Orange Moon Thursday, December 4, 2025 “Our Confidence”

    

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

   

"Our Confidence"         

    

    "Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6).

    "And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work" (II Corinthians 9:8).

   

   God's promised "good work" provides the foundation and power for the believer's "every good work."  All steps  of our "walk by faith"  flow from the gift of His promised "I will dwell and walk in them" (II Corinthians 5:7; II Corinthians 6:16).  We live for God by living from God.  The New Testament abounds with this marvel of a life lived by the presence, leading, and enabling of our faithful Lord, who in the new birth gave us the wonder of a gift even eternity will not fully exhaust: "Christ in you,  the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).  Indeed, He gave Himself to us as the Life of our lives.

   "Christ… is our life" (Colossians 3:4).

   The key to experiencing the gift lies in Paul's affirmation: "being confident of this very thing."  Do we believe such truth to be true?  Have we built an altar within our hearts whereupon we sacrifice the carnal notion of confidence in our human faculties, making way for trust in divine faithfulness?  "We are the circumcision, which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh" (Colossians 3:3).  If so, we live in the assurance that regardless of our human foibles and vagaries, our Heavenly Father ever works to finish what He started.  Thereby, we find ourselves more and more enabled to walk in the trustworthiness the flows from His trustworthiness known and embraced.  Yes, for God, from God.

    We do not have to live this day as if alone.  We will not live this day alone.  However, we can falsely perceive ourselves as such, resulting in a walk that does not proceed from our Lord's walk in us.  No greater tragedy can be imagined.  Indeed, the Lord Jesus was forsaken by the Father and the Holy Spirit on the cross of Calvary that the promise of "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" might grace us with the abiding presence and working of God (Matthew 27:46; Hebrews 13:5).  To live without confidence in such a gift must therefore be viewed as a spiritual scandal of the darkest neglect.  To live with such confidence should even more be joyfully viewed in terms of the love that "passeth knowledge," but which dwells within our hearts to enable a life that can only be the fruit of the very life of God within us (Ephesians 3:19).

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

   "Being confident of this very thing" confessed the Apostle Paul of God's perpetually faithful "good work."  Let us join our brother of old in our day, and in this moment.  Yes, our Lord will ever be for us all we need, and infinitely more.  He will ever do for us what we require, and infinitely more.  He "cannot lie" and He cannot fail to be who He is and do what He does.  This is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the One who has never disappointed anyone who has placed confidence in Him.  And who never will.  

"For the Lord shall be thy confidence."

(Proverbs 3:26)

Weekly Memory Verse

   All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

(Isaiah 53:4-6)

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Orange Moon Wednesday, December 3, 2025 "Expect God"

    

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

   

"Expect God"          

    

    In a Sunday school class of middle school boys I taught many years ago, I placed a poster on the wall imprinted with the words, "Expect God."  I asked the boys, "What do you think I mean by this?"

     Immediately, one of them responded, "You mean Jesus is coming again!"  "That is a great answer," I said, "and you're right.  Our Lord will return one day and we look forward to it with great anticipation.  However, the poster refers to a different expectation than that."  I then shared with the boys the Psalmist's affirmation, "My soul, wait thou only upon God.  For my expectation is from Him" (Psalm 62:5).

    I shared with the boys that if they believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, their lives would be saturated with His presence and working in all things.  "You will never live a moment in this life  in which God is not the greatest fact and the truest reality.  Our Lord lives with us always.  He even lives within us us as the very Life of our lives.  You will not always see or understand what He is doing, and you may not always be immediately comfortable with how He works.  But His glory, your good, and the good of those with whom you live will be the truth of your existence.  So, gentlemen, expect God."

   

     More than four decades have not changed my confidence in what I shared with those young men.  Time has over and over again confirmed the assurance that God "worketh all things after the counsel of His own will" (Ephesians 1:11).  It has also confirmed that seeing and understanding His ways often greatly challenge our understanding.  God's working involves the pleasant as He reveals His grace in countless ways.   He also leads us along difficult paths as we "must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22).  As we expect God, however, we shall not be disappointed.  Indeed, our hearts will be kept in His peace regardless of circumstance, situation, or condition as we anticipate the living God awaits us in every venue.  As promised over and over in Scripture, He will be all we need in the blessed, the difficult, and the mundane.

   "Be careful (anxious) for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.  And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4L6-7).

