As Alisha and I were baking cookies one morning, a terrible odor filled the kitchen. I rushed to investigate, certain the cookies must be burning.
The cookies were fine, but something else in the oven wasn’t. I couldn’t even tell what it was anymore, but whatever it had been, it gave off an awful stench as it melted into the bottom of the oven. The odor lingered a long time. We wanted to get far away from it.
For some reason, the stench brought to mind the sacrifices of the Old Testament era. In those days, when the people humbly offered their sacrifices with penitent hearts, it brought a sweet savor before God’s throne. In this way he knew they were submitting to his ultimate authority in their lives.
God no longer asks me to build a fire and burn a sacrifice. Jesus was the unblemished lamb who was offered once and for all time as a sacrifice for each of us. His submission to God’s plan cost his life.
We’re no longer required to build fires and burn sacrifices. But our lives still bring a “sweet savor” to God. Or they stink.
Today, if we submit to God’s authority, humbly and with a pure and willing heart, we’re usually sacrificing some of our own desires, our selfish human natures, our anger and defensiveness. It can be even harder, mentally, to submit and relinquish those conditions of the heart than it would be to sacrifice a lamb.
The sacrifice God wants from us now is submission—submission to his authority first of all, and then to the authority he places over us. Every single person must submit to God—sometime. “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft” (1 Samuel 15:23).
As I understand it, witchcraft takes sin to a higher degree of seriousness because it is giving Satan the worship that belongs to God alone. And yet here God makes it plain. Rebellion is as witchcraft. Whenever I rebel against authority, I’m rebelling against God. Which is likened to practicing witchcraft.
“Submission is a challenge straight from God to you,” Elizabeth George writes. “It’s a measure of your spiritual maturity. . . . No one can make you submit to anyone else. You must choose to do it yourself. . . . If you aren’t submitting to [authority] now, you aren’t submitting to God.”25
No matter how hard we find it to submit—to God first, then to our church, parents, husband, teachers, or the law—it must be done (except in cases of abuse or when those in authority require us to go against God’s commands). The peace that follows heart-deep submission is God’s way of reminding us that he has a better land waiting for those who do bow to his authority. It doesn’t take much character to be proud or to oppose authority. But submission is the true test of greatness.
The sacrifices God asks us to make can bring a sweet savor before his throne if we do it willingly and with love. If he observes our submission to his authority over us, he will bless it generously.
But a wicked, rebellious, or self-serving life must stink when God observes it. And the person who refuses to submit to God’s authority today will nevertheless submit before God in the next life, when it’s too late to change rebellion. When it says “every knee shall bow” (Romans 14:11), that’s exactly what it means. The proudest and most stubborn knee will eventually bow before God.
We can decide if we’ll do it here and now while he calls us to submit. That’s the sacrifice he wants, the submission he desires, the sweet-smelling aroma.
| Prayer | Reflection |
| Submission to you, God, and to others in authority is not a suggestion but a command. Show me where I need more submission in my life. | Do I think my life smells sweet to God, or does it give off a bad odor? |