The Bible says that God always leads us in in Christ’s triumphal procession and that we cannot refrain from thanking Him for that (:14).
Have you - who are reading this - ever been able to thank God that He always leads you in Christ’s triumphal procession? Now don't say, ‘I am not Paul’. No, of course you are not. But Paul was not speaking of himself but of us. And Paul knew very well that nobody is able to do this in his own strength. Therefore he thanked God for the triumph he repeatedly experienced in Christ.
No, this is not a clever mental trick that - even if we sin - God sees us ‘in Christ’ and does not hold us accountable for our sins. People who again and again relapse into their deep-seated selfishness, can never be a pleasing aroma of Christ in this world. For one moment they would seek His honor, and the next their own honor.
But who then will prove reliable to be always the aroma of Christ in this world? Not those who think highly of themselves, those who claim they have achieved something in God’s Kingdom. No, God specifically makes weak and fragile people capable for this task by freeing them - through all kinds of trials - from everything that might focus their attention on themselves. Anybody who has grown to love Jesus so much that he no longer seeks his own profit, will then be commended by God as His servant.
Such people desire to speak on God’s authority and never again on their own, very much aware that God Himself always inspires them, teaches them and guides them, backing them in all they say and do.