Smell goods

Our Daily Bread
Each family has some funny sayings that hang around for decades.  My family used to call after shave or cologne "smell goods".  You got some "smell goods' on! Smells nice!  It didn't make any difference if it came out of a small, expensive bottle or the quart plastic bottle!

Smells affect us in many different ways.  Good smells remind us of the baking our grandmothers used to do or the smell of the house after making a pot roast in the crock pot all day.  MmmMmmmmm!  If you are like me, your mouth may be watering right now just thinking about those smells!  Smells can also turn us off, like the smell of burnt popcorn at work or the smell of rotten garbage.  So what kind of fragrance do we exude when we live for Christ?  Is it a sweet smelling fragrance that draws others to Christ or burnt popcorn that grosses people out?!?

Lord, please help us live a life that exudes the sweet smell of Christ's love!

Teaching Tuesday
James
We studied the book of James this week.  Generally thought to be written by a brother of Jesus, the author seems to have written this as a general letter to the church.  Most of the New Testament letters were written to a specific group of people like the Ephesians, Collosians , etc.

IMHO, the overriding theme in James is the "your faith manifests itself in works".  Much discussion was had over the years if James was contradicting Paul's statements about "we are justified by faith".  Actually there is no conflict.  The two reinforce each other.  Faith without works is dead.  Works without faith is dead.  Having faith compels us to do the works that God has for us.  Yes, there will always be debates about this.  Can we all just focus on loving God and loving others?  ;-)

James is a short book.  Read it over.  Check out some of the Bible commentaries available online.  Very interesting stuff.

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The Bible is a like a "tweet" about God.  We don't have enough characters available to tell of His glory! - Fitzpatrick