Orange Moon Monday, February 2, 2026 "Pondering the Imponderable"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"Pondering the Imponderable"  

    

 

   Had God not created angels, the universe, and human beings, the Lord Jesus Christ would never have suffered the wrath of His Father and the wrath of man.

    "We did esteem Him smitten of God… They crucified Him" (Isaiah 53:4; Matthew 27:35).

    Consider that a perfectly fulfilled, content, and self-existent God determined to make beings and things other than Himself.  Had this simply involved engineering and art of a magnitude beyond imagining, we would marvel.  However, His creation of conscious, volitional beings - angels and humans - meant that God the Father would one day pour out His wrath upon His eternally beloved Son, who "bore our sins" and was "made… to be sin for us" (I Peter 2:24; II Corinthians 5:17).  This leads us beyond marvel unto a mystery of pondering the imponderable.  No less than the Apostle Paul knowledged the glory: "The love of Christ passeth knowledge" (Ephesians 3:19).  What kind of being would do this?  Only one.  The God of the Bible.

   "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10).

    Our Heavenly Father calls us to use our capacity to think about truth as much as we can, as well as we can.  "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God…with all thy mind" (Matthew 22:37).  Regarding our Lord's sorrow, suffering, forsakenness, and death, we especially seek to "grow in grace, and in the knoweldge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ" (II Peter 3:18).  However, such consideration begins and continues in the realization that the greatest measure of a God who suffers because He created us will forever lie far beyond our comprehension.  He could have forever lived in the infinite joy and contentment of His own triune being and relationship of infinite love.  Nothing that approached suffering would have ever been necessary.  He nevertheless chose to create, and ultimately to know pain of spirit, soul, and body far beyond the contemplations of the most thoughtful among us.

     Words fail as thoughts fail regarding this most holy of all wonders.  No expression of praise or thanksgiving is adequate (although we offer our grateful expressions of heart and voice nonetheless).   Perhaps the best response is to make personal our awareness of the truth, namely, God's determination that you and I exist made necessary His determination to know pain and suffering beyond measure.  Creation resulted in Calvary, including our own personal existence that made the cross necessary.  Words indeed fail as a profound stillness arises within our hearts in the realization that this most holy of all wonders will forever lead us to heed the prophet's call…

"The Lord is in His holy temple.  Let all the earth keep silence before Him."

(Habakkuk 2:20)

Weekly Memory Verse 

    The Lord is in His holy temple.  Let all the earth keep silence before Him.

(Habakkuk 2:20)

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Orange Moon Saturday, January 31, 2026 “Appears… Is”

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"Appears… Is"  

    

 

   They appear to be so close together.

    I refer to the moon and Regulus, our satellite and a star that presently seem to be nearby one another in the night sky.  Actually, they are not.  Regulus is 79 light years away from the earth and the moon, that is, 450 trillion miles away.  The appearance of proximity does not denote the reality of the spacial relationship.

    "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment" (John 7:24).

     The truth applies to spiritual matters even more.  The Lord Jesus Christ warns us regarding the fact that how something appears may not align with how it actually is.  The Apostles Paul and John also speak to the necessity of seeking to "judge righteous judgment."

    "He that is spiritual judgeth all things" (I Corinthians 2:15).

    "Try (test) the spirits, whether they be of God" (I John 4:1).

    We must keep our hearts and minds attuned to our Lord and His truth in order to avoid basing our perspectives on appearances that often do not align with reality.  This accounts for a primary reason we read and ponder the Scriptures, the benchmark of God's truth whereby we gauge the "appears" in accordance with the "is."  Indeed, apart from the Bible's light, the devil's darkness will often appear as a bright and shining star.  "And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light" (II Corinthians 11:14).  Failure to avail ourselves of the "righteous judgment" of God's Word means that we are not merely in danger of viewing "appears" as "is."  It means we are already misled, with more darkness that falsely glimmers as light awaiting our unwitting minds.  "Uphold me according unto Thy Word, that I may live" (Psalm 119:116).

    We do well to consistently seek our Lord's confirmation and correction regarding how we view the matters of life.  Nearby stars may actually be immeasurably far away.  Countless other deceptive appearances also present themselves to our perceptions.  "Appears" is a powerful influence to our human perspectives and understanding.  Being aware of our susceptibility to base reality on appearance prepares us to more consistently look into the night sky, as it were, and base our perceptions on the "is" of the "righteous judgment" of God and His Word.

"I esteem all Thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way."

(Psalm 119:128)

Weekly Memory Verse 

   Know therefore that the LORD thy God, He is God, the faithful God." 

(Deuteronomy 9:7)

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