Stinky Children Need Baths (Eph. 5; Luke 9)

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When my children were very young, I bathed them at least once every day and don’t recall ever giving Joshua, Caleb, or Rachel any choice in the matter. Being bathed didn’t always please them and neither was it easy with three children whose birthdays are a total of 3.5 years apart for me to find time to get a bath daily, but I managed. I, too, like to be clean. Every day. After a bath, they smelled sweet, fresh, washed clean. Nothing much smells better than a baby or small child who is clean and tucked up under the chin for a snuggle and reading time.

When my children became old enough to bathe themselves, I offered supervision and structure, reminding them when it was bath time each night. If necessary, nagging was applied.


When my children became stinky adolescents who would prefer not to bathe until they felt it absolutely necessary, I got their daddy involved when necessary—bathing was not optional in the Pate household. The pungent aromas of teenagers overpowered their rooms and bathrooms. It was gross!


When my children moved out of our home, they became responsible for bathing themselves, and it was no longer my responsibility but theirs. I no longer had a say, which is as it should be, but I did try to model cleanness for them in the hope that one day they would want it for themselves.


As I read today in Ephesians 5, I pondered the question I challenged the Thursday night ladies’ Bible study group to think on this week: What does it mean for me to deny myself and take up my cross daily—what does that really look like? The first section of the chapter begins with Paul urging us to imitate God, our Father, and to walk in sacrificial love as Christ did. The result is a fragrant aroma instead of stinky children.


I can’t help but see a parallel between my own children and children in the body of Christ. When children are at growing up in the church, they aren’t asked if they wish to be washed in the water of the Word—they are washed in it during Sunday School, VBS, and discipleship training classes. This continues through the youth. People (hopefully) invest themselves in training up these young ones in the Word. But then they get grown and leave home (often for college, sometimes immediately for marriage), and they get stinky. No one is still requiring them to wash in the water of the Word DAILY. 


Life happens. Young adults get busy. If they go to church at all, they may go “religiously” on Sundays or half-heartedly because parents expect them to when home. They often live in the ritual of church rather than the relationship with the Father, and they get stinky. Read Eph 5: immorality, impurity, greed, filthiness, silly talk, coarse jesting, idolatry, deception, unfruitful deeds of darkness, dissipation, drunkness, ungrateful, unthankful, lacking even a healthy fear of God. Those are stinky aromas!


But look at the flip side, the one who is bathing every day in the Word is walking in love, sacrificially; giving thanks (always in all things); walking as children of light in goodness, righteousness, and truth; walking wisely, circumspectly; understanding what the will of the LORD is; living a spirit-filled life; singing joyfully to the LORD from the heart; subjecting one's self to another in the fear of Christ. 


Washed clean. Made pure. Considered righteous. Holy to the LORD. That is a fragrant aroma to him!


When I married my husband, my husband often spoke to me of these verses in Eph. 5:25-27:


Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her; that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless. (NASB)


I can’t say I understood them at the time as I was much like my small children who were content to remain in their stinky, unwashed states at the end of the day (as sometimes I still am). However, thirty years down the road the process of this washing looks very different to me. It looks like love. Jesus loved me enough to die for me even while I was still lost in my sins, stinking to high heaven. My husband has loved me enough to speak truth I didn’t want to hear when I needed to hear it over the years, loving me even when I was stinky to him. And now I long daily to be clean, washed in the water of the Word. Something is missing when I miss my time in the Word. It is akin to not bathing that day! Yuck!


Being washed in the Word matters. Many don’t have anyone in their lives who will wash them with truth when they aren’t able or don’t even want to wash themselves, and I am grateful I do. Many people who claim to follow Christ are content to let their Bibles sit unused and maybe pull them out to go to church on a rare Sunday, but this is not living a full life in Christ! Because of this, I insert myself into others' lives regularly, just as my husband and friends do for me.


There is joy to be found in being clean. There is hope in a future that consists of Christ and an eternity spent with Him in heaven. There is a fragrant aroma wafting up to God when I deny myself DAILY and pick up my cross and follow Him whole-heartedly as we’ve been studying in Luke 9, which the strains of the traditional hymn “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus” echo through for me:


I have decided to follow Jesus;

I have decided to follow Jesus;

I have decided to follow Jesus;

No turning back, no turning back.


Tho' none go with me, I still will follow,

Tho' none go with me I still will follow,

Tho' none go with me, I still will follow;

No turning back, no turning back.


My cross I'll carry, till I see Jesus;

My cross I'll carry till I see Jesus,

My cross I'll carry till I see Jesus;

No turning back, No turning back.


The world behind me, the cross before me,

The world behind me, the cross before me;

The world behind me, the cross before me;

No turning back, no turning back.


Get Jesus. He will wash you completely clean--no one is too dirty! Then bathe daily in the Word and BE a fragrant aroma to God. 








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