The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
“Somebody, Somewhere”
Innumerable ways exist whereby born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ please our Heavenly Father’s heart as the Holy Spirit works within us to reveal our Savior’s character and nature.
“Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more” (I Thessalonians 4:1).
One fruit of Christ’s character in His children must be particularly pleasing to our Father’s heart. Job exhibited this as an Old Testament, even before the advent of the Lord Jesus and the giving of the indwelling Holy Spirit:
“And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends” (Job 42:10).
From pain, sorrow, loss, bewilderment, and heartbreak, Job ultimately sought grace not for himself, but for others. This foreshadowed the most sublime prayer ever offered in human history, uttered on the cross of Calvary in far great suffering than Job ever knew:
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).
The Spirit of the Christ who uttered such a request for others, voiced in agony from His own sorrows and pains, now lives in born again believers. Moreover, He does so prayerfully…
“And God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba Father” (Galatians 4:6).
Our Lord’s “Abba Father” moving within to lead and enable prayer includes seeing our challenges as opportunity to intercede for others. “Look not every man on his own things, but on the things of others” (Philippians 2:4). This can only occur as Christ lives in us, and we live by Him. Our natural human tendency tempts us to focus inward on ourselves when we hurt, rather than seeing our challenge as opportunity to seek God’s grace for others. Realizing the altar for others that exists in our pains, problems, and difficulties leads us to “look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith,” who then leads us to look outward to the needs of others (Hebrews 12:2). We still pray regarding our own needs. However, as we “let your requests be made known unto God,” we do so for others as well as ourselves (Philippians 4:6).
How this must please our Father’s heart as He sees His beloved Son formed in us. Only through Christ can such altruistic concern exist in human hearts. Salvation accomplishes far more in us than we realize as the Holy Spirit progressively works to turn us inside out, as it were. To pray for other when we ourselves hurt? This is not human. Or rather, it is human when humanity serves as the scene of the divine presence and character that seeks not its own, but “the things of others” (I Corinthians 13:5, Philippians 2:4). How this must please the heart of God, and how He must move in grace to answer our pleas offered through the loving manifestation of Christ’s “Abba Father” in us.
Perhaps in eternity, we will encounter some fellow saint along a street of gold so pure as to be transparent. Our brother may stop us and ask, “Do you recall that prayer you prayed for others in August of 2026? You were hurting and sought God’s grace and help, as commanded (Hebrews 14:6). You didn’t stop there, however. You also sought our Father’s grace and help for somebody, somewhere facing challenges like your own, or perhaps of a different mode and measure altogether.” Our brother will pause for a moment, and then smile as he says, “I was one of those ‘somebodies, somewhere.’ The Lord answered your prayer for me, even through you didn’t even know I existed. He delivered me from my trial, and gave me much opportunity to bear witness and give Him all the glory.”
Doubtless, we will fall to our knees with our brother on that street of glimmering gold, praising the God so able to motivate and empower prayers that reveal His Son in human hearts, in prayers prayed from our pains. How this will please Him then, and how it pleases Him now when we see our our challenges as opportunity to seek His grace for others.
“Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but life in you.”
(II Corinthians 4:10-12)
Weekly Memory Verse
To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
(Romans 8:6)
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