   

    The world, the devil, and the flesh constantly tempt us to expect any thing but God.  If we respond to their deceptions, our Heavenly Father may allow us to reap the consequences of our carnal anticipation.  If, however, we embrace the truth of God's loving and involved presence, we will harvest the fruit of confidence in Him.  We will find our Lord to be all we need, whatever the blessing or challenge.  "Expect God."  I hope that the young men from so long ago remember the exhortation so filled with promise.  Even more, I hope they have experienced the truth that the Lord Jesus saturates their lives as the One in whom they "live and move and have their being" (Acts 17:28).   In the light of such grace and truth, let us indeed expect God.

"For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death. For to me to live is Christ."

(Philippians 1:21)

Weekly Memory Verse

   All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

(Isaiah 53:4-6)

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Orange Moon Tuesday, December 2, 2025 "By Principle and Presence"

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

   

    

"By Principle and Presence" 

     The disciples' wise request - "Lord, teach us to pray" - led to their Lord's model and familiar prayer, "Our Father, which art in Heaven…" (Matthew 6:9).  Of even greater impact, it led to the gift of His personal and praying presence in the hearts of those who trust Him.

    "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son, crying Abba Father" (Galatians 4:6).

    This truth about prayer speaks to our Heavenly Father's ways regarding all things in our lives.  He teaches us by principle and enables us by presence.  "Teach me Thy statutes" asked the Psalmist about the ways in which he should live.  "I am the way" declared the Lord Jesus of Himself as "Christ, the power of God" (Psalm 119:124; John 14:6; I Corinthians 1:24).  The Apostle Paul echoes this truth in one of the most assuring and reassuring declarations of Scripture regarding the life to which God calls us:

    "God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work" (II Corinthians 9:8).

    Only "all grace" leads to "every good work."  The primary reason for such provision given for the living of life as God commands involves the standard... 

    "Walk even as He walked" (I John 2:6).   

   Who is the "He?"  Were it anyone other than the Lord Jesus, we might seemingly have some hope for independently taking steps of a walk in conformity with God's will.  Because it is the Lord Jesus, not one faithful footfall can be trod apart from God's promised measure of grace.  "Without Me, ye can do nothing"  declared our Lord (John 15:5; emphasis added).  Make this specific.  We cannot think, speak, act, or relate in accordance with God's will by our supposed human abilities.  We can never muster enough devotion, dedication, determination, or direction to "walk, even as He walked."  Even a cursory reading of the Gospels renders us helpless and hopeless to trust and obey our Heavenly Father as does the Lord Jesus.  

    Thankfully, a reading of the epistles reveals that we were never meant to walk as Christ walked apart from a most blessed promise… 

     "I will dwell in them and walk in them" (II Corinthians 6:16).

    Christ walks in us, that we may walk through Him.  This is the promise of grace regarding the steps of our lives, including the next one.  "I cannot!  I can!  Through Christ!"  We "walk by faith," affirming our Savior's presence and its promise of motivation, guidance, and enabling (II Corinthians 5:7).  Indeed, challenges with obedience to God always raise questions regarding His grace in Christ. 

   "How am I not availing myself of the only power that exists whereby I can do my Father''s will?"

   "How am I not 'looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith?'"

   "How am I seeking to do by my own abilities that which cannot possibly happen thereby?"

   "How am I forgetting that the same power that raised Christ from the dead now dwells within me to raise me from hopelessness to holiness?"

    Most of all, the personal and solemn remembrance -  "How am I forgetting that the Lord Jesus died for me, that He might live in me as the power for all faith and faithfulness?"

    God does not call His children to make the first brick without straw.  He rather supplies the straw in the superabundance of His Son and the Holy Spirit.  He then leads and empowers us to mold bricks that could not possibly exist apart from His presence, provision, and power.  Long ago, the disciples' request for teaching regarding prayer led to their Savior's indwelling presence as the power of prayer.  The same truth applies to every step of a life that requires supernatural enabling by a supernatural Christ.  "Walk even as He walked?"  Impossible!  Unless He walks in us.  Which He does in every believer as God's gift of grace no less freely given than our salvation.  Yes, our Lord teaches us the principles of how to live in the Scriptures.  He then imparts His presence in us to enable their fulfillment.  "So great salvation" exulted the writer of Hebrews regarding so great a Savior who walks in us that we may walk through Him (Hebrews 2:3).

"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him" (Colossians. 2:6).

Weekly Memory Verse

   All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

(Isaiah 53:4-6)

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