Orange Moon Friday, January 14, 2021 "Daily Bread"

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

(a repeat from 2011)

"Daily Bread"   

    

      I have heard the words countless times over the years from people on our mailing list, "Uh, Glen, I don't read the Orange Moon devotionals every day, but..."

    An apologetic tone usually accompanies the subscriber's comment. This need not be the case.  I do not expect people to daily read the five or six messages we send out each week.  For those of you who do, I find it a humbling blessing for which I thank you.  However, I do not anticipate that everyone who receives the devotions will read each one on the day it arrives in your email box (if ever). I rather pray that God will direct you to the particular messages that may benefit your heart and mind with illumination, encouragement and challenge.

   On the other hand, there are words that born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ should determine to read every day. We should daily read the Bible. I suggest this not in a legalistic or burdensome manner, but rather in light of the amazing gift the Scriptures are to our hearts. The Holy Spirit who inspired the Word of God beckons us to its sacred pages  for the purpose of blessing us with glories that can reach us in no other way.  The living Word, the Lord Jesus, awaits us in the written Word, the Bible. "The Scriptures," declared the Lord Jesus, "testify of Me" (John 5:39).  Our Heavenly Father would lovingly reveal to us His beloved Son, as well as communicate to us the truth that we are also His beloved children in Christ.  The Scriptures offer these bestowals of grace, along with countless other rays of light whereby our hearts and lives increasingly shine with the heart-fulfilling glory of God.   "Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (II Corinthians 3:18).

    Certainly, days may occur when we find ourselves providentially hindered from reading the Bible.  Just as certainly, we can all look back on days when we could have opened the sacred Book, but did not. We cannot change the past, but we can attend our hearts and minds to God's light in this day.  As a matter of benevolent grace and necessary truth, our Heavenly Father calls us to His Word for the purpose of personal fellowship, growing understanding, and increasing response to His involved presence in our lives.  We will be changed thereby, changed always for the better as we make our approach in faith, humility, and confidence.  Our Lord's good will awaits us in every word of His Good Book.  Yes, a reading of the Bible, as Providence allows and directs, must form our intentions for this and every day.

"Give us this day our daily bread... I am the bread of life."

(Matthew 6:11; John 6:35)

"Give attendance to reading."
(I Timothy 4:13)

Weekly Memory Verse

    He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

(John 3:18)

 

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