The Body of Christ Is Only for Christ, the Anointed

The Aroma of Life vs the Stench of Death

1/1/2020

When trying to help someone, how do we get to the root of problems and the motives of the heart and the “why’s” without increasing “the radio” for them by asking and probing deeper and deeper? Because there will be some people who just have major instability because they have two desires.

Yeah. When you question someone who is pretty shrewd, they can answer the details in a way that throws you off the scent for a little while. “Well, it’s not really that, it’s this.” You can’t prove otherwise, so you’re stuck. Then you’ve got to wait ‘til the next time something happens, and then you do it again and it just escalates.

What I said to somebody a couple of days ago in a similar conversation was… Instead of saying, “Here’s something that you are doing that seems wrong or seems shallow,” or “Why are you doing that?” … there’s another way, which is to say, “Look, I don’t know what your problem is, but I don’t sense the aroma of Christ. I sense the stench of death. Now I could be wrong, and I’m more than happy to talk about it with 2 or 3 others who know you.”

And I suggest that kind of tongue-in-cheek. Ask them to decide who the 2 or 3 others are, and then you know a whole lot more because they will only choose the people who are blind as a bat, if they choose them.

So just feel them out and say, “Who would you invite if it were you, to talk about all of this?” And if they are all super weak people or people just as questionable, you already have your answer because that’s who people gravitate to. They don’t want light, so they are going to gravitate towards people who don’t bring any light. That’s a little tongue-in-cheek. But you can say, “the aroma of life, the stench of death, something is wrong with you. If something is wrong with you, what is it? You tell me, what is it? Why does it seem like you don’t really seem to have a relationship with God? You don’t really seem to have Jesus living inside. I don’t sense the Life of Christ blossoming in you where revelation and truth and love and sensitivity, self-control, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness. Where are these things? These are the fruits of the Spirit of God. I don’t see those things. I just see a person. And, God bless you, you are a nice person, but I don’t care.

The Body of Christ is for Christ, it’s only for Christ. Anointing, it’s only for anointing, without anointing you are not welcome here. You can go join some other club somewhere else, take up hobbies, you can take in stray dogs…Make yourself busy. Have a great life, but the body of Christ is only for Christ. The body of the Anointed One is only for the anointed, and I don’t sense that in you. Now maybe I’m wrong. I’m happy to bring two or three others and talk about it again. But if I’m right, you’ve got some serious business to do before God, and it’s gone on too long this way.

“Though none go with me, still I will follow.” You can flip that song around and say, “If I have to get rid of all of you guys because you’re all faking it, then I will. Because I would rather walk alone than fake it. I will not be part of a club that is not anointed. I didn’t give up everything… I did not give away my life, all my rights… I didn’t give away everything so that I could hang around with people who are as dull as a butter knife that just went through the lawnmower. I am not that person. I won’t do it. I can read my Bible, and that’s not what’s there. You can’t make me fake it. I won’t be part of this club. So, either I’ll leave, and you guys can have your stupid club, or you need to find out what’s wrong with you because I won’t keep walking with you and pretend when I don’t see anything that looks like God living in you.

The prophecies in Ezekiel and Isaiah and elsewhere were about God, the Creator God, coming to live inside somebody. Show me that. Christ in you, withheld for ages and generations, the mystery, Christ, the anointed One in you. Where is that? I don’t see it. ‘The aroma of Christ, the stench of death.’ I don’t smell the aroma of Christ. So, prove me wrong by bringing 2 or 3 people who do know God. Maybe it’s my problem. Maybe my antenna is mis-calibrated, so I’m just not seeing what I’m supposed to see. Maybe it’s my fault, my flesh, maybe I’m jealous, maybe I have my own sin, but I can’t find the frequency of Jesus in you as hard as I try. You’re a nice person, you’d give the shirt off your back, but I don’t care. That’s not what Jesus is made out of—‘niceness.’ So forget ‘niceness.’”

Can you see that by saying something like that, you don’t have to prove anything, right? You’re not nitpicking. You’re not drilling down. Where’s the drilling down in that? People can always skirt out of the drilling down.

