Orange Moon Wednesday, May 7, 2025 "The Focus of Faithfulness"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"The Focus of Faithfulness"  

    

      

      Greater faithfulness in our lives does not result from primarily focusing on our own diligence and trustworthiness.  Certainly, we do not not ignore or neglect commitment to God as we seek to "exercise thyself rather unto godliness" (I Timothy 4:7).  However, our faithfulness originates and proceeds from intense focus on the faithfulness of Another: "Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith… consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds." (Hebrews 12:2).  

     "We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works" (Ephesians 2:10).

     

    The better we know the faithfulness of God in our hearts and minds, the more absorption of His spiritual light will result in reflection thereof.  Who is He in His heart and mind?  This is the question of our existence.  Finding answers to this most vital of inquiries results in our trusting Him more genuinely and adequately, resulting in the works that always flow from true faith (James 2:20).  

    Let us make this specific.  Where we face particular challenges of faithfulness in thought, attitude, word, and deed, what about our Lord do we not know, or not know well enough, that His light does not shine as it should in us?   What aspect of His perfect trustworthiness will result in progress in our own?   Deficits in  our walk of faith and obedience reveal need to "grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (II Peter 3:18).  This is particularly true since our hope for godliness lies completely in our Lord's presence within us as the Life of our lives.  "We… live through Him" (I John 4:9).  That which may lack in and of ourselves does not lack at all in the Christ who lives in ourselves.  Thus, we remember the faithful Lord who dwells in us, making possible our faithfulness as we look to Him.  "We shall live with Him by the power of God" (II Corinthians 13:4).

    God made us to know Him, and to thereby live in and from the light of His countenance.  "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent" (John 17:3).  Trustworthiness to Him in our lives flows from the trustworthiness of Him in our hearts.  God Himself must serve as the focus of faithfulness whereby we shine as moons to His sun, absorbing His light and reflecting the power of His faithful promise…

"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)

Weekly Memory Verse  

   He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief. 

(Matthew 13:58)

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Orange Moon Tuesday, May 6, 2025 "Like His Son"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"Like His Son"  

    

      

      We are all damaged goods as human beings, descended from fallen Adam with his sin ands it dire consequences.

    "In Adam all die" (I Corinthians 15:22).

     "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one, there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God"(Romans 3:10-11).

    Just as sadly, apart from God's illumination, we have no idea how serious is our plight.  We base evaluation of ourselves in comparison to other people just as damaged as ourselves.  Our Lord does not view us according to such a low standard, however.  He rather gauges us according to His perfect ideal and prototype of humanity, in accordance with His righteousness and purpose.

     "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17).

     "Walk even as He (Christ) walked" (I John 2:6).

     Human beings exist to be like the Lord Jesus Christ in character, nature, and way.   He is humanity as God defines humanity.  Upon first consideration, a dire situation seems to become desperate and disastrous.  To be like the Lord Jesus?  To somehow arise from our damage to His design?  If we bear any semblance of honesty and self awareness in our hearts, our first response must be bewildered despair.  "In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple… Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts" (Isaiah 6:1;5).

   Thankfully, the same Christ who brings woe when first we see Him and recognize how far short we have fallen from His standard also serves as the freely given hope for redemption and its ultimate grace: "We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (I John 3:2).  Forgiveness for our failure first flows from God's mercy received in Christ, along with the establishment of relationship and fellowship with our Heavenly Father.  He then changes us our innermost depths through imparting the indwelling Holy Spirit to establish our hearts as His spiritual dwelling place (I Corinthians 3:16; Galatians 4:6).  Thereafter, every moment of our existence becomes the scene of progressive rescue from our damage to His design.  One of the most beloved and most memorized of all Biblical passages bears witness to such wonder, although Romans 8:28 cannot be understood or considered complete apart from Romans 8:29:

    "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; emphasis added).

   Through Christ, God made us for the "good" of being like Christ.  Damaged as we are in our present existence, our Lord dwells within our spirits to progressively enable the entirety of our humanity to absorb and reflect the light of of His character, nature, and way.  The work will not be finished in our present lifetime.  It must, however, be ongoing as God perfectly fulfills His role, and as we seek by His grace to faithfully respond in trust, submission, and the expectation that Christ's indwelling presence will guide and enable us.  "Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6).

    If ever we wonder what God is doing by His determinations and allowances in our lives, no Biblical truth more clearly answers the question.  He ever works to make us like His Son.  He acts to rescue us from the damage of not being like the Lord Jesus to the design and paradigm for which we exist.  He could do no better or more loving thing for us, a blessedness only eternity will begin to fully reveal.  As the saying goes, "From dust to glory, what a story!"  What a story indeed.  What a reality, that when all is said and done, "We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."  Presently, may we join our Heavenly Father, being confident that progress will proceed in this day as we "behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord" and are thereby "changed from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (II Corinthians 3:18).

"Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us!"

(Psalm 90:17)

"Christ in you, the hope of glory."

(Colossians 1:27)

Weekly Memory Verse  

   He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief. 

(Matthew 13:58)

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Orange Moon Monday, May 5, 2025 "To Walk and To Run"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"To Walk and To Run"  

    

      

      "He which once persecuted us now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed" (Galatians 1:23).

     From persecutor to preacher, Saul of Tarsus became more familiarly known as the Apostle Paul.  A new heart indwelt by the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ made such a wonder possible and actual in a man who in his day would have seemed like the most unlikely candidate for the role he played as God's primary apostle of the New Testament.

    "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.  Old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new" (II Corinthians 5:17).

    After salvation, Paul identified himself a both a walker and a a runner, both exertions made possible by God's grace in the Lord Jesus:

   "Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.  And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run" (I Corinthians 9:24-26).

    "We walk by faith, not by sight" (II Corinthians 5:7).

   Paul's new Christ-infused and empowered heart led him to walk with God, and to run for God.  It must do the same for us as we seek to "walk in the Spirit" and "run the way of Thy commandments" (Galatians 5:16; Psalm 119:32).  First, we must believe that we possess Christ's "newness of life," heeding the command to "reckon ye also yourselves to be alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 6:11).  We then join Paul in seeking to "serve with my spirit in the Gospel of His Son" (Romans 6:4; 1:9).  Do we perceive ourselves accordingly?  Do we view ourselves as temples of the living God who created all things, sustains all things, and declares His sons and daughters in Christ to be the scene of His glorious presence and mighty working?  If we do, we can expect His leadership and enabling, most often administered quietly along the pathways of life in ways that nevertheless reveal His glory and might.  If we do not believe, we become the sad scene analogous to those of whom it was said long ago, "He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief" (Matthew 13:58).  

    A new heart, inhabited by "the Ancient of days" and the glorious One present and active in this day enables, like Paul, our walk and our run (Daniel 7:9).  No greater tragedy can be imagined than born again believers ignoring or denying the presence and working of the Christ who suffered, was forsaken, and died to make possible His heart dwelling and active within our own.  Whatever path upon which God calls us to walk, or track upon which He commands that we run, we do so through Christ, by Christ, and for Christ.  He dwells nearer than our next breath.  May our hearts breathe that breath, walking and running in the glory of the grace whereby…

"God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts."

(Galatians 4:6)

Weekly Memory Verse  

   He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief. 

(Matthew 13:58).  

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