Orange Moon Wednesday, December 10, 2025 “Look Up. Show Up. Get Up.”

    

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

   

"Look Up.  Show Up.  Get Up."         

    

    We do well to look up as our days begin and proceed, or as the writer of Hebrews termed the directing of our hearts Heavenward - "looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith" (Hebrews 12:2). We look ahead to the day, having looked up to the Maker of our days, trusting in His presence, providence, provision, purpose, and protection.  

    Upon this basis, we seek to show up at at whatever venues of calling and responsibility He lays before us.  This may involve the seemingly ordinary tasks of life, which must be viewed as extraordinary in light of our Lord's presence and our high calling to "whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God" (I Corinthians 10:31).  Or, it may concern matters that obviously relate to our walk with Him and Christ-focused service to others.  In either case, much of grace and good can happen as we show up, and far more, as God shows up to lead and enable our high calling to represent Him in all things.

    Finally, we get up if we fall.  Certainly, our Heavenly Father "is able to keep you from falling" (Jude 1:24).  We live in a "no excuses" walk with Him as He promises ever present grace to enable our overcoming of temptation to sin.  In our present lives, however, we do still fall at times into unbelief and disobedience (I Corinthians 10:13; I John 1:8).  Upon the realization of such waywardness, we must not remain in our fallen condition.  If we could audibly hear the Holy Spirit after we have sinned, "Get up!" would ring loudly and incessantly in our ears until we have arisen in the mercy and grace of the Lord Jesus.  We do no favors to God, ourselves, or others by wallowing in sin and discouragement.  Our Savior sacrificed far too much and intercedes for us far too effectually to forget that "if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (I John 2:1).  

    Look up.  Show up.  Get up.  The triune adage paves a perfect path for believers to walk with the triune God in His grace, mercy, and promise of life in Christ.  He has made provision for every contingency, and we will find Him perfectly faithful as we confidently avail ourselves in faith, devotion, and as necessary, repentance and confession.  Look up!  Show up!  Get up!

"My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up."

(Psalm 5:3)

"Here am I.  Send me."

(Isaiah 6:8)

"I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee."

(Luk 15:18)

Weekly Memory Verse

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

(Psalm 36:5)

7658

   

Orange Moon Tuesday, December 9, 2025 "The Holy Synthesis"

    

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

   

"The Holy Synthesis"         

    

    The Psalmist offers one of the most blessed, but also most challenging, affirmations of Scripture regarding the believer's walk with God.  

       "I will love Thee, O Lord my strength" (Psalm 18:1).

    First, we determine to freely live in devoted fellowship with our Lord, accepting the necessity of "I will love Thee."  By Biblical definition, love cannot be programmed or coerced if it is to be real.  Our Lord would have no interest in our response to Him if He merely punched buttons of love in us to make inevitable our love for Him.  Nor should we have interest in any notion that renders both God and ourselves without heart or genuine personality.  We must rather accept the fact of our high calling to freely love our God.  Indeed, at the end of this day we will all have made real choices to love our Lord.  Or to not.  

    On the blessed other hand, we lay hold of  "Oh Lord, my strength."  To love God and to love as God loves requires His love to be present, involved, and dynamically active in hearts.  As in…

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

    In a Bible full of utterly astonishing propositions, none should more drive us to our knees and faces in the wonder of our Father's grace.  He comes to dwell within those who trust the Lord Jesus Christ, bringing with Him His own character whereby we become "partakers of the divine nature" (II Peter 1:4).  He comes to live as love in us, love "shed abroad (lavishly dispensed) in our hearts."  Thereby, we can "love… as Christ loved," which includes our capacity to walk in completely dependent, but again, completely free response to God (Ephesians 5:25).  

    Such truth may boggle the mind.  The heart of the believer, however, knows the holy synthesis of "I will love" and "O Lord, my strength."   We waste no time seeking to fully understand the enigma, diverting our time and attention in the quest to walk in loving faith and faithfulness.  Yes, we love God by His love directed to us, given for us, and vitally alive in us.  He receives all glory thereby.  However, we recognize no less that we will not love Him in this or in any day if we do not exercise our privileged responsibility to freely determine our devotion.  We close with the Apostle Paul's declaration of the holy synthesis of God's grace and our response…

"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure."

(Philippians 2:12-13)

Weekly Memory Verse

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

(Psalm 36:5)

7657

   

Orange Moon Monday, December 8, 2025 "Shall... Will"

    

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

   

"Shall… Will"         

    

    "The Lord shall… the Lord will…".   The affirmations appear nearly hundred times in Scripture, declaring God's promise of what He will do (based on who He is, and will always be).

    "God is faithful" (I Corinthians 1:9).

    The longer one knows and walks with the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, the more the certainty of His "shall" and "will" becomes evident.   He cannot be other than He is, and He cannot do other than what He declares and promises.  This applies to history, and also to your story and mine.  Faith in the Lord Jesus relates us to One whose "faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds" (Psalm 36:5).  All believers will attest that we have found Him trustworthy in the past.  We presently discover this perfect fidelity.  We have all confidence that the future and eternity await us with innumerable revelations that God and His Word will be found exactly as expected, awaiting us with truth from He who declared, "I am… the truth" (John 14:6).

    Apply this to today.  Whatever we will experience of blessing, challenge, or the mundane, our Lord's "shalls" and "wills" glimmer as shining lights that cannot be quenched.  We will not always fully understand His ways and means.  Sometimes blessing will be realized as so undeserved that we marvel in our Father's grace.  Sometimes life will seem so ordinary that the fact of His abiding presence of the extraordinary will feel unlikely.  And sometimes the pains and perplexities of difficulties will tempt us to wonder with the Psalmist, "Hath God forgotten to be gracious?" (Psalm 77:9).

    He has not.  He cannot.  His inviolable "shalls" and "wills" render it impossible for our Lord to be or act in many manner other than His Word assures.  He is holy, meaning that He is perfectly sanctified to His character, nature, and way.  We will find Him always being who He is and doing what He does.  We may not comprehend how He fulfills His "eternal purpose" in Christ as it applies to our lives.  However, we know that He does so.  It cannot be otherwise.   "The Scripture cannot be broken" declared the Lord Jesus (John 10:35).  Therein, we rest our hearts in the perfect integrity of His heart, and the certainty of His "shalls" and "wills."

"The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory."

(Psalm 60:19)

"The Lord will do this thing that he hath spoken."

(Isaiah 38:7)

Weekly Memory Verse

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

(Psalm 36:5)

7656