Orange Moon Tuesday, March 10, 2026 “More Pleasure” Part 3 - “The Price and the Pleasure”

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"More Pleasure"   

Part 3 - "The Price and the Pleasure"

"The Lord taketh pleasure in His people."

(Psalm 149:4)

     Our capacity to bring pleasure to the heart of God can be measured by the price He paid to make possible such an amazing wonder.

    "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17).

    "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46).

    We have considered the truth that believers in the Lord Jesus Christ have the capacity to bring more pleasure to God than He brings to us.  However, were it not for the "beloved Son" having become the forsaken "made to be sin" Lamb of God on the cross of Calvary, we could bring nothing but grief to the heart of our Heavenly Father (II Corinthians 5:21).  Atonement had to be made for sin, which had to forgiven in a manner whereby God acts as both "just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus" (Romans 3:26).  We had to become "accepted in the Beloved," and Christ's righteousness had to be imputed to us a free gift of grace (Ephesians 1:6; Romans 4:22-24).  The Spirit of the Lord Jesus had to indwell us, fulfilling the reason for for our being, namely to become "the habitation of God through the Spirit" (Galatians 4:6; Ephesians 2:22).  In the light of "so great salvation," made possible by the Son of God's pleasure becoming the object of His wrath on the cross, believers are now the sons and daughters who bear the sublime capacity to please the heart of our Father (Hebrews 2:3). 

    Every act of genuine faith and faithfulness that pleases God could not occur apart from the suffering, forsakenness, and death of the Lord Jesus on the cross.  The Father gave His Son to such sacrifice in order to redeem us from being a grief in His heart to therein being a genuine joy.  The measure of sorrow in the triune God known at Calvary is in direct proportion to the measure of joy He knows when the Holy Spirit reveals the faithfulness of Christ in us.  The most seemingly insignificant moment of trust and obedience pleases our Father in the joy we have previously considered as immeasurable, based on His infinite emotions and sensibilities.  And all made possible by Calvary and the immeasurable sorrow of "the Man of sorrows" (Isaiah 53:3).

   We will not always think about this as we please God by trusting and obeying Him in the power of the Spirit of Christ.  However, every such occasion of faithfulness and the joy it elicits in our Father's heart would not and could happen were it not for the untold sorrows of the cross.  "To walk and to please God" is possible only because the Lord Jesus hung on the cross of Calvary and suffered the displeasure of God (I Thessalonians 4:1).  Every step of that walk offers the possibility of blessing the Heart so grieved.  Why do we bear such capacity of bringing more pleasure to God than He brings to us?  Look to Calvary, where the Son who so pleases God became the sin that so grieves Him.  Thereby, we who have so grieved Him can now become those who so please Him.

"Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him.  He hath put Him to grief: when Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand."

(Isaiah 53:10) 

Tomorrow: "Well Pleased"

Weekly Memory Verse 

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

(Psalm 86:12)

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Orange Moon Monday, March 9, 2026 “More Pleasure” Part 2 - “Creator and Creature”

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"More Pleasure"   

Part 2 - "Creator and Creature"

"The Lord taketh pleasure in His people."

(Psalm 149:4)

     In Part 1, we proposed that God will forever find more pleasure in us than we find in Him, suggesting that His infinite emotions, sensibilities, and perceptions toward us far transcend our own toward Him.  This aligns with a corollary confirmation of our proposal, namely, the vast gulf between God as Creator, and ourselves as His creatures.

    "Know ye that the Lord, He is God: it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture" (Psalm 100:3).

    In the Lord Jesus Christ, God has drawn us far closer to Himself than we can presently imagine.  He literally dwells within us through the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 3:16).  Our Heavenly Father made us to serve as His spiritual dwelling place, a reason for being that transcends the purpose for all other created entities and things.  Indeed, in His prayer just before the cross, the Lord Jesus asked for perhaps the most wondrous of all blessings:

    "Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me, for Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known Thee, and these have known that Thou hast sent Me.  And I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them" (John 17:24-26).

    Breathtaking.  Heart stilling.  Overwhelming.  Closer than seems possible, as God has literally given Himself to dwell within us through the grace of the Lord Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit.  Our Creator dwells nearer to us than our next breath.  However, we never forget that He remains our Creator and we remain His creatures, a gulf of being and existence that cannot never be crossed.  As a dear friend often says, "God is God.  And we ain't!"  Nothing could be truer, and nothing more bears witness to how much more He finds pleasure in us than we find in Him.  "God is greater than man" declared Elihu to Job in the absolute champion of all understatements (Job 33:12).  He is, and as Creator, the Lord must always be viewed in His transcendent superiority - including His experience of relationship.  

     God knows us infinitely more than we will ever know Him. He sees into the very depths of our being.  Thus, the simplest response of our hearts to Him in faith and faithfulness through Christ glimmers as a bright and shining light that blesses Him in immeasurable measure.  Think of the Lord's term of endearment regarding Daniel, who responded to Him so beautifully through the leading and enabling of the Holy Spirit…  "O Daniel, a man greatly beloved" (Daniel 10:11).  Daniel greatly loved God.  But God's "greatly" love of His servant surpassed all devotion and pleasure in the relationship than Daniel ever knew, or ever will know. 

     As it does for all of God's sons and daughters in Christ…

     "But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved), and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:4-7).

    Let us settle it within our hearts, even as it may boggle our minds.  Our Father will never please us as we can please Him.   The greatness of His heart, mind, and capacity to experience relationship assures us of this wonder.  We do not have to completely understand the truth.  Believing it, however, will lead us in our fellowship with the Lord to new and glorious responses to Him.  Yes, if we can so please the Heart we have all so grieved, and if that pleasure cannot be measured… well, nothing more need be said, except that this moment offers the opportunity…

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

(Psalm 86:12)

Tomorrow: The Price and the Pleasure

Weekly Memory Verse 

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

(Psalm 86:12)

7734