section 2:   line 15-16, page 374 of the message:  Ever here the expression “something smells fishy.”  When I was a kid, my grandfather use to say when something just did not seem right, but he could not put his finger on it.  He would say, “Something doesn’t smell right” when something was a miss.  Usually, his ability to “sniff out” the problem was dead on.  In today’s reading, we are taught that for those of us who are in Christ, we have a sweat smell, but for those outside of Christ “smell bad.”  You see, we are able to tell the difference when we are open to knowing the difference. It’s deeper then a bud who is wearing a bad cologne, it is a smell that comes from the soul.

When we are with God and walking in his path, we understand life differently.  We see different, we think different, we smell different, we are different.  When we are different, those who act like those outside a relationship with God, it hurts us.  Did you ever notice that after you accepted Jesus into your life when someone uses a “cuss” word is just grades against your spine – the same is true about those

04012002 - section 5:   line 16-17, page 378 of the message.

the other day my wife brought home some oranges (punk monkey share with us a different view in connection with oranges) and they looked great. they were huge, about the size of a small grapefruit, and they were bright orange - they looked wonderful.  so, my daughter and i grabbed one each and rip into the bright orange flush - watering at the mouth at the expectations of a wonderful tasting orange.

as we started to rip into the flush, we found that the skin was about a half inch thick.  as we finished unwrapping the orange we found that they were no bigger then a hardball - the size of any good orange.  when i split it open and took a bite of a slice, i found that it tasted like water - it had no orange taste at all.  on the other hand, my daughters was sweet and filled with flavor.  

i was amazed.  they both looked great, and yet one was not good at all.  but the only way to tell was to get past the skin and get to the meat.  that is what paul is telling us in this reading.  we need to look past the outside of people and see them from the inside.  paul even mentions that he has had the same problem when it came to jesus - he was the outside, then he got to know the inside and realized who jesus truly was.