Dear Orange Moon Friends Saturday, November 1, 2025 Orange Moon Origins

Dear Friends,   

       

   Today begins our 28th year of sending out the Orange Moon devotionals.  We are grateful for this privilege, and thank the Lord and you for your fellowship through the years.  He has enriched our hearts and lives through your example, and the encouragement and challenge it has provided in such rich measure.

    I thought I would use this occasion to resend the account of how this endeavor began on November 1, 1998.  It's hard to believe it has been that long ago, and again, we will be forever amazed and thankful for the gift you are to us.

God bless you all, and thank you,

Glen

   Orange Moon

     On Frances's birthday in 1988, we returned home from a celebration at her parents' house.  The evening was clear and warm, which led me to step out to the back porch with my guitar.  An absolutely beautiful orange moon awaited to greet me, rising through the trees.  Also awaiting me was a piece of music and the lyrics for a song devoted to Frances.  I worked on it while gazing at the moon, and finished the song over the course of a day or so.  She loved it, and orange moons became a personal remembrance of our bond with the Lord and with each other.

     Several years later, we had an idea for opening a coffeeshop here in Mobile.  "We'll call it the Orange Moon Cafe!"  This sounded exciting, and we allowed our minds to venture down that road to the point we shared the possibility with some friends.  One of them invited me to breakfast several days later, looked across the table, and very convincingly suggested I reconsider such a notion.  "You have no business experience, Glen, and owning and operating such a place will distract you from the ministries God has given to you."  My friend's words rang true and splashed the cold water of reality into my face.  We wisely shelved the idea of an Orange Moon Cafe, until…

      Until we decided to send out a daily email devotional.  It occurred to us that we could open an electronic version of our dream.  We already used the Orange Moon as a logo for other pursuits, so it seemed appropriate to incorporate it into the theme of the devotional.  We started sending out the messages to family and a few friends, not knowing it would develop into something beyond our plans and expectations.  I cannot imagine what our lives would have been like without this blessing, and most importantly, without your fellowship and friendship.  It is pure joy to write the messages, and a humbling blessing to know that people we love and respect read them.  You greatly inspire, encourage, and challenge us in our walk with the Lord, and your responses to the messages often greatly illuminate us regarding the wonder of the Lord Jesus and His Truth.

     Through the years, many of you have let us know when you see orange moons.  This blesses us greatly, as does your fellowship and friendship in the Lord Jesus.  We thank Him and we thank you for so many special years in the beauty of His light and His love.  

    Here is the song that began the orange moon theme of our lives and ministry.

Orange Moon

An orange moon rises through the trees tonight

as I think about our time together,

and the promise made so long ago

that we'd gladly share our lives forever.

And I guess we've kept our word,

for the seal is undisturbed.

What is the mystery of the tie that binds,

how burns the flame of love in winter?

And who are we to know with certainty

that a bitter chill can never enter?

 "The twain shall be as one"

is the promise that is written.

(And we dance unfettered through a world

that no one else can see,

my strings, your wind, a perfect blend,

a single melody.

And I'm amazed that I will always be yours,

and you'll be mine.)

The risen moon now casts its pale blue light

on silhouettes lost in each other.

And in silence we communicate much more

than words could ever utter.

For we speak the silent prose,

the language only true love knows.

(And we dance unfettered through a world

that no one else can see,

my strings, your wind, a perfect blend,

a single melody.

And I'm amazed that I will always be yours,

and you'll be mine.)

"Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,

 unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen."

(Ephesians 3:20-21)

Weekly Memory Verse

   Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit.

(Titus 3:5)

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Orange Moon Friday, October 31, 2025 "How Personal?"

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

"How Personal?"    

       

   How personal does God desire to be with us?  This personal.

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

    God the Father smote God "the beloved Son" with His wrath against sin on the cross of Calvary.  "We did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God" (Isaiah 53:4).  This included the abandoning of the Lord Jesus Christ by the Father and the Holy Spirit in personal terms too holy for our ever being able to understand.  The Bible does not include any attempt to explain what occurred in the heart of our Savior when He cried out into the darkest of all nights, and in the most brokenhearted perplexity and sorrow.   It simply tells us that it occurred, and that the hope of our hearts - God's eternally abiding presence - lies in the forsaking of the Lord's heart.  How personal does God desire to be with us?  This personal.