The problem is that people are very good at changing externals. So if you just touch an external thing, then you have to start over once they “adjust” because you have to pick another thing. And I still remember someone a long time ago who had a lot of stuff that they needed to settle with Jesus and someone said, “Don’t they just need to dig deeper and find out.” And you said, “No, the whole energy is totally pornography. The energy is just flat-out wrong.”

Yes, this isn’t group therapy.

I don’t want to do that.

Let’s shift the question from “drilling down” and all the psychoanalyzing and the why’s and the what’s… and let’s just go to this one idea: Anointed, not anointed. Christ in you, or not anointed. The aroma of life, or the stench of death. We’ll just go right there. Do you know who will never ask another person, “Why do I not sense the aroma of Christ in you?” Do you know who will never ask that question of another person? The person who doesn’t have it because they don’t know there is such a thing. They don’t even believe in it. It’s not even in their wildest imagination to ask somebody that because they don’t even believe there is such a thing. They think everybody is just like them. If you don’t have it, you don’t believe anyone else does either, right? So, I would strongly suggest that that be how you ask people things. Talk about the root issue of Christ in you or not Christ in you.

So, your questions need to not be so “detailed.” Ask questions that allow for a different kind of probing…. Say, “I don’t smell life in you. I smell the wrong tree. I smell the Tree of Knowledge, I don’t smell the Tree of Life. I don’t sense the aroma of Christ.” 


You see, how does someone answer that? The only thing they can do is say, “I don’t know why not. I need to find out why not. I’m sorry. I will find out why.” If you are trying to tell them why or make them drill down why, it’s going to be like putting your finger on mercury. It’s going to keep squirting out from under. If they want to hide they can. If you’re dealing with them on that level, you’ll either send them into a spiral of self-hatred and doubt and fear in the wrong tree or start escaping by justifications and yeah-buts, and “what about them? This person is worse than I am, why aren’t you on their back?”

Well, it’s never been about that. King David was worse than almost everybody and yet he was a man after God’s own heart. So, you better figure out what the real rules are here. Why was David a man after God’s own heart even though he was worse than just about everybody? If you can answer that question, then we’re on the right topic here.

And if you ask someone that isn’t willing to, “Oh, you’re right,” you just confuse them just even more and it’s like it makes it clearer and clearer that they’re not going to function on that level.

Yeah, and so if they can’t answer that question and they can’t function on that level, say, “Well, let’s just take a little break, why don’t you go do something else.” It can even be painted in a very positive way. I think the worst thing that could ever happen, if somebody is sincere and they are trying, then they’ll learn a lot about themselves and about serving God. They will grow up a bunch. Or if they weren’t for real, then they’ll either blend in or just die on their sofa on Sunday morning. So there’s really no loss.

Think about it. You could send me to Siberia which has probably nothing but Russian Orthodox, and I think I’m going to make it. Because no one can stop me from making it.

If someone is for real, nothing can stop them. If they’re not for real, then good riddance, let them disappear. “God bless you.” We’re not going to be mean to them, but we sure don’t have to let them be part of our daily life and just hang around and dilute and diminish the body of Christ. Leaven leavens the whole batch, everybody gets hurt. The next generation gets destroyed by letting unAnointed people stay around indefinitely. Remember the young man who said, “If ____ is OK, then I’m leaving.” I mean he’s only in his twenties, but he's saying, “If that guy is considered OK and you’re OK with him being around here, then you’ve been lying to me my whole life and I have to leave.” And he was serious about it.

I will follow, though none go with me.

Right, outstanding. The next generation? The contradictions and the hypocrisy are not lost on them. They’ll either be hypocrites themselves, or they’ll be angry about the hypocrisy and they won’t trust you anymore. And that’s how it should be. So, we owe it to the next generation and the one after to be consistent about looking for Jesus, not looking for behavior or biology. Biology and behavior do not equate to, “you’re allowed to be around.” This is not a country club where you pay your dues and everything’s OK. This is about Jesus, and it's only about Jesus. Anything less is just garbage, and they need to just go attend something as fast as possible. I hope it turns out well for them. I honestly do.

It's disfellowship not because it’s excommunication. This is covered in the Revolution Dancing book. It’s not ex-communication. That’s a legal statement the Roman Catholics make--that you’re not allowed to take communion anymore, you’re not allowed to be in confessional anymore, you’re not allowed to attend the mass anymore, not allowed to light any more candles.

