Orange Moon Thursday, April 30, 2026 “The Infinite River”

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…

“The Infinite River”     

     

      Our grandson Jackson has long been known for saying things in a way that brings smiles to our faces and warmth to our hearts.  As a little boy, he once told me as he left our house after spending the weekend with us,  "Tell Grannie Frannie she loves us!"

 

    Jackson immediately knew he had crossed up his words, having meant to say, ”Tell Grannie Frannie we love her!"  His face immediately broke into a smile, as did my own.  "I'll tell her, Jackson," I responded, "I'll tell Grannie Frannie that she loves you!" 

 

    As has often been the case with Jackson, his comment was fraught with a wonderful spiritual implication.  Indeed, we do well to frequently affirm to God His love for us in a world filled with constant temptations to forget or neglect His devotion, commitment, and affection.

 

     "We love Him because He first loved us" (I John 4:19).

 

     Our love for God always and forever flows as a tributary of the infinite river of His love for us.  First, He loved us by creating and sustaining our being, providing for us before we even knew Him (Acts 17:25).  He then loved us by convincing and convicting us that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Savior, and that we desperately needed a Redeemer from our sins (John 12:32).  He poured out His love into our hearts when we believed, through the entrance of the indwelling Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5).  Finally, He continues to work in us to motivate and enable reciprocal response to the continual overtures of His lovingkindness.  "It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

 

     Born again believers live for God by living from God.  The Lord Jesus is "before all things," including and especially the fruit of the Spirit produced in us by God's ongoing presence and working (Colossians 1:17).  The dynamic of "we love Him because He first loved us" forms and informs our understanding not only of birth into relationship with God, but also of growth into the likeness of His character, disposition and way.  “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus, so walk ye in Him” (Colossians 2:6).

 

    If it were possible to quantify godliness and find the most devoted believer presently living in the world, we might raise the question, "What does it feel like to love God so much?"  The Christian would instantly recoil from the notion, confessing, ”Oh, I've barely even begun to love Him!  However, I grow more and more overwhelmed by the wonder of how much He loves me, how much He loves you, and how much He loves all!"  Yes, the focus of true godliness sees clearly the infinite river - "God is love" - and the fact that in both time and eternity those who truly love Him become increasingly enraptured and fixed not on their devotion to Him, but on His devotion to all (I John 4:16).

 

    Frances rejoiced in hearing Jackson’s "Tell Grannie Frannie that she loves us!”   Doubtless, the same rejoicing will fill our Heavenly Father's heart as we affirm to Him and each other the wonder of His love that "passeth knowledge" (Ephesians 3:19).  We may tell Him that He loves us with confidence that we are faithfully expressing His Word, the reality of His heart, and the truth that leads us to love Him because He loves us.

 

"And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God."

(II Thessalonians 3:5)

Weekly Memory Verse

    We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.”

 (II Peter 1:19)

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Orange Moon Wednesday, April 28, 2026 "The Freest Gift"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…

“The Freest Gift”     

     

     Three times in the fifth chapter of his epistle to the Romans, the Apostle Paul refers to salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ as a “free gift.”

    “But not as the offense, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many…. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification… Therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of One the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life” (Romans 5:15-16; 18).

     We might view such grace as  a free gift from the Father, the Son, and  the Holy Spirit as the freest gift ever given, purchased by the highest cost ever remitted.  “Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers,  but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (I Peter 1:18-19).  Both in the receiving and maintaining of relationship with God through Christ, His freely given favor of grace eternally avails for all who believe the Gospel - “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us” (Titus 3:5).

   Why a free gift?  The primary answer lies in God Himself - “His way is perfect” (Psalm 18:30).  He can receive or accept nothing that does not accord with the pristine integrity of His character.  We would have to be perfect in our own hearts and hands from the moment of conception and forevermore if our acceptance with God were based on earning or meriting His favor.  This would require our independently achieving perfection by our own determinations and actions.  No fallen son or daughter of Adam has ever accomplished such perfection.  “All have sinned” (Romans 3:23).  Another way must therefore pave our path to God.  The Lord Jesus Christ is Himself this way of grace, whereby He so fulfilled God’s standard that His righteousness not only avails for Himself, but also imputes righteousness to all who receive Him as a free gift.  “I am the way” (John 14:6).

