Orange Moon Saturday, December 6, 2025 "The Miracle"

    

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

   

"The Miracle"         

    

    "Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles" (Ephesians 3:1).

    One of the most stunning revelations of Scripture involves the Apostle Paul's calling as "the Apostle of the Gentiles" (Romans 11:13).  That any Jew of Paul's day would refer to himself as such constitutes a miracle far greater than healings, changing of water into wine, and even physical resurrections performed by the Lord Jesus Christ during His earthly ministry.  Indeed, it is one thing to redeem bodies from sufferings.  It is quite another to resolve conflict in human hearts, first with God, and then with people.  

    "Nevertheless, brethren, I have written the more boldly unto you in some sort, as putting you in mind, because of the grace that is given to me of God, that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles" (Romans 15:15-16).

   How does "the Hebrew of the Hebrews" become that which heritage and disposition would seemingly forbid? (Philippians 3:5).  We know the answer…

    "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us" (Romans 5:5).

     The indwelling nature and character of God turned Paul inside our regarding his native dispositions and sensibilities, as He does all in whom receive His grace through faith in the Lord Jesus.  Considering the historical persecution of Jews by Gentiles, it is not hard to understand the Lord's earthly people's native loathing of those who fostered so much sorrow, pain, loss, and death.  That which does challenge our comprehension concerns the question of how the most devoted of all Jews - "the Hebrew of the Hebrews" - could become "the Apostle of the Gentiles?"  Indeed, how wondrous is the love of Christ that it can completely transform hearts from hatred to love?  How did Paul give himself to a life of suffering and death for those he would once have longed to torture and kill?   He answers the question himself -  "The love of Christ passeth knowledge" (Ephesians 3:19).  

    Let us make this personal.  How will the love of Christ motivate, guide, and enable our devotion to those we would avoid, reject, or even worse without Him?  Who might we love in this day of those we would naturally despise?  What sacrifices of thought, attitude, prayer, word, deed, and relationship will the Holy Spirit lead us to offer?  How will the Spirit of the Lord Jesus "walk in love" in us, as He did in Paul? (Ephesians 5:2).  What measures of grace flowing from the immeasurable devotion of Christ to others will lead us in sacrifice rather than selfishness?  Most of all, how will He be glorified and revealed as the formerly unthinkable and impossible occurs because the Christ who died for us now lives in us?

    The answers will be forthcoming as we trust and submit ourselves to a love more wondrous than even eternity will fully reveal.  This day can serve as one brief epoch of grace as we love those loved by God through the power of His indwelling devotion to others.  The miracle of the Apostle Paul can and must become the miracle of your heart and mine as the Holy Spirit turns us inside out by revealing the character of the Lord Jesus in our thoughts, attitudes, prayers, words, and self sacrificial actions.

"The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and give His life a ransom for man."

(Matthew 20:28)

"Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.  But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you."

(Matthew 5:43-44)

Weekly Memory Verse

   All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

(Isaiah 53:4-6)

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Orange Moon Friday, December 5, 2025 "The One and the Multitudes"

    

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

   

"The One and the Multitudes"         

    

    Presently, our Heavenly Father has no perfect children on the earth through which to fulfill His work. 

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

   History records that God has had one perfect Son and multitudes of imperfect sons and daughters.  The latter often seem to be a great liability in His working.  In the temporal sense, we are.  Lapses into unbelief and disobedience have real consequences in our lives and the lives of others.  We must take seriously our walk with God and its significance and consequence regarding His purposes.  "He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief" (Matthew 13:58).

    It remains true, however, that the "one perfect Son" bears by far the most significance and consequence in that which Paul termed "the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord"  (Ephesians 3:11).   Our Savior's perfect person and work makes certain the ultimate fulfillment of God's determinations despite the presently uncertain faithfulness of "multitudes of imperfect sons and daughters."  We are all a part of the redeemed multitudes who never have excuse for lapses of faith and faithfulness, but who do at times stumble and fall.  On such occasions, we do well as we "look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith" to remember with repentance and relief that the faithfulness of the "one perfect Son"  assures that God's purposes will be fulfilled (Hebrews 12:2).

    "Then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet" (I Corinthians 15:23-24).

    The One and the multitudes.  The Perfect and the imperfect.  Somehow our Father will "finish the work" against what may seem insurmountable odds (Romans 9:28).  Insurmountable, that is, only when we do not factor in the gloriously triumphant person and work of the Lord Jesus.  Let us look to Him and His victory.  Thereby, we will find ourselves far more faithful to our role in the blessed "eternal purpose" that requires only One to be perfect, but which offers the imperfect multitudes the privilege of being part of something - Someone - more glorious than even eternity will fully reveal.

"For Thou, LORD, hast made me glad through Thy work, I will triumph in the works of Thy hands."

(Psalm 92:4)

Weekly Memory Verse

   All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

(Isaiah 53:6)

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Orange Moon Thursday, December 4, 2025 “Our Confidence”

    

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

   

"Our Confidence"         

    

    "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).

    "And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work" (II Corinthians 9:8).

   

   God's promised "good work" provides the foundation and power for the believer's "every good work."  All steps  of our "walk by faith"  flow from the gift of His promised "I will dwell and walk in them" (II Corinthians 5:7; II Corinthians 6:16).  We live for God by living from God.  The New Testament abounds with this marvel of a life lived by the presence, leading, and enabling of our faithful Lord, who in the new birth gave us the wonder of a gift even eternity will not fully exhaust: "Christ in you,  the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).  Indeed, He gave Himself to us as the Life of our lives.

   "Christ… is our life" (Colossians 3:4).

   The key to experiencing the gift lies in Paul's affirmation: "being confident of this very thing."  Do we believe such truth to be true?  Have we built an altar within our hearts whereupon we sacrifice the carnal notion of confidence in our human faculties, making way for trust in divine faithfulness?  "We are the circumcision, which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh" (Colossians 3:3).  If so, we live in the assurance that regardless of our human foibles and vagaries, our Heavenly Father ever works to finish what He started.  Thereby, we find ourselves more and more enabled to walk in the trustworthiness the flows from His trustworthiness known and embraced.  Yes, for God, from God.

    We do not have to live this day as if alone.  We will not live this day alone.  However, we can falsely perceive ourselves as such, resulting in a walk that does not proceed from our Lord's walk in us.  No greater tragedy can be imagined.  Indeed, the Lord Jesus was forsaken by the Father and the Holy Spirit on the cross of Calvary that the promise of "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" might grace us with the abiding presence and working of God (Matthew 27:46; Hebrews 13:5).  To live without confidence in such a gift must therefore be viewed as a spiritual scandal of the darkest neglect.  To live with such confidence should even more be joyfully viewed in terms of the love that "passeth knowledge," but which dwells within our hearts to enable a life that can only be the fruit of the very life of God within us (Ephesians 3:19).

    "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us" (Romans 5:5).

   "Being confident of this very thing" confessed the Apostle Paul of God's perpetually faithful "good work."  Let us join our brother of old in our day, and in this moment.  Yes, our Lord will ever be for us all we need, and infinitely more.  He will ever do for us what we require, and infinitely more.  He "cannot lie" and He cannot fail to be who He is and do what He does.  This is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the One who has never disappointed anyone who has placed confidence in Him.  And who never will.  

"For the Lord shall be thy confidence."

(Proverbs 3:26)

Weekly Memory Verse

   All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

(Isaiah 53:4-6)

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