But what we’re talking about is: I will not rub shoulders with you and pretend the Spirit of Christ is on you, when it clearly isn’t. I will not do that, I won’t pretend. Go do something else. I wish the best for you. I hope someday to meet you down the road. I hope I was always wrong, and that you grow from this. But if I’m right, I’m really glad to be rid of you other than saying, “hi,” every once in a while. It’s just that important.

You’ve got to build this way. We can’t be feeling sorry for people because they’ve been around so long, or because they might fall apart. You’ve heard me say this, too, and I don’t say this lightly or just in some cheeky way, but honestly, if somebody whom we have to ask to leave does something destructive (perish the thought, I hate the idea, it breaks my heart), but we don’t have a choice. It’s not like, “Well, they might do something destructive, so we’ll pretend they have Jesus living inside of them.” You can’t do that. You can try to protect them as best you can--send them over groceries, buy them a gym membership, and go with them the first five times to some religious facility and let them get comfortable before you disappear. There are a lot of things you can do, but what you can’t do is pretend that it’s Jesus if you don’t have the sense that it really is.

That’s totally what you were saying about the Tree of Life vs. the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If we treat them like, “What’s that, what’s that, what’s that.” That’s the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and we’re encouraging it. And we’re teaching them how to eat there. They are going to learn how to eat from the “good” tree because we’re pointing out the “bad” tree. And that’s their language. We’ve seen it time and time again, the bitterness and the nitpicking and all that stuff. They never had the Life within to say to someone else, “There’s no Life here!” All they would say is “do this, do that.” They master their “thing,” and then they turn around and pick on David who was a man after God’s own heart all the while they don’t have the Aroma of Life.

A while ago we talked about needing to get to the “why’s” with people. Why do people do what they do. But that doesn’t mean we need to ask them, “Why are you doing this? What are you doing that?”

No, that’s for them to get to the “whys.” “You need to figure out why this choice you are making is more important to you than Jesus.” They have their “whys.”

What is the obstacle to the Aroma of Christ? The obstacles to the Aroma of Christ are the acts of the sinful nature. You need to know why these acts of the sinful nature are more attractive to you than Jesus, because you have the stench of death on you, not the aroma of Christ. There’s a reason that’s true. You are not predestined to this. You’ve made choices. You need to figure out what’s at the root of your insecurities, your fears, your bitterness, your pride, your unforgiveness. It’s not for us to psychoanalyze it, but the Living and Active Word of God lays bare the motives of the heart. You force them to go look at Jesus and behold Him. Then they’re going to have to figure out what’s standing in the way. That’s never going to be for us to say, “You have this standing in the way, so you take care of this, and then you’ll be OK.” We don’t know that. How could we know that?

No, I don’t think people have done that… but again, maybe too much pointing out the external, “Why did you do this? Why did you do that?”

It needs to be, “You need to ask yourself why you did that.” As opposed to them answering your why question and then a “Now you’re OK.”

Instead, it should be, “You need to get to the motives of why you’ve built this life for yourself with your sleeping ‘til noon, your love of possessions, your gluttonous eating, your abundant time in the mirror, or your lying or exaggerating or being angry or bitter or prideful so easily. You need to ask yourself why those things are so important to you--why it’s more important than Jesus. I don’t sense the aroma of Christ. If you fixed all 12 of those things, I still wouldn’t sense the aroma of Christ because fixing those externals will not solve your real problem. The real problem is in your heart. You need to find out why you’re so fearful, you’re so prideful, you’re so angry, you’re so bitter, you’re so vain, you’re so jealous, you’re so gluttonous...

And sure some people’s “issues” probably have something to do with their upbringing or abuses or whatever. It doesn’t matter. We’ve all had our bad experiences in life, and you have to know when to lay those things down. If you want Jesus, you’ve got to empty your hands. So, “You go figure out what’s in your hands. I can see that you are a bitter person. You need to find out why so that you can find Jesus because nobody can do this for you.”

The “why” is still important, but that’s between them and God, not between them and us. Otherwise, they’ll fix it, and we’ll still be having the same exact problem--death, stench.

•  Overcoming the Gravitational Pull of This Present Age