    “Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord” (I Corinthians 1:30-31).

   We either receive redemption and relationship with God as a free gift, or we remain enslaved by the pride of believing we can make or own way and fulfill our own destiny.  “Many wonderful works” boast the proud of their own doings to the One who responds, “I never knew you.  Depart from Me, ye that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:22).  If one day we  were weighed in the balances of acceptance with God by our own works, His scale of perfection would find the doings of even those who seem acceptable as mere dust, lighter than air.  “The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God” (Psalm 10:4).

   Long ago, a deeply religious man rejoiced that he was not the spiritual and moral wreck of another man broken by the realization of his deeply realized sinfulness.  The Lord responded - “This man went down to his house justified rather than the other” (Luke 18:10-14).  Which man?  We know, of course.  The supposedly proud achiever went away, rejected by God.  The honest and aware sinner entered into relationship with God.  One saw righteousness as an earned achievement, the other as a free gift of mercy.  The truth of both men applies to every human being.  We either receive the freely given grace of the Lord Jesus in the new birth and its promise of eternally abiding relationship.  Or we seek acceptance by Him according to our own works, which His spiritual and moral standard can never accept.  A free gift - the freest gift - from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  This is the Gospel, the blessed wonder of grace received by faith.  There is no other way, nor need we any other way...

“By grace are ye saved by faith, and that not of yourselves.  It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.”

(Ephesians 2:8-9)

Weekly Memory Verse

    We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.”

 (II Peter 1:19)

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Orange Moon Tuesday, April 28, 2026 “Wholly Holy” Part 2 - “His Way Is Perfect.

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…

“Wholly Holy”     

Part 2 - “His Way Is Perfect”

     

     The Apostle Paul’s declaration that “God cannot lie” speaks to the broader issue that He cannot do anything that fails to align with His perfect character, nature, and way (Titus 1:2).

     “The Lord is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works” (Psalm 145:17).

    Whatever we read in Scripture of God’s doings, and in all of His working in human history, every action has been pristinely pure and fulfilled His spiritual and moral standard.  He cannot do otherwise because He cannot be otherwise.  Our Lord is perfectly holy and thus perfectly sanctified to Himself and His heart and mind of perfection.  He is wholly holy from everlasting to everlasting, including this moment in which He acts in our lives in precise accordance with the glory of the Lord Jesus and our best interests.  “As for God, His way is perfect” (II Samuel 22:31).

    This does not mean we always understand or perceive His perfection.  Every believer in the Lord Jesus sometimes wonders at the administrations and allowances of God in our lives.  Why?  How?  When?   Our Heavenly Father does not always explain Himself.  Moreover, He must presently work in ways that cause discomfort, confusion, and even utter bewilderment.  No less than the Apostle Paul confessed to perplexity regarding the blessed, but challenging life to which God called him (II Corinthians 4:8).  Indeed, even the best and brightest finite beings will come to venues that do not appear to involve an infinite Lord working out His perfect purposes.  Little wonder, seeing that human hearts and minds have no frame of reference for perfection.  We often see it without perceiving God working all things together for our good, a blessing that requires Him to fulfill His perfect purposes amid our imperfections (Romans 8:28).

   If we have not done so, let us build an altar in our hearts and minds whereupon we sacrifice any notion that our Lord can do anything that fails to align with His perfect character.  He literally cannot do so, a blessed purity of heart and way in God that should thrill our own hearts and illuminate our own way.  Wholly holy.  He will not be otherwise because He cannot be otherwise.

Weekly Memory Verse

    We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.”

 (II Peter 1:19)

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