Orange Moon Wednesday, October 23, 2024 "Like Him" Part 3 - "This Hope of Glory"

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

"Like Him"

Part 3 - This Hope of Glory

  

   

      When the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ walks in us and we walk through Him, God the Father experiences His Son in ways that did not exist before He created human beings.  "I will dwell in them and walk in them" (II Corinthians 6:16).

    "Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world… I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them" (John 17:24; 26).  

    God made humanity to serve as the dwelling place of divinity, namely, "God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba Father" (Galatians 4:6).  Thereby, the love bestowed by the Father upon one Son becomes resident within many sons and daughters.  The Lord Jesus shines forth from us unto the Father in an infinite variety of personality, disposition, character, experience, and expression.  The same Christ lived in the Apostle Paul as in the Apostle John.  The same Light shined within both beloved and devoted brothers.  However, the glory glimmered in rays of illumination from one that did not manifest in the other, and vice versa.  We read and find great blessing by both apostles through the marvelous gift the Holy Spirit gave through the words He inspired in their writings.  Even more - far more - our Father was blessed by the varied expressions of Christ known as personally assimilated and displayed through sons united in the Son, but who shined forth to Him in such different wonders and workings.  "It pleased God… to reveal His Son in me" declared Paul, an affirmation John could just as well as written (Galatians 1:15; 16).  

    And, just as we could write.  "It became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory" (Hebrews 2:10).  Unto what glory?  "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).  Yes, God made and redeemed us to serve as the living temples of His beloved Son, in whom He lives and through whom His glory shines forth to the creation, and even more, to the Father.  When God sees the character and nature of the Lord Jesus revealed in the distinctly individual persons we are, He knows His Son in a particular and personal blessedness not possible if we did not exist.  A hope of glory indeed, and a wonder of grace bestowed upon former rebels who now serve as revelations of a glorious Christ.  "I am the light of the world… Ye shine as lights in the world" (John 8:12; Philippians 2:15).

    No more overwhelming and invigorating reason for living this day and forevermore with joyous purpose can be known.  The Father who has been pleased with His Son "from everlasting" will be pleased with Him "to everlasting."  Now, however, the Lord Jesus pleases His Father through an infinite variety of personal ways and means as known through us.  This day offers the opportunity, and may we devote ourselves to this "hope of glory" and this reason for being more glorious than even eternity will fully reveal….

"Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word, that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.  And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one."

(John 17:20-22)

Weekly Memory Verse

  "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is."

(I John 3:2)

       

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Orange Moon Tuesday, October 22, 2024 "Like Him" Part 2 - Acknowledge and Appropriate

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

(Thanks so much to Fred C. for inspiration and insight on this one).

"Like Him"

Part 2 - Acknowledge and Appropriate

  

   

      To become like the Lord Jesus Christ does not simply mean we seek to imitate Him in how we live.  No more impossible quest could present itself to our hearts and minds.  

    "The Father hath not left me alone, for I do always those things that please Him" (John 8:29).

    "We have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15).

    "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (I John 1:8).

   If the Christian life merely involved imitation of the Lord Jesus, the first sin we committed as believers would end the attempt.  Perfection would be required of our imitation, a standard of life not possible in our present imperfection.  This does not suggest that it is inevitable or excusable that we yield to any specific  temptation to distrust and disobey God.  His grace always abides in us for overcoming.  "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it" (I Corinthians 10:13).  However, sin does occur in our current state.  Thus, imitation of a perfect Christ cannot serve as the means whereby which we seek to "walk, even as He walked" (I John 2:6).

     Wondrously, our Lord Himself serves by His indwelling presence in our spirits as the means of a consistent, growing life of Christlikeness:

    "Christ in you, the hope of glory… Christ the power of God" (Colossians 1:27; I Corinthians 1:24).

    "I will dwell in them, and walk in them" (II Corinthians 6:16).

    The Spirit of our Lord not only dwells in us, but also walks  in us so that we may "walk even as He walked."  As a dear brother and friend blessedly commented after considering yesterday's message, "Our failure is in our failure to acknowledge and appropriate His work in us."  This beautifully reflects another brother's affirmation of long ago:

    "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:12-13).

