Christianity

A Sweet Aroma

/ insightbyseymour / 1 Comment

young-chefI’ve never thought of myself as a gourmet chef, but when I need to I can prepare a decent meal.  I also know that if you add too much of one ingredient and not enough of another, a recipe can be ruined.

When Peter wrote his second letter, his advice was to never add-a-vice to your life.  Instead he advised people to add the right ingredients to their faith.  He said a compliment of “good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love” is a good recipe for life (I Peter 2:5-11).

I encourage you to devise a plan that can de-vice you of your vices, and I advise you to add-a-vise of strength to your faith.  When you add a cup of good character, and stir in some spiritual understanding, you might begin to smell the aroma of “passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love,” your life will have a sweet aroma that’s pleasing to God.

The Sweaty Truth

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Don't sweat the small stuff

I’m not trying to raise a big stink about your sweat; however, I would like to share the sweaty truth about your perspiration:

  • Men sweat about twice as much as women, and both sweat less with age.
  • Your sweat contains an antibiotic peptide, dermcidin, that hinders the growth of bacteria on your skin.
  • Your feet have about 250,000 sweat glands that can produce up to a half pint of liquid each day.
  • You have two types of sweat glands: The eccrine glands which cover most of your body.  The apocrine glands are the second type, but they are only found in your armpits and genital region.
  • Fortunately your body produces very little apocrine perspiration: It’s the source of your stinky smelly body odor.

By now you may be asking yourself:  “What does Stan find so inspiring about perspiring?” Here’s your answer:  There is a correlation between the interaction of the apocrine sweat and the eccrine sweat and a statement that Jesus made.

  • Your body produces eccrine sweat in much larger quantities. This is good and bad.  It’s good because of its cooling effect; however, it is bad because when it spreads it mingles with the apocrine sweat and spreads it over more of your body; and, the smelly odor goes along for the ride.
  • The apocrine sweat has the same effect as the yeast that Jesus and Paul spoke of in the New Testament.

In Matthew 16, Jesus warned the disciples about the “yeast” of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  Paul taught the same concept when he wrote to the church at Galatia:   “A little yeast leavens the whole lump of dough.”

In the Bible, yeast is symbolic of sin, and Jesus and Paul used this symbolism to warn of the harmful effects of false teaching.  A little bit of it has a tremendous amount of influence.

What effect does the leaven of sin have on your prayer life? In Revelation 8, John likened the prayers of the saints to the sweet smelling incense that was burnt on the golden altar.  When they find their way to the throne of God, do your prayers have the smell of incense or do they have a stench?

The next time Mother Nature cranks the thermometer up to about 100 degrees and your shirt is drenched in sweat, you might want to give some thought to this stinking blog.

Are You Among the 21%?

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21percent_in_red_and_3d_NLI doubt there are many of us that number ourselves among the elite 1% of the world’s wealthiest people.  You may, however, find yourself among those who will be changed by the 21%.

What is the significance of 21%?  If you add it to your situation, it can make a big difference:

  • If you are concerned with your IQ, you probably already know that 50% of IQ scores fall between 90 and 110. If you add 21% to a score of 100 you become a person with very superior intelligence.  If you subtract 21% from 100, you will find yourself among the ranks of those who are classified as having a “borderline deficiency in intelligence.”
  • The average life expectancy is 71. If you add 21%, you would live to be 86.  If you subtracted 21%, you would only live to be 56.
  • If you are 71 inches tall you might be able to play basketball by adding 21% to your height. At 86 inches tall, you would be taller than LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers  If you subtract 21% from 71, you would be about 4 ½ foot tall, but still taller than Eddie Gaedel.  At 3 foot 7 inches, Gaedel was the shortest player to ever play in an MLB game; and, he did it in 1951 when he played for the St. Louis Browns.
  • If you weigh 171 pounds, 21% would be the difference between tipping the scales at 207 pounds and weighing only 135 pounds.

If you are a person who likes to travel on an airplane, 21% means you may have to buy new luggage. The International Air Transport Association has set some new guidelines for carry-on bags.  The IATA is recommending that bags should be 21.5 inches tall by 13.5 inches wide and 7.5 inches deep which is 21% smaller than current standards.

What would happen if you made a 21% change in your life?  How would your life be different if you followed these old guidelines?

Let us drop every extra weight, every sin that clings to us and slackens our pace, and let us run with endurance the long race set before us, and stay focused on Jesus, who designed and perfected our faith (Hebrews 12:1-2).