This morning I climbed out of bed and headed down to our local grocer for fresh bag of coffee beans. The roasting date was only 5 days ago and I know, as soon as I open this freshly roasted bag of beans, the aroma will remind me of why I stretch my coffee budget to include locally roasted fresh beans.

I was not disappointed. I texted my wife:

"Got my new fresh beans! Ground them...pour water...and oh! The aroma!!!! It's heaven!!"

Because she was out of the house, she didn't experience the exhilaration and joy in the smell that swept the kitchen and main floor of our home. The aroma penetrates even our bedrooms upstairs. Everyone in the house can take in the smell of freshly roasted coffee in the slow drip.

As I poured that coffee (see picture above), now as I sip that same cup, I am reminded of that angelic call back to the church in Ephesus.

Laodicea was a church that worked - they did the things...and in the process of going about the business of doing, they lost their FIRST LOVE. They abandoned what was rich and wondrous in relationship with God.

How often do we breeze past the wonder and awe of the love and goodness of God like we busily miss the aroma of freshly brewed coffee?

It’s not that it’s hard to do. To miss, lose track of, then completely abandon the very thing that brings us life. We’ve all been there. The key, as Brother Lawrence said,

“I worshiped him as often as I could, keeping my mind in his holy presence and recalling it back to God as often as I found it had wandered from him."

As I sit and sip, can I encourage with a few other reminds further to Brother Lawrence’s suggestions in his book, The Presence of God, that may help in keeping your aroma fresh and your brewed faith hot?

Live into the Reminder of the Psalmists. They tell us to wait - to be patient - to rest in God.

“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him…”

Why wait? Why the patience?

To slow down into a spiritual step that lends itself to walking, waiting, and experience stillness with the one we love. Fall in love with the One you walk in step with.

Live into a full recognition of your identity in Jesus Christ. When you know who you are, a child of God, an heir to his kingdom, the joy and pleasure of his creation, you recognize we are loved. We recognize our identity drives us to love just as he loves us.

Engage in what it means to be present and living in Him. Jesus clears up for His followers where our living and being comes from. He tells us in John 15;4-5,

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.  I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

Our engagement and living comes out of His life in us. Our abiding in His love and His goodness is very much a reflection of our willingness to not only smell the aroma but BE the aroma.

Like the smell of freshly brewed coffee from beans just roasted, our faith, renewed and brewed in the sanctifying work of the Spirit, is continually made new. A newness that is fresh and bold in a love in the one who saves, the God of creation in the work of Jesus.

Love always, existing in the presence of the one who saves.