Orange Moon Friday, May 8, 2026 "Why?"

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

“Why?”

    Why?  The questions serves as perhaps the greatest of all inquiries, beginning with, “Why does anything exist?  Why is there something?  Why not nothing?”  God Himself provides the answer, of course.  “The Lord hath made all things” (Proverbs 16:4).

     However, the Bible also declares that no answer exists regarding the most important “Why?”  

    “From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God.” (Psalm 90:2)

    God does not exist as a consequence.  He is not a result.  He is not an outcome, or an effect, or the fruit of any root.  No “Why?” explains His existence.  He simply is, “from everlasting to everlasting” (Psalm 90:2).  He transcends both explanation and time.  

    This casts us to our faces upon first consideration.  “The fear of God is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7).  It then raises us up when we discover that the grace of God is the beginning of relationship for all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.  He who exists infinitely beyond us becomes He who exists imminently within us.  We know Someone who by all seeming possibility should not be knowable, but who has made a way for us to “walk in the light as He is in the light” and to “have fellowship one with another” (I John 1:7).  The Causeless becomes the known cause of our very being and the life we live.  He ever answers the question of “Why? regarding all things, even as no such answer exists regarding the “Why?” of His own being and life.

   Perceiving God in this perspective greatly encourages and challenges us in our fellowship with Him.  The New Testament calls believers to “perfect holiness in the fear of God” (II Corinthians 7:1).  We never want to lose sight that the Light that blinds, even as it illuminates.  We want our Lord to be as He is, so beyond us that it seems ludicrous to believe that we can know Him.  However, we also want to know and believe He has drawn so near to us in the Lord Jesus’ incarnation and the Holy Spirit’s indwelling that we do not find it absurd to call Him, “Father.”   Both truths serve to make possible our approach to Him in truth and genuine faith.   Indeed, realizing the fact of God's uncaused being and existence causes us to bow before Him in wonder, and to rise up with Him in loving fellowship.

“Thy throne is established of old. Thou art from everlasting.”

(Psalm 93:2)

“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.”

(Revelation 3:20)

Weekly Memory Verse

     Ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.”

 (Romans 8:9)  

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Orange Moon Thursday, May 7, 2026 "The Wages of Sin"

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

“The Wages of Sin"

    “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

     It is.  

     “Christ died for our sins” (I Corinthians 15:3).

       Certainly, the pronouncement of sins deadly wages applies to sinners.  It applies far more, however, to the Savior and the wonder of His death for the sins of sinners.  Indeed,  the  Lord Jesus could bear our sins on the cross of Calvary because He had no sins of His own for which to die.

    “We have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

    In His humanity, the Lord Jesus could feel the pull of enticement, as in the wilderness temptation wherein Satan presented the allure directed toward body, soul, and spirit (Matthew 4:1-11).  Our Savior overcame the devil’s challenge, as He did during His entire earthly lifetime.  This warrants a particularly grateful and solemn appreciation of all our Lord did to make possible our salvation.  Temptation did not merely annoy Him as a bothersome gnat flitting about His face.  He experienced it as do we ourselves, and perhaps more because Satan Himself directly confronted Him in ways we likely do not encounter.  The Lord Jesus overcame them all, every one of them, in more than three decades of challenge from the most cunning of enemies who found himself defeated over and over again.  “Christ hast suffered for us in the flesh” includes not only His death on the cross, but also the pains of never succumbing to temptation (I Peter 4:1).

    In one sense, the Gospel proclaims a breathtakingly simple proposition: Sin accrues wages.  Somebody has to pay them.  Somebody did.  We declare this to unbelievers who must humble themselves to believe a message offensive to all infected with “the pride of life” that deceives with the lie that we can live apart from He who “is… the life” (I John 2:16; John 14:6).  We share the same truth among ourselves, that we might grow in love and appreciation for One whose death for our sins made available His risen life for our righteousness - “raised again for our justification” (Romans 4:25).      Yes, “the wages of sin is death.”  Upon every reflection on the dark truth, let us first set our gaze upon the bright light that shines upon the One who paid them, that we might not have to.

“He paid a debt He did not owe, I owed a debt I could not pay, 

I needed someone to wash my sins away.

And now I sing a brand new song, Amazing Grace the whole day long.

Christ Jesus paid a debt that I could never pay.

(“He Paid a Debt,” Ellis Crum)

“Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”

(I Peter 1:18-19)

Weekly Memory Verse

     Ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.”

 (Romans 8:9)  

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Orange Moon Tuesday, May 5, 2026 The Father and the Son

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

The Father and the Son

    Dustin works for a company whose owner has been servicing our drains for more than thirty years.  The last time I saw him, he suffered great pain due to a back injury that made his difficult job particularly challenging.  Since that time, he underwent successful surgery that has made him “feel like a new man.”  You can literally see it in his face and demeanor.  I mentioned this to him, which led to at least five minutes of Dustin thanking God and the surgeons who fixed his back.

    I mostly remember this.  “I can’t even explain what it means to pick up my little boy and look him in the face!”  Dustin said the words with that something in the voice that only sounds from a loving parent. Being a father myself, albeit of adult children, Dustin’s statement resonated deep in my heart.  I have been there and done that on countless occasions with my children (and grandchildren), While they have grown beyond my capacity to do so now physically, I do it all the time in heart (so many memories flood my soul even as I type the words).  Of far greater import, Somebody else does the same in infinitely greater measure...

    “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).

    From everlasting, God the Father has loved God the Son, who has loved Him in holy response.  “Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world… I love the Father” (John 17:24; 14:31).  We can know no more important truth and reality, even as Scripture declares, “But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through His name” (John 10:31). We enter into saving relationship with God by believing in the eternal relationship of the Father and Son, as revealed unto and within us by the Holy Spirit.  “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given unto us” (Romans 5:5).  Little wonder that earthly parents find so much joy in our children, as with fathers like Dustin who can joyfully pick them up and look into their faces, or those who forever lift up sons and daughters in our hearts.

    “Jesus is the Son of God” (I John 4:15).  Forever will not suffice in full discovery of this “from everlasting to everlasting” wonder.  A relationship, which includes the Holy Spirit, has forever been and will forever be.  Our salvation begins by faith in this glorious reality: “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God” (Acts 8:37).  It continues thereby:  “Who is He that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God” (I John 5:5).  I will remember this when Dustin’s words come to heart and mind - “to pick up my little boy and look him in the face!”  Sublime, in the words of an earthly father.  Even more, let us ponder the wonder of a Heavenly Father, whose love for His Son comprises the very heart of reality from everlasting to everlasting.

“The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hands.”

(John 3:35)

Weekly Memory Verse

     Ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.”

 (Romans 8:9)  

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