Orange Moon Monday, February 23, 2026 "Faith: Beginning, Continuing"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"Faith: Beginning, Continuing"   

   Until we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, we were unaware of the power of God to spiritually birth us into relationship and fellowship with Himself.

    "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3).

    After believing, we must discover the same power whereby we walk with God in faith and obedience.  Those "saved through faith" must learn to "live by faith" (Ephesians 2:8; Romans 1:17).  Unlike the new birth, provided as a one time, eternally abiding gift of grace, walking with our Lord involves a step by step trust of believing.  We must grow in the knowledge of God and the understanding of His truth in order  to meet by faith the challenges of life, as led and empowered by the Holy Spirit.  We trust a person to the degree we know them.  Thus, we must seek to increasingly discover who our Lord is and how He acts in order to realize "the power that worketh in us" as His "exceeding, abundantly above all we ask or think'' measure of grace.  Thereby, we realize our walk with God to be no less the result of grace received through faith than was our spiritual birth provided by Him (Ephesians 3:20).

    "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him, rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. (Colossians 2:6-7). 

    The beginning of our relationship with God resulted from the truth that "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God" (Romans 10:17).  By His written Word, the Bible, the Lord communicated His living Word, the Lord Jesus, to our hearts.  We believed and thereby entered into relationship with God.  Faith still comes by hearing, and hearing continues by the Word of God.  We avail ourselves of the Scriptures in order to better know the Lord and understand His truth.  This equips us in times of temptation and challenge to overcome sin, fear, and despair by trusting and submitting to God.  "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith" (I John 5:4).  The matter involves growth and maturing, which again results from "increasing in the knowledge of God" whereby we more and more trust Him because we more and more know Him (Colossians 1:10).

    We were born and born again for this sublime knowledge of the most winsome of beings.  Whatever this day holds of its busyness, responsibility, and privilege, let us seek to live our lives trusting in whatever we have discovered of God and His truth.  Let us also realize that to whatever extent we have known Him, the journey has just begun.  When this day ends and we close our eyes upon it, no greater sense of satisfaction will bless our hearts than the knowledge that we have sought to know our Lord better and trust Him more.  Such grace and truth can be found in His Word, by His Spirit, through His people, in His world, and along the pathways of providence whereupon God purposes to meet us and further us in the faith that began and continues our relationship with Him.

"Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Spirit."

(Romans 15:13)

Weekly Memory Verse 

    As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him, rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. 

(Colossians 2:6-7). 

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Orange Moon Saturday, February 21, 2026 “The Lens of Christ” Part 2 - Free and Effectual

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"The Lens of Christ"   

Part 2 - Free and Effectual

   

    God's view of believers through the lens of Christ means that He not only freely and forever accepts us as His sons and daughters.  He also sees us in relationship to the Lord Jesus in terms of  how we live.

    "Walk, even as He walked" (I John 2:6).

    The God who "looketh on the heart" sees the Spirit of Christ in us as the Life of our lives (I Samuel 16:7).  He expects and commands much of us because of the "abundant life" - Christ's own life - He imparted to us when we believed (John 10:10).   The indwelling Holy Spirit works in us to bring forth the Lord Jesus in our thoughts, attitudes, words, and deeds.  No gospel can be found in Scripture that merely serves to justify us and birth us spiritually.  God rather redeems us through Christ to conform us to our Lord's spiritual and moral image:

   "For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren… We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (Romans 8:29; I John 3:2). 

    Consider the thief on the cross, who became a saint on the cross - and now in Heaven - before he died.  The Lord Jesus changed the man's heart, leading to a changed life in word and deed.  In great agony and pain, our brother lifted himself up on on the nails that impaled his feet to catch a breath and speak forth his confession of Christ.  In his final seconds of earthly life, he did something and said something through the power of God whereby what had happened in his heart came forth in open display.  For 2,000 years, the saint on the cross has borne witness to the glory of the Lord Jesus, the glory that freely changes spirits, and then moves mightily in souls and bodies.  

   "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Thessalonians 5:23).

     God will not jeopardize His integrity by offering a salvation that provides only relationship and righteous standing, wonderful as such a free gift is.  As the saying goes, "the salvation of the Lord Jesus is not merely fire insurance."  No, it is rather salvation assurance, a salvation that meets us where we are, but does not leave us as we are.  No gift of God's favor could be freer.  Nor could any gift be more effectual in changing the heart, and then progressively changing the entirety of our being.  The better we know and avail ourselves of such grace, the better we will know and respond to God's working, whereby we pay homage to the freest gift ever given, purchased by the highest cost ever remitted.  We seek to see through the lens of Christ, as our Father sees, and by which He works to keep His promise…

"He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ."
(Philippians 1:6)

Weekly Memory Verse 

     Oh how great is Thy goodness, which Thou hast laid up for them that fear thee, which Thou hast wrought for them that trust in Thee before the sons of men!

(Psalm 31:19)

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