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Daily Devotional July 28, 2022

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs,
which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all
uncleanness” (Matthew 23:27, ESV).

     “It’s happening,” according to the Cincinnati Zoo. “Morticia the corpse flower is in the process of blooming.” The corpse flower is one of the world’s rarest and most unusual plant. It takes seven to ten years for a corpse flower to bloom, and when it does, it blooms for only one day.

     Yet while the blossom is beautiful to behold, its scent gives rise to the name. The flower smells like that of a rotting corpse. The scent is enough to sicken one’s stomach.

     Jesus offers a warning to those of us who maintain a lovely public persona, but inwardly our spirits bely an ugliness that is offensive to God. I characterize these dissimilar domains as “spiritual dissonance.” Spiritual dissonance is a result of divided loyalties. On the one hand, maintaining a virtuous appearance is an attempt to please the people around us. However, the vices we disguise behind our public pretenses bely a reluctance to please God.

     The Apostle Paul once claimed that those of us who follow Jesus are to be “the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved” (2 Corinthians 2:15). I haven’t a clue whether Paul knew anything of the corpse flower. However, he did understand the positive influence one can have on the people around us when Jesus is the Lord our lives both publicly and privately.

     At any rate, my intent is to pay the corpse flower a visit this weekend. The experience may turn my stomach but should serve as a good reminder that outward appearances can be deceiving. What truly matters to God is what lives or rots within. Either way, the aroma will be telling.