    Of all that can be known about such an aberration in the triune being of God, His desire for relationship and fellowship perhaps shines forth as the brightest of all lights in the darkness.  Indeed, in any moment of our existence, the Holy Spirit assures us that we can come to the Father because the Lord Jesus was left to die alone at Calvary.  

    "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith" (Hebrews 10:19-22).

   We may "draw near" because the Father and the Holy Spirit turned away from the Lord Jesus, "made… to be sin for us" (II Corinthians 5:21).  In our best moments of faith and faithfulness, we come through this highest of all prices paid to provide our approach to the most aptly termed "throne of grace" (Hebrews 4:16).  In our worst moments, we may draw near as we come with repentant hearts, trusting in Christ alone as our access.  We come because They - the Father and the Holy Spirit - left the Lord Jesus to die alone in the fury of God's wrath against our sins.  How personal does God desire to be with you and me?  This personal.

   We tread on the most holy of all grounds as we ponder our freely given relationship and fellowship with God, freely given to us, but made possible by a price we can never begin to fully know.  This holy ground beckons us to our knees and faces, even as it calls us to arise and walk with God in the closest terms of Heart to heart He can provide and we can receive.  How personal?  How personal does our Father desire to be with us in this moment and forever?  This personal: "My God, My God, why?…" makes possible both now nad forever our "My God, My God, I come."

A trail of Blood marks the path

leading to the throne,

where God receives the trusting heart

approaching by His Son.

Without the cross, there could not be

this access freely known.

Without such sorrow, pain, and loss,

we'd have nowhere to go.

Yes, every prayer flows to the Throne

on flood tides of Christ's blood.

We come with grateful, trusting hope,

in wonder of such love…

A trail of Blood marks the path leading to the Throne.

"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God."

(Romans 5:1-2)

Weekly Memory Verse

   Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit.

(Titus 3:5)

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Orange Moon Thursday, October 30, 2025 "Unhappy In Heaven"

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

"Unhappy In Heaven"    

       

    If God allowed one person to enter Heaven by the his own merits and works - which cannot happen - the person would immediately ask to leave.  He would be offended by Heaven's complete devotion to the merits and works of the Lord Jesus Christ, the sole basis for which all saints of God "have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God" (Romans 5:2).

   Sin runs deep in the hearts of all until we trust the Lord Jesus.  It will eternally run deep in the hearts of those who never trust Him, so deep that the lost could never be content in Heaven.  The emphasis there directs all glory and attention to the Lord of all.  No one in Heaven will be infected by the "ye shall be as gods" deception embraced by Adam in the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:5).  "Thou art God alone" will rather echo through the eternal ages from the redeemed to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Psalm 86:10).  Those never redeemed by grace through faith would miserably chafe at the devoted focus on the glory of God.  "And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day" (Isaiah 2:17).

   This truth speaks to our sharing the Gospel in this day.  Whatever the outward characteristics we see in unbelievers regarding attitude, word, and deed, their lostness stems from a heart that desires personal independence.  The thought of Another governing their lives stands as a bridge too far to cross, despite the Gospel's plain declaration of freely given grace in the Lord Jesus.  Deeply within, the lost know that the salvation provided as the freest gift ever given means that their independence and autonomy would dissolve in the moment of the new birth.  The rich young ruler, whose life involved people following him as their sovereign, turned away from the Savior when He called him to "Follow Me" (Matthew 19:16-24).  The ruler loved his delusion of personal authority too much to receive a free gift that would have ended life as he knew and loved it.

    Every unbeliever is that ruler, as we were before we responded to the Holy Spirit's working to lead us to faith in the Lord Jesus.  We therefore emphasize His person and work in our witness, knowing that such a message gets to the heart of the matter of salvation.  The strident atheist thinks what he thinks because of the "ye shall be as gods" deception that governs his heart.  The unbeliever who has been in church all his life and gives mental assent to the Gospel does not truly believe because of the same deception.  Such ones would never be content in Heaven, where the anthem continually rings and sings, "There is one God… There is no other" (I Timothy 2:5; Daniel 3:29). 

     No one will enter Heaven by anything other than the person and work of the Lord Jesus.  The redeemed rejoice forevermore in such grace.  Tragically, the unredeemed could never join in this grace of the freest gift, received only by those who affirm in the words of the beloved hymn, "Nothing in my hands I bring, only to Thy cross I cling!"

"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit."

(Titus 3:5)

Weekly Memory Verse  

    Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit."

(Titus 3:5)

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