“Lord Jesus, we give ourselves to you completely. Take us, remove from us, what is not pleasing in your sight and shape us to be your bridges for Your elect to come into Your salvation. In Your name, we pray. Amen.”
Acts 4:4 However, many of those who heard the word believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand.
As we enter the year 2023, what is God’s message for us?
This is what the Lord has been laying on my heart these past few days. We are not just messengers of Jesus but we are a part of His message to the world. We cannot separate ourselves from being a part of the message of Jesus. There is no putting on or putting off being the fragrance of Christ, in our world.
We are, first and foremost, the fragrance of Christ unto God. God must smell the fragrance of His Son in us. There can be no half-heartedness with Jesus, anymore. We must surrender our entire hearts, soul, mind, and body, to the lordship of Christ. This is done by welcoming and yielding to His Holy Spirit. Let the Holy Spirit burn away every dross and vile matter in us that is not pleasing to God. Let Him burn and birth into us a passion for Jesus.
When we are the fragrance of Christ unto God, the fragrance of Christ will emanate from us into our circles of responsibility and influence. We are accountable for the people and culture, in our circles of influence and responsibility.
There are people there, in those circles, who are the elect of God. It is God, who knows, who is His elect. We consciously, allow the fragrance of Christ in us to impact them. We are mindful that God desires all men to be saved.
I Timothy 2:3-6 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, (4) who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (5) For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, (6) who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time,
God does not want anyone to perish. II Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. To perish is to be cast into the lake of fire for eternity. This is the place prepared for the devil and his angels. Matthew 25:41 “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:
God is just and righteous and all of us stand before Him, guilty. Yet, in His forbearance, He longs for man to repent, return, and be restored to Him.
Romans 2:4-11 Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? (5) But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, (6) who “WILL RENDER TO EACH ONE ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS”: (7) eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honour, and immortality; (8) but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath, (9) tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; (10) but glory, honour, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. (11) For there is no partiality with God.
The Lord remains sovereign. It is He who calls and chooses those who are His elect. Romans 9:18-24 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens. (19) You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” (20) But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” (21) Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honour and another for dishonour? (22) What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, (23) and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, (24) even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
Let us enter this year of 2023, with fear and trembling before God, who is awesome. Let us be open to the direction, enablement, and the empowerment of His Holy Spirit, as He diffuses His fragrance through us, bringing His elect, in our circles of responsibility and influence, to salvation.