    Forget, neglect, or disbelieve the inworking of God, and the outworking of our response to Him will not consistently and increasingly occur.  "He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief" (Matthew 13:58).  In fact, the Apostle Paul communicated to the Colossians that the same dynamic grace whereby relationship begins with God serves as the same means whereby the believer lives the Christian life:

    "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him" (Colossians 2:6).

    Paul suggests that whatever happened in the first twinkling moment of salvation received by grace through faith must continue to occur in order to bear "the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:11).  We came to God helpless and hopeless in absolving ourselves of our own sins, changing our own hearts, and living in a manner that honored Him, blessed others, and filled our own being with peace and joy.  In some manner, we all cried with the heart, and from the heart, "Christ only is my hope and salvation!"  Thereby, our living relationship with God began.  Thereby, our living fellowship and response to Him continues as we "walk" in the same manner we initially "received."

   "Heavenly Father, the simplest act of faith and faithfulness to You in this day requires the presence and power of the only perfectly faithful One who exists.  You direct in Your Word that we look to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith.  We choose to do so in response to Your Spirit's ongoing promise of revealing the character and nature of Christ in us, and His ongoing mandate that we avail ourselves of the grace of our Lord's indwelling presence.  Lead us to acknowledge and appropriate so wondrous a gift, provided at so high a cost.  For the glory of the Name of the Lord Jesus we ask, and in His Name we pray, Amen."

   We possess no innate character or ability to live as does the Lord Jesus.  "Without Me, ye can do nothing." Believers do possess, however, His indwelling presence as the very Life of our lives.  We "live by faith" just as we began by faith, trusting Christ as our singular hope for the next step of obedience, and all to follow (Romans 1:17).  The Lord Jesus alone is glorified in this marvel of grace, and the gift of "Christ in you, the hope of glory" made possible by how near He has drawn to all who believe.  

He lived a life of grace and glory,

God in man, the wondrous story

of Heaven and earth bound in One,

the son of man, God the Son.

 Now He lives in us, the hope of glory,

to write upon our hearts the story

of Heaven dwelling in earthly frame,

for those who trust and bear His name.

Nothing without Him, all things through Him,

this is the life we live,

through the Christ who dwells within,

God's grace He ever gives.

A life of grace and glory,

and now… our story.

Weekly Memory Verse

  "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is."

 (I John 3:2)

       

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Orange Moon Monday, October 21, 2024 "Like Him"

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

"Like Him"

  

   

      In both this life and forevermore, conformity to Christ does not involve our becoming like Him intrinsically, but rather though His indwelling.

    "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren" (Romans 8:28-29).

   "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is" (I John 3:2).

    "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).

    God purposed to "bring many sons unto glory" by the person and work of the Lord Jesus on our behalf.  Perhaps the most wondrous feature of such grace involves the living presence of Christ in our hearts.  Born again believers are sons and daughters united to the Son, having been spiritually birthed and adopted into "the whole family of Heaven and earth" through the entrance of Christ's spirit into our hearts (Hebrews 2:10; Colossians 1:27; Ephesians 3:15).  

   "God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba Father" (Galatians 4:6).

     Only one "from everlasting to everlasting" Son - God the Son - exists (Psalm 90:2; Hebrews 1:8).  In both Heaven and earth, there is no one like the Lord Jesus, the God who became man and the man who remains God.  It remains true, however, that our Savior has drawn nearer to us than we can fully know to perpetuate our becoming like Him in character, nature, and way.  Our spirits are moons to His sun, purposed to absorb His light, and then to reflect it outwardly for the glory of God through our minds, wills, emotion, and bodies.  "Ye shine as lights in the world" (Philippians 2:15).  The work is presently ongoing as we "grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (II Peter 3:18).    God will one day finish the work, and the next life will find a vast company of the redeemed who think, speak, act, and relate like Christ because He perfectly lives in us, and we perfectly live through Him.

    Our Heavenly Father has been and will forever be pleased with His beloved Son.  He is pleased with us as He sees the Lord Jesus more and more revealed in us, and as we "walk even as He walked" (I John 2:6).  Yes, one Son, revealed in many sons and daughters, will multiply the pleasure of the God whose "eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord" bestows upon the the greatest gift He could have given… "we shall be like Him."

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

(II Corinthians 3:18)

Weekly Memory Verse

  "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is."

 (I John 3:2)

       

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