For most Americans, a shower is a daily necessity. My wife and I have been married for 20 years and I know she has showered at least once, every single day we’ve been married. I don’t share her singular passion for cleanliness, so about once a month I go without a shower on a Saturday. These occasions are usually when I have nothing to do, nowhere to go and nobody to see. This doesn’t seem to bother anybody in my family because, quite honestly, it’s hard to get really smelly in just one day if you’re just hanging around the house.
Not long ago, I was enjoying a shower-free Saturday and working a little harder than usual in the basement. Just before dinner, I was sitting at the computer and I noticed an odd aroma. At first, I didn’t know what it was, and then it dawned on me that it was me. I immediately shuffled off to the shower before I spoiled my family’s dinner.
Until you smell yourself, you don’t even suspect that you might need a shower. The problem is, other people can smell you long before you can smell yourself. For some reason, we’re somewhat immune to our own scent and we don’t even suspect that we might reek until we’ve been really stinky for a really, really long time.
It is no different with our sin. We are somewhat immune to noticing the stench of our own sins until we’ve allowed them to pollute our lives almost completely. Before I was saved, I was great at comparing myself to other stinking, sinning people and convincing myself that I didn’t smell as bad as they did. Some people, some nominal Christians, go through their entire lives this way. They’re kind of like the ‘deadheads’ of old, thinking a little patchouli oil (good works) will cover up the smell.
God knew that I was rotten to the core and His Holy Spirit convicted me of my sins and let me smell myself for the first time. He put it into my mind (and my nostrils) that I definitely needed a shower. He did that through a preacher who could smell me and was bold enough to tell me that I stank. God also made it clear that no water on earth could wash me as clean as I needed to be. Only the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God could wash my soul spotlessly clean. Revelation 7:14
Though I still enjoy a shower-free Saturday once in a while and like to think I don’t smell *that* bad, I am much more attuned to the smell of my own sins. Praise God that He rescued me from the patchouli-tainted works of my “carnal Christian” life and led me to trust completely in His Amazing Grace.
