Orange Moon Saturday, March 21, 2026. "Days of Old"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"Days of Old"

    As a young man, I worked for several years at a large business in our city.  I enjoyed the job and the people, and found many opportunities for ministry during my years at the establishment.

   After leaving the job in 1984, I have rarely seen or been in contact with any of the people with whom I worked.  I find it sad that close associations and even friendships in the workplace usually vanish when employment changes.  People with whom we once communicated daily become memories, or are perhaps forgotten altogether as new venues of life fill our minds.  In some cases, this involves sad farewells to those who became friends as well as fellow laborers.

   Thankfully, born again believers have opportunity to impact people who have become memories.  We can stay in touch with them, of course, in these days of so many means of communication.  We also maintain communication with God for them.  We can pray.  This has been my practice for people of the aforementioned establishment that so long ago became a memory.

   "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men" (I Timothy 2:1).

   People do not enter our lives by accident, nor do they leave to escape our continued prayerful involvement.  I think back on the people at the aforementioned business with the knowledge that they played a God-determined role in my life.  Moreover, I still have a God-determined role in their lives.  I remember many names and faces, and for others, the One to whom I direct my intercessions knows each and every person with whom I worked.  On occasion, I give thanks for all, naming those I specifically I remember, and trusting the Lord knows the others.  I consider this a blessed privilege as prayerful recollection brings to heart and mind memories of blessed times and people.

    When we realize that memories are meant to be more than memories,  the Holy Spirit leads us to pray.  The people of our past crossed our paths for a reason.  Their footsteps, imprinted in our minds and on our hearts, remain for a reason.  We can seek God's grace for them in the present, with thanksgiving for their role in our past.  What a gift, what a privilege, and what a responsibility as our Lord weaves His redeeming work in the present along remembered pathways of the past.

"I remember the days of old; I meditate on all Thy works; I muse on the work of Thy hands. I stretch forth my hands unto Thee.

(Psalm 143:5-6)

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 Friday, March 20, 2026 "Care, Bear, Share"

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

"Care, Bear, Share"   

  "The Lord is gracious and full of compassion" (Psalm 145:8).

    Compassion involves more than simply caring.  It rather means bearing and sharing, namely, the pains, challenges, and difficulties of others are more than felt.  

    "Surely He hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows" (Isaiah 53:4).

     How full our God must be of compassion to have sent His beloved Son into the world for the purpose of bearing our griefs and sorrows, and even more, "His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree" (I Peter 2:24).  The Lord Jesus Christ did not merely view our plight with concern from Heaven.  He rather entered into the fray of our lostness and its dire consequences.  He cared and He shared in the consequences of sin, to the degree of suffering of God's righteous wrath and judgment.  "We did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted (Isaiah 53:4).

     A Lord like this can surely be trusted with all our hearts, in all our challenges.  He knows what we go through, not simply as a matter of infinite insight, but also of intimate involvement.  As God, He knows.  As man, He experiences.  This includes the present challenges we all face, of whatever nature or measure.  Our sorrows far more than matter to Him.  He rather bears them in ways we cannot begin to understand, but which we must know and believe as a matter of truth and faith.  "We have not a High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities" (Hebrews 4:15).  

    Few realities regarding the nature and character of God more lead and enable us in this present world.  According to His wisdom, not all our sorrows can be quickly removed from our hearts.  Some thorns must remain for reasons of growth, correction, and in terms of the present consideration, our own capacity to "bear ye one another's burdens of others, and so fulfill the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2).  The Lord Jesus greatly honors us to serve as His "vessels of mercy," knowing His compassion as comfort to ourselves, and also administering it to others (Romans 9:23).  He leads us to care about the pains of others, and not only to care, but to bear and to share.  Thereby, God reveals Himself through us in a particularly vivid and influential expression of who He is, and who human beings are to Him.

    "Full of compassion."  May we grow in this beautiful glory of our Heavenly Father's heart, our Savior's involvement, and the Holy Spirit's working within us to personally know such grace, and to powerfully experience it for others.  God will be greatly glorified thereby, and the compassion we receive will be the compassion we bestow, as like our Lord, we care, bear, and share.

"Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."

(Hebrews 214-15)

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 Thursday, March 19, 2026 "Presence"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"Presence"   

     Wherever we go in this day or forevermore, God awaits born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ as the greatest reality of our destination.  Moreover, He will accompany us in our journey as His greatest gift to us is presence.

    "I am with you always" (Matthew 28:20).

    Of course, we do not see, hear, or touch this reality in our present existence.  "We walk by faith, not by sight" (II Corinthians 5:7).  The reality abides no less, even as innumerable physical realities (atoms), unseen and unperceived, comprise our physical bodies.  The redeeming work of the Lord Jesus through the cross, resurrection, and ascension made possible His gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit to all who believe.  In the new birth, the God whom "the heaven of heavens cannot contain" somehow imparts His presence into the very depths of the Christian's innermost being.  "God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts" (II Chronicles 6:18; Galatians 4:6).  He made humanity for this immanence to serve as the very Life of our lives.  Through Christ, such glorious purpose becomes the gracious presence that abides with us always, regardless of our perception of it (Him).  

    "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (Hebrews 13:5).

    Remembering the truth and availing ourselves of its hope both blesses and challenges us.  We do not consciously think of the fact always, nor do we continually sense God's presence.  Much of our experience may even seem to belie the truth as our Lord may sometimes seem far away.  He never is, of course, but the "seem" can sorely tempt us in times of difficulty and perplexity.  We must often "awake to righteousness" by remembering and affirming that God is near, God is hear, and He also promises an even greater assurance…

    "I will dwell in them and walk in them" (I Corinthians 15:34; II Corinthians 6:16; emphasis added).

     An active Holy Spirit dwells within us, the One who "moved upon the face of the waters" in the physical act of creation, and the One who moves within the hearts of the spiritual "new creature" we are in Christ (Genesis 1:2; II Corinthians 5:17).  This we must believe, first because it is true, and then because even as we walk by faith rather than sight, we will be more aware of our Lord's presence and working as we believe.  At times, that awareness may seem but a mustard seed of faith.  However, that will be enough to guide us in peace through the promise of His presence, His active presence.  

    The day will come when "we shall see Him as He is," and when the fact of His indwelling will be far more known within us (I John 3:2).  Until then, we walk by faith and the remembrance of the most marvelous of all gifts freely given in Christ.  Presence.  The presence of God.  With us.  Within us.  Wonder of all wonders, grace of all grace, and the very Life of our lives.

"And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him."

(I John 4:16)

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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