exposed to view, beautifully preserved almost in their original state. Actually, they look even better, because when I left they were beginning to fall open, flattening out unattractively. Now they are almost a tight bloom again, thanks to gravity and the shrinkage of drying. Though I can’t smell, I’m sure there is still a faint fragrance about them.

We heard a series of messages from some special speakers at our son’s church in Houston. One was based on II Corinthians 2:14-16, dealing with the fragrance of Christ. The Word says, “Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savor of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the savor of death unto death; and to the other the savor of life unto life.”

A comparison was made to Zacharias, the priest and father of John the Baptist, who went into the temple to burn incense. When he came out, he doubtless carried the fragrance of the incense in his clothes, and there was no doubt to anyone where he had been. We are to carry the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ wherever we go.

Another message dealt with the fruit of the Spirit, which has nine attributes: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance (Galatians 5:22-23). Part of what the speaker said, emphasizing love, is that joy is love rejoicing, peace is love reposing, faithfulness is love believing, gentleness is love relating, and self control is self, controlled by the Holy Spirit.

Just as the scent of the roses lingers, may the very fragrance of Christ linger on us wherever we go. If we possess and practice the attributes of the fruit of the Spirit, there will be no doubt of that!