Orange Moon Cafe “The Great Fact”

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"The Great Fact"

     

    I've had several discussion recently with fellow believers in which we have considered the question, "How can people live without the Lord?"  

    The first answer is that they don't.

        "He giveth to all life and breath and all things" (Acts 17:25).

        "In Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).

    

     The most ardent atheist, regardless of how much he blusters, requires the Lord's gracious provision for his very existence - "it is He that hath made us and not we ourselves… by Him all things consist" (Psalm 100:3; Colossians 1:17).  Of course, this does not mean that the atheist knows God's grace regarding salvation and redemption from "the wrath to come" (I Thessalonians 1:10).  He does not.  However, unbelievers require breath provided by the Lord to deny the reality and working of the very One who made and sustains their existence.

    The second answer involves another question that reaches much closer to home:  "How do I live without the Lord?"   Again, the truth is that I don't.  Especially as a born again believer in the Lord Jesus, I not only "live and move and have… being" in the Lord.  He also lives and moves and dwells in me.  "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (I Corinthians 3:16).  However, I sometimes succumb to the temptation to  think, speak, act and react as if God does not exist.  This constitutes a practical atheism in times of temptation for which no excuse exists.  Indeed, God constitutes the greatest reality and influence in our existence.  It requires but a mustard seed of faith to realize and respond to such truth.  However, I sometimes neglect and ignore the Great Fact of my existence.  As the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (I Corinthians 3:16).  

    In a sense, an atheist lives at my house (and at yours also, I must add).  Our flesh is that unbeliever.  "In my flesh dwelleth no good thing" confessed Paul, who also declared, "the flesh lusteth against the spirit" (Romans 7:18; Galatians 5:17).  Thankfully, the spirits of believers inhabited by the Spirit of Christ constitute a different matter altogether.  "I delight in the law of God after the inward man… So then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God" (Romans 7:22; 25).  The Spirit of Christ perpetually infuses believers with the assurance of God's being, presence, working, and loving involvement in our lives and in all things.  "The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God" (Romans 8:16).  Realizing this dichotomy between our Christ-inhabited spirits - the essence of who we are in Him - and our flesh - our earthly vessel still inhabited by a  "law of sin" - goes far in preparing us to live in the light of truth and reality, namely, the fact and faithfulness of God (Romans 8:9; 7:23).  

    The atheist's bluster and the believer's blunder - denying or forgetting the Great Fact of an existence that teems with the vital presence of the living God.  Both errors result in human beings seeking to live apart from God's Divine being.  Thankfully, our Heavenly Father works in all to reveal Himself and His truth by creation, the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit, and the church of the Lord Jesus.  No one lives without the Lord.  We rightly wonder how the atheist denies the obvious Ocean in which he swims.  Again, however, we need not look far to discover our own challenge regarding remembrance and affirmation of the God in whom we live, move, and have our being.  The Holy Spirit actively dwells within believers to enable overcoming of the temptation to live as if our Lord does not exist.  Let us respond to His moving by frequent remembrance and affirmation of the Great Fact of our existence...

"Thou art God, which hast made heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that in them is."

(Acts 4:24)

"To live is Christ."

(Philippians 1:21)

Weekly Memory Verse    

   In Him we live and move and have our being.

(Acts 17;28)

  

5762