Orange Moon Monday, June 16, 2025 "Our Father"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"Our Father"  

    The Lord Jesus Christ taught His disciples (and all believers through the ages) to pray unto "Our Father" (Matthew 6:9).  While the "our" refers to believers' relationship with each other, the even more wondrous gift of grace involves our familial bond with God.  

     "I ascend to My Father and your Father" (John 20:17).

     Christians are brothers and sisters with the "from everlasting" Son of God (Psalm 90:2).  Certainly, the Lord Jesus holds a distinctive being and place as God the Son which no other occupies.  It remains true, however, that His redeeming work on our behalf and subsequent presence in our hearts spiritually births believers into a relationship with God so near that angels desire to gaze upon such a wonder (I Peter 1:12).

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

     From sinful rebels to sons and daughters of the Father, brothers and sisters with the Son, through the enlivening agency of the Holy Spirit's indwelling presence - this is the gift of relationship and freely granted grace to all who trust the Lord Jesus.  Family.  With God, and in Him.  Even a cursory consideration of "so great salvation" must stop our hearts and minds in their tracks when we reflect upon "God's unspeakable gift" (Hebrews 2:3; II Corinthians 9:15).  Moreover, when we consider the sacrifice and the cost that made possible the believer's privilege to pray "Our Father" with the Redeemer and His redeemed, the matter becomes utterly staggering in its magnitude of mercy…

    "He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (II Corinthians 5:21).

    The Son became sin, that we might be born again into sonship and daughterhood with God.  The Lord Jesus prayed for such gift to be given (recorded in John 17), and then journeyed unto Mount Calvary and into the wrath of God to pay the terrible price that made possible the the glory of these "unsearchable riches" (Ephesians 3:8).  Presently, we give our awed, grateful thanks and seek to live in the wonder of such grace for the glory of God.  In eternity, we shall know such things much better than we presently consider as the marvel of our family bond with God will thrill us even more.  Never, however, will we fully discover "the hope of glory" made possible by the Lord Jesus, nor its inestimable cost.  ""O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!" (Colossians 1:27; Romans 11:33)

    We won't think about this every time we pray, "Our Father."  We do well, however, to at times still our voices and hearts as we express ourselves in such familial terms with the eternal and infinite God.  As one once said, "From dust to glory, what a story!"  And what grace beyond all wonder, a grace we must seek to more and more access in order to more and more honor its price and the One who paid it.   "Our Father…."

"Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ."

(Galatians 4:7)

"As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name."

(John 1:12)

"Now are we the sons of God."
(I John 3:2)

Weekly Memory Verse 

     "Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ."

(Galatians 4:7)

  

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Orange Moon Saturday, June 14, 2025 "Paid In Full"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"Paid In Full"  

    

 

     Those who have received God's freely given grace in the Lord Jesus Christ do not owe Him anything.

    "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32).

    By moral definition, a perfectly just God could not charge for the "free gift" that applies to "all things" (Romans 5:15).  Nor could He justly impose a debt beyond our ability to pay.  Of course, our natural tendency leads us to feel indebtedness to our Lord, and such a sensibility will be present in every believer when considering the cost and blessedness of our salvation.

    The truth remains, however, that the recipient of a free gift cannot be said to owe the benefactor thereof.  Herein lies a beautiful truth, namely, the motivation for relationship and service made possible by the grace of the Lord Jesus.  Rather than servile obligation, God makes possible in believers a life lived in genuine and loving devotion to Him.  We can live "heartily," as opposed to merely dutifully (Colossians 3:23).  In fact, God will be satisfied with nothing else, a truth confirmed by 1 Corinthians 13 wherein the Apostle Paul clearly reveals that why we do what we do matters every bit as much as what we do.  The "why" is love, the love of God motivating, guiding, and enabling us to "walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us" (Ephesians 5:2).  Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.    

   Do we serve God from servile obligation, or devoted love?  One of God's most severe chidings of Israel concerned her failure to relate to Him in genuine devotion: "Thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things" (Deuteronomy 28:46-47).  For born again believers who now live with the love of God lavishly resident within our hearts through the indwelling Holy Spirit, the truth even more applies (Romans 5:5).  Only loving devotion qualifies as the motivation acceptable to God for anything we do by Him, through Him, and for Him.  "Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity (love), it profiteth me nothing" (I Corinthians 13:3).

   Certainly it seems as if we owe God everything.  Believers inevitably feel this.  However, He does not view the matter in the light of debt.  He sees His relationship to us through the "Paid In Full" of grace, that is, of loving favor freely bestowed upon us because of His wrath furiously executed upon the Lord Jesus for our redemption.  In such holy light of our debt fully paid by untold sorrow, suffering, forsakenness, and death, how could God ever relate to us in any motivation other than the grace purchased at Calvary?  Thus, as challenging a truth as it may be to understand and embrace, we owe God nothing for salvation and its eternal benefit of "the unsearchable riches of Christ" (Ephesians 3:8).  Only in this most holy and solemn light will we ever truly know the love of God in a manner that fosters genuine sincerity and love for Him, made possible by the grace that cost our Lord everything so that we might serve Him in the only motivation acceptable to our Father…

"For what saith the Scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.  But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."

(Romans 4:3-5)

"Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity."

(Ephesians 4:24)

Weekly Memory Verse 

   "Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness, He is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous."

(Psalm 112:4)

  

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Orange Moon Friday, June 13, 2025 "Having Him"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"Having Him"  

    

 

     "I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge" (Ecclesiastes 1:16).

     "Whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy" (Ecclesiastes 2:10).

    God gave Solomon untold wealth and unparalleled wisdom.  Thereby, the king ventured into the realm of earthly plenty and abundance with the capacity to wisely understand what he discovered.  He returned to declare…

    "I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity (emptiness) and vexation of spirit" (Ecclesiastes 1:14).

    Solomon found in wealth and by wisdom that regarding the heart, no earthly thing begins to satisfy.  God made us with the capacity to enjoy the blessings of life - "He giveth us richly all things to enjoy" - but to worship only Himself (I Timothy 6:17).  Every human being faces the temptation to "worship and serve the creature more than the Creator" (Romans 1:25).  We naturally trust in dust rather than the Divine.  Only the supernatural intervention of grace and truth in the Lord Jesus Christ rescues us from the doomed grasping for a fulfillment apart from God that does not exist.  

    "I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God" (Luke 12:19-21).

   We will not perfectly walk out the determination in this lifetime.  However, with all seriousness and devotion every believer must affirm within our hearts that no one and nothing other than the living God can serve as the life of our lives, the peace of our heart, the joy of our spirit, and the fulfillment of our being.  We must build an altar in the heart whereupon we sacrifice any notion that vanity can satisfy.  Certainly, we seek to enjoy the blessings of life a as tribute to their Giver.  We adamantly refuse, however, to perceive anything other than our Lord as the sole source and supply of contentment.  We could lose everything, but if He remained, His peace would endure, as would our experience thereof if we have established the conviction of faith that regarding the heart, my wife Frances's adage forever abides… "Having Him, we have all."

"He is thy life… Christ is our life."

(Deuteronomy 30:20; Colossians 3:4)

Weekly Memory Verse 

   "Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness, He is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous."

(Psalm 112:4)

  

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