Orange Moon Monday, March 16, 2026 "Dependently Free"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"Dependently Free" 

  

     God made human beings as responders.  

    "We love Him because He first loved us" (I John 4:19).  

     We would never have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ had God not worked in our hearts to convince, convict, and convert us by revealing His grace, as received through faith.  "No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him" (John 6:44).  Nor would we walk with Him after the new birth if He did not continue His initiating power that makes possible 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).

    Presently, our Father works in believers "to will and to do" by His Spirit, His Word, His church, and His providential presence and power supplied along the pathways of our lives.  Thereby, He makes possible our potential to respond in faith and submission, promising the power for response, but leaving us with the freedom to either avail ourselves of His grace or not.  "I will love Thee, o Lord my strength" declared the Psalmist of this real relationship between God's heart and our own (Psalm 18:1).  David, in response to the Lord's working, genuinely desired to love Him, recognizing the need for his chosen "I will love Thee."  However, he also knew God must enable such devotion... "O Lord my strength."

    Much mystery lies in this beautiful union of God and humanity.  We are dependently free, as it were, a wonder of relationship and fellowship long pondered by prophets and sages, none of which have come close to full discovery or explanation of how the Lord works and how we respond.  As the Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus regarding the new birth…

     "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8).  

    How does grace and faith work in our Father's heart and our own?  He knows perfectly and completely.  We do not, nor do we need full explanation.  We rather require realization of our need for God's working in our hearts, His promise of grace, and our privileged responsibility to respond or not.  Rather than how it all works, we focus on the truth that it works by our Father's perfectly faithful administration, and our determination to grow in holy and trusting response.  Dependently free.  Even this simple idiom offers only a glimmer of light regarding the marvel of the divine heart and human hearts united in the love of Christ.

"O send out Thy light and Thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto Thy holy hill, and to Thy tabernacles.  Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy."

(Psalm 43:3-4)

Weekly Memory Verse 

    O send out Thy light and Thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto Thy holy hill, and to Thy tabernacles.  Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy.

(Psalm 43:3-4)

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Orange Moon Saturday, March 14, 2026 "The Things of Others"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"The Things of Others" 

  

   Born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ address pain, loss, sorrow, difficulty, and illness personally, seeking God's comfort, help, solution, healing, and sufficient grace.  Thereby, we "glorify ye the Lord in the fires" by trusting and submitting to God in our challenges.  "In the day of my trouble, I sought the Lord" (Isaiah 24:15; Psalm 77:2).

    Another path and privileged responsibility also presents itself in the challenges of life.

 

    "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.  And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation" (II Corinthians 1:3-6).

 

    Trouble, in whatever form or measure, makes possible our capacity to minister to others.  The love of God dwells within born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, meaning we exist first and foremost for the glory of God and the blessing of people (Romans 5:5).  Our Heavenly Father works in our challenges regarding our personal walk with Him.  However, He also allows and administers our difficulties in terms of our role in the lives of other people.  As the Apostle Paul testified, the comfort we receive becomes the comfort we distribute.  "Whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation" (II Corinthians 1:6).

 

    Fewer more revolutionary truths exist in the pages of God's Word.  Our native tendency regarding trouble tempts us to become inward and self-centered.  "Why is this happening to me?" Again, a place exists for this question as we address our difficulties in the personal sense.  However, what if our challenge also bears more significance regarding our service to the Lord Jesus and others?  Regarding his own troubles, the Apostle Paul affirmed, "The things which have happened to me have fallen out rather for the furtherance of the Gospel" (Philippians 1:12).  The presence of Christ's others-devoted love in Paul's heart resulted in the Apostle's realization that his life was not about himself.  The same Christ lives in every believer's heart.  Our Father works to turn us inside out, as it were, by wrenching the primary focus from ourselves - "Why is this happening to me?" - to the perspective based on the love of Christ: "How does this challenge make possible my honoring the Lord Jesus and my ministry to others?"

 

     A special opportunity for prayer exists in the truth we consider.  Certainly, it is proper to pray for ourselves - "casting all your care upon Him" (I Peter 5:7).  However, we face no challenge that is not "common to man" (I Corinthians 10:13).  When challenged, countless others share our experience of pain, loss, sorrow, and difficulty.  Our challenge builds an altar in our hearts to pray for those others.  We seek God's comfort for them as well as for ourselves.  Thereby, our personal challenge leads to prayerful consideration for the needs of others, and of far greater significance, God's provision of comfort to those for whom we intercede.  "So then death worketh in us, but life in you" (II Corinthians 12:9).

 

    Perhaps in Heaven, some fellow citizen will encounter us along a glimmering street of gold and ask,  "Do you recall the prayer you prayed for me on that day in 2026?  You were hurting, and you prayed for somebody, somewhere who was also facing great difficulty and pain at the time.  I was that "somebody."  Or at least, I was one such "somebody"  for whom our Heavenly Father answered your prayer for others, prayed from the altar of your own pain.  Through your intercession, He met and comforted me in my challenge."  Doubtless, we will join that fellow saint in yet another prayer, falling to our knees on a street of gold to praise the God whose love leads us to seize the opportunity our challenges provide to seek His grace for others.  "Why is this happening to me?"  A place exists for the question.  However, a far larger place exists for a far more blessed inquiry, as the love of the Lord Jesus leads us…  "Who is this for?"

 

"Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."

(I Corinthians 10:31)

"Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others."

(Philippians 2:4).

Weekly Memory Verse 

     I will praise Thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart: and I will glorify Thy name forevermore.

(Psalm 86:12)

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