The Church may be compared to a rose for its beautiful colours, sweet aroma and for its delight in sunny places where it thrives best and is most fragrant.

Roses would have to be one of the most favourite flowers in most parts of the world.  Aussies say it is coming up roses, which means favourable circumstances of success with ease.  The British call pretty young woman a rose bud.  Different coloured roses have been and are still used as symbols in love and war.  Jesus Christ Himself is called the Rose of Sharon and the list goes on.

When my husband was blessed with a short visitation to heaven, the fragrance of the roses were so intense that since, he has developed a love for roses, unable to find the same scent he experienced.

When one is a gardener, you are able to live in a beautiful world which you can create by positioning plants, flower etc.  Just to look upon flowers raises faith within my heart.  The delicate formation of a flower is truly a statement of God’s creative power, maybe it was a Christian who started the saying ‘stop and smell the roses for awhile’.

I have started to think of the ladies here at River Ministries as Koorie Roses because of three things that I see God developing in their lives.  Favoured, Fragrant and Fashioned for Him.  We, the saints certainly are favoured by the Lord.  Isaiah 62:4 says that we are His delight.  God has great delight in us, verse 5 says He rejoices over us.

Psalm 37 speaks of what God wants to do for His people.  Favoured means to show marvellous made wonderful.  One dictionary defines favoured as over generous, act of kindness beyond what is due or usual, preferential treatment.  Having a fragrance is to have a sweet, pleasant smell.  Our aroma should be affecting a lost and dying world.  Our presence should also be touching our brothers and sisters.

Our aroma is His (Jesus’) graces and righteousness flowing from our lives.  In 2 Corinthians 3:2 we read that our lives are like a letter that is being read by all.  When we share the promises of God with one another and the unsaved.  The aroma is what we say and how we act should send forth the aroma of God.  As Christians, I feel we fail this sometimes but the aroma on a rose bud is not such a strong smell as that of an open bloom.

As we mature, we see the full implication of all that we do.  I love Psalm 145:2, “…every day I will bless Your Name forever and ever’.  The Psalm goes on in verse 4 and says ‘…one generation shall praise his work to another and shall declare His mighty acts’.  Verse 10 says ‘…all your works shall give thanks to you Oh Lord’.  Verse 11, ‘… they shall speak of the glory of the kingdom and talk of your power’.   This Psalm says to us we choose how we represent our Lord.  May the aroma we put off truly be borne of His Kingdom.

We are indeed fashioned for Him.  In Psalm 139:16 reads ‘…your eyes see our unformed substance and in your book each day ordained to us’..  In the KJV of the Bible it uses the word ‘fashioned’ instead of ordained.  A lot of Christians are trying to change a lot of things about themselves.  This is something that is being and has been done with roses to make many different varieties and colours, but when we read through Psalm 139:3 it says ‘…You scrutinise my path and my lying down and are intimately acquainted with all my ways’, and in verse 14 it goes onto say, ‘…to give thanks for I am fearfully and wonderfully made’.  Wonderful are His works.  A rose delights in sunny places where it thrives best and is most fragrant.  We will understand our purposes when we try to position ourselves by staying close to the Son (sun) we will thrive and put off the best fragrance.

When I take communion I ponder on everything Christ has done for me on that cross, the fullness of salvation and what it means, but I also think about the life of Christ.  He is the only one who does truly give us an example measure ourselves by.

The thorns on a rose are like a protection to the beautiful blooms.  One thinks twice before grabbing any part of a rose bush.  In the same way, we have the Holy Spirit, the inner witness to lead and guide us in all truth according to John 14:26.

Yes, we the saints are favoured by the Lord and a fragrance to a lost and dying world as well as one another.  To be truly extravagant in favour and fragrance, we must allow or Lord to fashion us in His plans and purposes.  Someone once said, “We can complain because the rose bush has thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses”.  How true that in this day and age, a natural life of thorns, we can be and are God’s Roses.

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