Orange Moon Saturday, March 28, 2026 "Protocol of Change"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"Protocol of Change" 

    

     Change is coming.  Be it minor, major, or somewhere in between, change is always coming in human experience.  We anticipate some alterations of our existence.  Others arrive at our doorstep unannounced.  Many bless us, many challenge us, and most may not seem particularly consequential.  The one that matters most and foretells of eternal consequence involves born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ and God's wondrous purpose in our hearts and lives:

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

    God redeemed us to make us like His Son in terms of character, relationship, word, and deed.  He accomplishes this wondrous prospect by inhabiting us with the Holy Spirit, who progressively works in us to the reveal the Lord Jesus:

    "Ye are the temple of the living God… Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba Father… He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ" (II Corinthians 6:16; Galatians 4:6; Philippians 1:6).

    We play a role of response in God's protocol of change as by faith we trust and submit to His working to conform us to the spiritual and moral image of the Lord Jesus.  We "work out" that which God "works in" by acknowledging and affirming His presence and power, and making choices of the heart to glorify and reveal the Lord Jesus as the Life of our lives (Philippians 2:12-13).  This includes our humble admission that we require ongoing change in every aspect of our response to God.  It cannot be otherwise since the goal and model of His purpose involves making us like the incomparable Christ.  Indeed, if we could qualitatively measure the most Christlike believer on the planet in any moment, we would rejoice in the fact of our brother or sister shining so beautifully with the light of the Savior.  However, we would also realize he or she has far to go in serving as an accurate reflection of the Lord Jesus in character, nature, and way.  

    "But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more" (I Thessalonians 4:9-10).

    Change is coming, always.  The greatest of all, and the one that most enables us to respond well to all others, is the change our Heavenly Father continually executes to conform us to the image of the Lord Jesus.  How will He work today in each of our hearts and lives to fulfill His glorious purpose?  We do not know.  However, we do understand our role of trust, submission, and the realization that the process is ongoing.  By His grace, may our progress be the same.

"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is."

(I John 3:2)

Weekly Memory Verse 

   He that is entered into His rest, he hath ceased from His own works, as God did from His.

 (Hebrews 4:10)

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Orange Moon Friday, March 27, 2026 “Awed and Amazed”

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"Awed and Amazed" 

    

     Awed and amazed.  One cannot know God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ without realizing we can know and understand some about Him.  We can also know more as we seek to "grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (II Corinthians 3:18).  However, we can never begin to know all.  "His greatness is unsearchable" (Psalm 145:3).  Thus, "awed and amazed" serves as a primary response and sense regarding the Lord we know, but whom we can never fully know.

    This will forever be true.  Eternity will not allow full discovery of the glory and wonder.  This especially applies to God's character.  "The love of Christ passeth knowledge" (Ephesians 3:19).  Regardless of how far we venture into the shoreless ocean of our Lord's fundamental nature of devotion to others, the blessedness we discover will promise far - infinitely far - more to come.  Seven times, the simple phrase, "the Lord is good," appears in Scripture.  A most simple declaration, portending of eternally growing awe and amazement.

    And in this day.  Even in our present lifetime lived in a fallen world, the Psalmist declares, "the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord" (Psalm 33:5).  For born again believers in Christ, such glory can be known on bright, shining mountaintops, in dark valleys, and in the mundane experiences of everyday life.  God is indeed that awe inspiring and amazing.  He is that good and great.  He is that present and involved.  He is that able and willing.  He is indeed that Himself.  "The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works" (Psalm 145:9).  This we must believe, first because it is true, and then, because our experience of God's lovingkindness and grace must be realized and affirmed by faith.  This will often greatly bless us in pleasant experience, and it will often greatly challenge us in painful times.  

    If we could speak to the martyrs, those who gave the last full measure of devotion to the glory and will of God, what might they tell us about His goodness known in their sacrifice?  Surely they would testify they knew such glory in their departure from this world more than at any other time in their lives.  They would tell us the Lord met them on their cross, or as the blade and the pyre delivered them from the present world.  They would also tell us something we must know about whatever sacrifices for Christ to which God calls us.  Namely, we must expect the goodness of God in all things, in every blessing, contingency, and exigency.  We must anticipate awe and amazement.  "My expectation is from Him" (Psalm 62:5).  The goodness will be there, as it was with the martyrs.  Whether we know it or not hinges much on whether we  believe our Lord to be, again, that awe inspiring and amazing, that good and great, that present and involved, that able and willing, and that Himself.  He is, and will find Him so as we remember and affirm the wonder of His infinite goodness and greatness.  

"I will speak of the glorious honor of Thy majesty, and of Thy wondrous works."

 (Psalm 145:5)

Weekly Memory Verse 

   He that is entered into His rest, he hath ceased from His own works, as God did from His.

 (Hebrews 4:10)

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Orange Moon Thursday, March 26, 2026 "Truth"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"Truth" 

    

     All truth begins and forever continues with He who declared Himself to be the truth, the Lord Jesus Christ.  "I am… the truth" (John 14:6).

      Be it creation, history, prophecy, salvation, grace, faith, righteousness, peace, joy, prayer, obedience, forgiveness, judgment, or any subject, the Lord Jesus forms both the beginning and end of all Scriptural revelation and understanding.  We either begin with Him, or we do not begin at all.  "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself" (Luke 24:27).

    Consider creation.  The first and most important truth we must know involves the Who who "made all things" (Proverbs 16:4).  Certainly, all three Persons of the triune godhead acted in unison - as They always do - in the origination of creation.  However, the New Testament identifies a particularly significant role for the Son of God, who would ultimately become a part of creation.  The Gospel of John opens with this unequivocal affirmation regarding the role of "the Word… made flesh" declared to be one and the same with the One who made all things:

   "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  The same was in the beginning with God.  All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made" (John 1:1-3)

    I recently watched a brief documentary that included a photo of the Earth taken by the Voyager I probe, from 4 billion miles away.  Of all that could be said about the so-called "Pale Blue Dot," we must begin at the beginning, and proceed to a particular epoch in history.  Namely, the Lord Jesus made the "Dot.  Moreover, in the Incarnation, He became a part of it.  Whatever one believes about creation, we begin here, with the earth's Creator and ultimate Redeemer.  Or we do not begin at all.  He is the truth about creation.  All other truths about the things that are made must flow from this Christological headwater of the river of reality.

    The same origin applies to all Biblical truth and doctrine.  We embark on our journey of knowledge and understanding by realizing the Person and work of the Lord Jesus forever serves as our point of departure.  "The truth is in Jesus" (Ephesians 4:21).  Every letter, word, sentence, verse, chapter, and book of Scripture glimmers with "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (II Corinthians 4:6).  Thus, we open the written Word, the Bible, to seek the living Word, the Lord Jesus.  He dwells among the holy pages in the words inspired by the Holy Spirit, who ever seeks to glorify and reveal the Son of God (John 15:26; 16:14).  Our best response?  Remembering the Bible's plain declaration that Christ is the truth,  and His declaration, "I am the truth."  We then personally affirm, "Lord, You are the truth" as we approach the blessed gift of Scripture that shines on every page with the blessed gift of the Savior.

"Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ."

 (John 1:17)

"Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life.  And they are they which testify of Me."

(John 5:39)

Weekly Memory Verse 

   He that is entered into His rest, he hath ceased from His own works, as God did from His.

 (Hebrews 4:10)

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