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

Thursday, February 5, 2026

Orange Moon Tuesday, February 3, 2026 "Perfection and Imperfection"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"Perfection and Imperfection"

How does perfect Faithfulness relate to imperfect faithfulness? Or, how does God relate to born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, and how do we respond to Him?

The primary answer must focus on our Lord's presence, involvement, and working in our hearts and lives. Who is He to us? How does view us, and how does He act in perfection toward us? The more we know the Bible's answers to these questions, and the more we experience their truth and power, the more we will find ourselves responding in growing faith and faithfulness to God. "We love Him because He first loved us" declared the Apostle John regarding the beginning of our relationship with our Lord. "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him" wrote the Apostle Paul, meaning that we continue to love God in terms of response to His devotion to us (I John 4:19; Colossians 2:6).

This supplies one of the clearest answers to our question. Perfect Faithfulness must relate to imperfect faithfulness always as initiator, motivator, enabler, and "the power that worketh in us" (Ephesians 3:20). We respond to such grace by the ongoing reception of faith whereby we trust God in recognition of our need, and submission to His Lordship. Thereby, we expect to grow in faithfulness, recalling Paul's clear declaration that our expressed godliness ever proceeds from God's essence of godliness...

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord (II Corinthians 3:18).

God requires no change "from glory to glory," being eternally and infinitely glorious in His own being. We require ongoing "from glory to glory" change as we seek to grow in the Christlikeness for which we exist (Romans 8:28-29). Thus, we seek to marvel in God's perfection, trusting that the wonder will impact our own imperfection, resulting in growing conformity to the Lord Jesus. We seek to gaze upon Him in His Word, by His Spirit, through His people, and along the pathways of providence wherein His perfection and our imperfection relate in Christ by grace through faith. We serve as moons to God's sun (Son), absorbing and reflecting the light that shines not only upon us, but within and through us as imperfection looks to Perfection as our "hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).

"As for God, His way is perfect."

(II Samuel 22:31)

"For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God."

(Colossians 1:9-10)

Weekly Memory Verse

The Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him.

(Habakkuk 2:20)

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Orange Moon Thursday, February 5, 2026 "The Hope of Glory" Part 2 - Strong In Him, Weak In Him

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"The Hope of Glory"

Part 2 - Strong In Him, Weak In Him

"Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).

What "glory" do born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ hope for, based on His "in you" presence? This glory…

"Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God" (I Corinthians 1:30).

Human beings exist to absorb and reflect the goodness and greatness of our Creator, glorifying Him thereby and finding the fulfillment of our hearts by fulfilling the reason for our being. This high and lofty purpose requires a high and lofty Christ as the life, the light, the power, and the presence whereby we honor God. In and of ourselves, we cannot possibly accomplish this sublime reason for our existence, as our Lord stated so plainly:

"Without Me, ye can do nothing" (John 15:5).

Helpless, hopeless, hapless - apart from the indwelling presence of the Spirit of Christ, this is our lot. We cannot be what we were made to be. We cannot do what we were made to do. We cannot be the reflection of of our Lord's glory. We cannot "do all to the glory of God." We must be empowered from within by the Holy Spirit's working to reveal the character, nature, and way of the Lord Jesus. "To live is Christ" declared the Apostle Paul. Our Lord must live in us and we must live through Him in order to glorify God, bless others with His glory, and know the peace of fulfilling the purpose for which we were made (Philippians 1:21).

To experience such grace, we must acknowledge the primacy of Christ as the sole executor of God's glory in human hearts. No other "hope of glory" exists, nor is any other needed - "Christ, the power of God" (I Corinthians 1:24). We acknowledge our weakness regarding any independent accomplishment of glorifying God by our own doing, strength, or devices. Again, the Lord Jesus stated the matter in stark terms: "without Me, ye can do nothing." We must live in the light of affirming Christ's enabling and the acknowledging of our need to go forth in the truth of God's promise: "My strength is made perfect in weakness" (II Corinthians 12:9). We walk in both confidence and humility that "the hope of glory" can and will become the actuality of glory as we live in a manner that honors the Lord Jesus. "I can do all things through Christ which strengthenth me" (Philippians 4:13).

To fulfill our reason for existence - the glory of God - requires both "I can" and "I cannot." We are to be both "strong in the Lord" and "weak in Him" (Ephesians 6:10; II Corinthians 13:4). This simply means that we know the Lord Jesus for who He is and ourselves for who we are in our relationship with God. "We have this treasure in earthen vessels" (II Corinthians 4:7). He is the treasure. We are the earthen vessel. He is "the hope of glory." We are the hopers of glory, that is, those we believe that in all things, the Lord Jesus can empower a life of glorifying God in us as we look to Him alone as our sole confidence, hope, and assurance.

"Christ… is our life."

(Colossians 3:4)

"I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."

(Galatians 2:20)