Orange Moon Saturday, December 13, 2025 "Draw Nigh"

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

   

"Draw Nigh"         

    

    In the most elemental sense, God ever and forever abides with those who have entered into relationship with Him through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

     "I am with you always… I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (Matthew 28:20; Hebrews 13:5).

    Regarding our Lord's spiritual proximity to us, we can never be closer to Him than we are through His promised and enduring presence.  Interestingly, however, James calls us to "draw nigh unto God, and He will draw nigh to you" (James 4:8).  This refers to closeness to our Heavenly Father in terms of conscious response and fellowship.  We determine by faith to relate to Him through the means He has given, including…

    Prayer.  "Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving" (Colossians 4:12).

    The Scriptures.  "Let my cry come near before Thee, O Lord: give me understanding according to Thy Word" (Psalm 119:167).

    Fellowship with believers.  "For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established, that is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me" (Romans 1:11-12).

    Providence.  "All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose" (Roman 8:28).

    Expectation.  "My expectation is from Him" (Psalm 62:8).

  Fellowship with God does not simply happen.  He must work to lead us in communion with Himself, which He does in every believer through the Holy Spirit's active and involved presence.  However, we must respond, again, by availing ourselves of gifts given for the purpose of communicating with the Lord by faith.  We do not see, hear, or touch Him, of course, nor do we always feel or sense His presence.   "We walk by faith, not by sight" (II Corinthians 5:7).  Our fellowship with Him is no less real, and is actually the closest we come to reality as we commune with the very Life of our lives.   "In Thy light shall we see light" (Psalm 36:9).

    Why does James write that God comes close to us when we avail ourselves of coming close to Him?  The answer suggests one of the most marvelous expressions of the love and grace of our Lord we can imagine.  He has already given the aforementioned means for our response.  More importantly, He has given His abiding and motivating presence (Philippians 2:13).  That which awaits therefore involves our faith in believing such blessedness, whereby we play a real role in relationship with God.  He desires  genuine fellowship with us rather than merely programmed inevitability.  In the sense of communion with Him, if our response to Him did not matter as much as it does, James would have written, "Draw nigh to God.  Or not.  It doesn't really matter because He will draw nigh to you regardless of what you do or don't do.

    This, James did not declare.  He rather tells us that we must avail ourselves of God's freely given presence and means of communication with Him.  What a privilege!  What a responsibility!  What an opportunity!  And what a sacrifice made possible the establishment of real relationship with God and real fellowship with Him.  This most speaks to the issue we consider.  We may draw nigh to our Father because He drew away from the Lord Jesus on the cross of Calvary.  "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?!" (Matthew 27:46).  The answer?  That our Father's promise might bless us with His abiding presence:  "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."  And also that we might have a fellowship with Himself that means something because it is real and vital.  How He blesses by such grace, and by that which must be perceived as a gift beyond description: "Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you."

"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith."

(Hebrews 10:19-22)   

Weekly Memory Verse

  Thy mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens; and Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.

(Psalm 36:5)

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Orange Moon Friday, December 12, 2025 "The Savior and the Scriptures"

    

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

   

"The Savior and the Scriptures"         

    

    Having recently commemorated the 50th anniversary of coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ in September, 1975, I have been gratefully giving thanks for the early influences of my Christian life.  The Lord provided wonderful fellow believers, along with pastors, teachers, and authors who helped ground me in the faith, and whose influence continues unto this day.

    "I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy, for your fellowship in the Gospel from the first day until now" (Philippians 1:3-5).

   My most vivid recollection of those influences involves their universal devotion to the supremacy of the Savior and the Scriptures as the guiding light(s) of our lives.  

    "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:9-11).

     "Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of Me" (John 5:39).

    The living Word and the written Word.  Maintaining this dual emphasis goes far in directing our hearts and securing our feet on the path of righteousness.  The Lord Jesus leads us to the Scriptures. The Scriptures lead us to the Lord Jesus.  The prophet Jeremiah signals this blessed synthesis of the written and living Word:

   "Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and Thy Word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by Thy name, O LORD God of hosts" (John 5:39; Jeremiah 15:16).

   "Words" and "Thy Word."  Or, the Scriptures and the Savior.  Jeremiah consumed the propositional truth of God's communication to his mind, resulting in joyous devotion to the personal truth of the Christ he did not know in name, but who he realized in heart.  Of course, in the light of the completed written Word of God and realization of the crucified and risen living Word of God, born again believers in the Lord Jesus know the Savior in far greater measure.  How blessed we are, and how the Holy Spirit calls us to the written Word He inspired in the writers of Scripture, and the living Word He conceived in the virgin's womb.

   I give thanks for the influences of long ago in my walk with the Lord, who bore witness to the Word of God, both living and written.  How grateful I also am for fellow believers who presently serve as guideposts to walk in the way, the way of the Savior and the Scriptures.  

"Jesus saith unto Him, I am… the truth."

(John 14:6).

"Thy Word is truth."

(John 17:17)

Weekly Memory Verse

  Thy mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens; and Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.

(Psalm 36:5)

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Orange Moon Thursday, December 11, 2025 "Why Faith?"

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

   

"Why Faith?"         

    

    Why faith?  Why do we begin our relationship with God by faith, and why do we thereafter walk with Him by the same trust and dependence?

    The answer primarily lies in Him.

    "There is one God… Thou art God alone… There is no God else, beside Me" (I Timothy 2:5; Psalm 86:10; Isaiah 46:21).

    God alone exists in and of Himself, the only self-generating and sustaining being in existence.  He alone has been "from everlasting" (Psalm 90:2).  No one else is like Him, or can be like Him in His divine substance, nature, and way.  If He creates other conscious beings such as angelic or human, they cannot independently be as He is in self-existence, character, or ability.  He cannot make other Gods.  "I am God, and there is none like Me" (Isaiah 46:9).

   By definition, this means that all others are dependent on Him for "life, breath, and all things."  "In Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17; 25; 28).  To know the Lord as He is and to know ourselves as we are thus involves His promise of provision and our reception by faith.  Our relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ begins accordingly: "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).  Our walk with Him subsequent to the new birth continues by the same response: "The just shall live by faith… as ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him" (Romans 1:17; Colossians 2:6).  This constitutes faith as primary in our fellowship with God.  To know, love, and honor Him flows with the current of trusting Him in response to His grace and truth in Christ.

    From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible shines with the glory of an infinitely faithful and able God.  As we walk with our Lord, the pathways of our hearts and lives glimmer with the same trustworthiness and ability of One who "cannot lie" and whose power is "exceeding, abundantly above all we ask or think" (Titus 1:2; Ephesians 3:20).  Such a One can - and must - be trusted "with all thy heart" (Proverbs 3:5).  Why faith?  Only thereby do we live in the truth and reality of who we are, and far more importantly, who God is as the only eternal and infinite "I AM" (Exodus 3:14).  In the light of who He is as "God alone," we discover who we are and the necessity of faith, whereby we "live through Him" (I John 4:9).

"He is thy life."

(Deuteronomy 30:20)

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee."

(Isaiah 26:3)

Weekly Memory Verse

  Thy mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens; and Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.

(Psalm 36:5)

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