Five Minute Devotionals to Give - Candles
Hold this up and ask people "what is this used for?" The men will no doubt focus on giving off light. The women will focus on fragrance or romance. I commented that I would have never known that candles were for anything other than giving off light - in fact in science, light strength is measured in terms of candle power. However, we are going to say the women are right today and this candle, since it is scented, is for giving off a nice aroma. When you cooked, garlic, or onions, or fish these are helpful. However, the best treatment is a fan, vacuum, or opening the windows and removing the smell. The candle just masks it and quite often you will end up with strawberry smelling fish odor. At our house at the edge of the woods, we have mice problems. Several times a year we will have mice die in our ventilation system and our house stinks for a month. We light candles which mask the smell but when we blow them out, the smell is still there. If we could just find the dead mouse and remove it, the smell would be gone but, alas, in the vents it is inaccessible.
The Bible says that we have a sin problem - "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" Rom.3:23. We could probably say that sin makes us stink so bad that God can't be in our presence. Since we are created FOR God's presence, this presents a real problem. What we try to do is light a spiritual candle and try to trick God into thinking that we smell good. We do this by going to church, giving money, saying prayers, being kind, etc. but all this does is add odor to our stench! The Bible says that all our good deeds are like filthy rags or fuel for the fire. We are incapable of taking sin away. We are like men who have lost their way while driving who step on the gas and drive faster but in the end are getting further from their destination. Who can free us from this sin?
Jesus can! "He who knew no sin became sin for us" 2 Cor. 5:21 "He bore our sins on His body on the tree" 1Pet. 2:24. He removed our sins as far as the East is from the West. Jesus takes away our sins if by faith we admit we are sinful and can't remove them ourselves and humble ourselves before God and say" please remove my sins through your Son's death on my behalf". Then you know what happens... He puts the candle inside us after removing the stink so no longer do we carry around the odor of sin but rather the aroma and light of Christ in our lives! And speaking of romance - we become the bride of Christ!
So next time you light a candle, remember the light of the world, the forgiver of sins, the abundant life giver, and our Bridegroom, Jesus Christ!
