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The
Right Scent
What
does a shepherd do with a motherless lamb?
Consider the scenario when a ewe dies while giving
birth to a lamb.
The newly-born lamb desperately needs the care
of its mother, but that is not possible.
Why not give the lamb to a ewe that may have
lost a lamb about the same time?
Among those who care for sheep, it’s common
knowledge that you can’t bond an orphaned lamb with
just any ewe. Every
lamb has its own unique scent.
A ewe recognizes her own lamb by its scent.
If a lamb doesn’t have the right scent, the
ewe will reject it.
So,
what can be done with a hungry orphaned lamb?
This
is what shepherds have done through the years… They
will take the skin of a lamb that has died in birth
and wrap it around the motherless lamb like a sweater.
Then the “clothed” lamb is presented to the
mother of the dead lamb.
The ewe sniffs the lamb, recognizes the scent,
and accepts the lamb as her own.
Due
to our sin, you and I don’t have the right
“scent” to be accepted by the holy God.
His eyes are too pure even to look on evil
(Habakkuk 1:13).
Our sin separates us from God (Isaiah 59:1-2)
and we are left as needy orphans destined to die.
But
God loves us so much that He has provided a remedy to
our predicament:
He gave His Son – the Lamb of God (John 1:29)
– to die on the cross for our sins (Ephesians 1:7).
Jesus, the sinless Lamb whose heart and life
are a sweet savor to God (cf. Matthew 3:17), took upon
Himself the sins of the world, paying the price for
them.
Now
you and I can be accepted by God THROUGH Jesus
(John 14:6). “For
God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we
might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2
Corinthians 5:21).
To be accepted by God as one of His sheep, we
must be “clothed with Christ.”
To
be "clothed with Christ", we must:
believe
in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), turn from our sins in repentance
(Acts 17:30-31), confess
Him before men (Romans 10:9-10), and be baptized
(immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of our
sins. When
we, in penitent faith, are immersed into Christ, we
are clothed with Christ:
“You are all sons of God through faith
in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into
Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians
3:26-27).
When
we submit our lives in trusting obedience to the
Shepherd, He clothes us in the unspotted wool of His
own dear Lamb.
Now we have a different “scent,” the right
scent, and God accepts us as His own.
We are no longer orphans with no future. We are the people of His pasture with a place at God’s
side, both now and forever (cf. Psalm 95:6-7).
Have
YOU been clothed with
Christ?
David
A. Sargent, Minister
Church
of Christ at Creekwood
1901
Schillinger Rd. S.
Mobile, Alabama 36695
* Some of
the information above has been gleaned from Michael Wilke
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