Orange Moon Wednesday, December 17, 2025 “Exceeding, Abundantly Above”

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

   

"Exceeding, Abundantly Above"         

    

     Our prayers of request do not begin to measure up to God's answers.

      "Now unto Him that is able to do exceedingly, 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).

    Our smallest supplication results in God's spectacular working to answer.  Of course, it does not look this way in most of what He does because our "ask or think" as finite beings is so minuscule in comparison to how our Heavenly Father supplies even the tiniest crumb or morsel in response to "give us this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11).  The confirmation?

    "But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19).

   The Apostle Paul's declaration of how God provides for every need shines as one of those Scriptural lights that blinds even as it illuminates.  "All your need… riches in glory… by Christ Jesus."  Let us allow the magnitude of such grace to take our breath away.  When God supplies the crumb and the morsel, He does so from "the unsearchable riches of Christ" (Ephesians 3:8).  I have pondered this truth for nearly a half century, sought to pray according to its measure, preached it, written it, and believed it.  However, I barely know what it means.  I do know this, however.  God's answers to our prayers transcend every word we utter and every thought we think.  Paul clearly suggests that the crumb comes with Christ, as it were, and from His riches in glory.  The price of such provision?  

    "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32).

    Of all that the promise we consider means, the cost of its provision most confirms how abundantly our Heavenly Father answers even the simplest request.  Indeed, the next prayer to which He responds will be answered because He did not respond when the Lord Jesus cried out in the agony of abandonment, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46).  How could the measure of provision not be "exceeding, abundantly above all we ask or think" in light of the "exceeding, abundantly above all we ask or think" price that purchased it?  

    We see so very little of what our Father does in answering the simplest prayer.  We must know by faith, however, that the tiniest morsel comes to us accompanied by marvels of mercy even eternity will not fully reveal.  We cannot begin to "ask or think" in accordance with the measure our Father supplies and provides.  The cost of His answers "by Christ Jesus" bears witness to such grace, and to the privilege and responsibility of the gift, the gift of prayer, we can only begin to understand and practice.

"Call unto Me, and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not."

(Jeremiah 33:3)

Weekly Memory Verse

     "Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not?   For riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven."

(Proverbs 23:5)

7665