err freshener?: a candid discourse on the crap we often call "Christian"

Q: What is worse than the smell of someone else’s poop?
A: The smell of someone else’s poop mixed with spray-can potpourri.

Have you ever walked into a restroom that is saturated with the intoxicating fumes of “clean linen” mingled with crap? It is particularly difficult when the intensity of the clean linen is dense enough to actually inhale. It’s almost as if I am supposed to respond by saying, “Ok. I get it. You didn’t poop in here.”

Does that make the smell of crap better?
Not really.

It merely creates a new horrible smell.
Now it doesn’t smell like crap anymore.
It smells like carnation covered crap.

No one is fooled though.

If you replace only one chocolate chip with a rabbit turd and bake a batch of cookies, I will not be hedging my bets on getting one of the non-contaminated cookies.

Nope.

I would rather have no cookies than the possibility of eating a crap cake.

 

Isaiah 64:6

⁶ All of us have become like something unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like a polluted ^[menstrual] garment;
all of us wither like a leaf,
and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.

 

Philippians 3:8

⁸ More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of Him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them filth, so that I may gain Christ

We go to so much effort to cover up that of which we are ashamed. The only reason I fill up the restroom with a cloud that rivals a fumigation tent is to make less offensive that which I know clearly is. It is not that I imagine someone walking in will actually be convinced that nothing offensive went on in here. It is not an ignorance of offense, but rather a heightened awareness of it. Clean-line spray is like crap highlighter. Spraying cover-up is not pretending your crap doesn’t stink, it is a confession of knowing it beyond dispute. 

That is the point: We know.
We know it is wrong.
That is why we lie.
That is why we pretend.
That is why we cover-up.

Your sin smells bad.
But that is not what the verses above reveal.
We already know that.
We know our sin is stinky.

The verses above reveal that our goodness is also stinky before God. We will admit that no one is perfect readily enough, but that is not an admission or confession of guilt, but rather an intention to excuse it. We agree that we fall short in many and various ways; but we still believe we are good people going to a better place because we are better than most.

FYI – statistically everybody cannot be better than most.

At the very least, you are likely somewhere in the middle and just as many people are better than you than are worse. That said, all people less than 100% are under-qualified to enter Heaven without an Escort.

We know that our sin creates a debt that needs to be paid off. We usually try to do this ourselves. We are surprised to find out that God considers even our very best to be only that which accuses us before Him as well. Even our righteous deeds and best efforts store up wrath for ourselves.

Your best is potpourri covered garbage and potpourri scented garbage is still garbage.
Potpourri does not make garbage smell better.
Garbage makes potpourri smell worse.

There is no Christ-scented potpourri.
There is Christ and there is potpourri.
You either smell like Jesus or your smell like… well, crap!

2 Corinthians 2:14-15

¹⁴ But thanks be to God, who always puts us on display in Christ and through us spreads the aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place.¹⁵ For to God we are the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.