I’ve only done it once in my life.  I was minding my own business having a cup of coffee when a woman sat down at the next table in an outdoor café.  Her perfume was outstanding!  After about 30 minutes of sitting downwind I ventured over and asked for the name of the fragrance she was wearing.  Later I went to the store and purchased a bottle for my wife and gave it to her on our anniversary.  She has worn the same perfume ever since, and I never get tired of it.

Some fragrances strike up a symphony in your nose, some play a concert in your soul.  The fragrance of life in God’s Kingdom is that total experience kind of aroma.  It submerges the entire being in the essence of home.

Churches can smell, taste, and feel right, or wrong.  First impressions can attract or repel.  Most people make their decision about whether or not to return to a church based on intangibles.  The way the group impacts their physical and spiritual senses has a lot to do with it.

That is why the fruit of the Spirit is so important.  It is the sweet savor of eternal life and love.  It is unmistakable.  Once experienced in a group it is never forgotten.  It can be tasted on an individual basis but it is much more impressive when a whole church is producing such a harvest of relational righteousness.  It fits.  It settles well.  It is what we were created to enjoy.

We often measure church health by doctrine, size, and compatibility of our needs with the ministry programs.  Also important is the worship style, and the personality of the leader.  It would be far better to check out the fruit of the Spirit.  If love and its attendant virtues aren’t there, nothing else matters.  Without the beauty of the fruit of the Spirit a church is merely an organization.  With it, God’s Kingdom comes and the community of heaven visits earth.