The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
“In Him"
Part 2 - This Moment
While far beyond our complete understanding, the realization that “in Him we live and move and have our being” can have great impact on any moment in which the truth comes to heart and mind (Acts 17:28; Matthew 27:46).
“To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Romans 8:6).
Consider this moment. What if earthly conditions, circumstances, and situations - real and consequential as they are - are not actually the primary reality in which we exist? What if God Himself serves that role? He does, of course, although we cannot presently see, hear, or touch Him. Moreover, His presence and working often greatly transcend our understanding - “His ways are past finding out” (Romans 11:33).
Consider the cross on which the Lord Jesus Christ died. Had we been a passerby, our first impression, along with many others to follow, would not have suggested a moment infused with God’s wondrous redemptive working. It appeared, in fact, as just the opposite. “If Thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross” mocked those who witnessed that which carnal mindedness could never rightly perceive (Matthew 27:40). The Lord did not descend from the cross because His presence there served as the most necessary of God’s workings in human history. Our Heavenly Father was there as the primary agent, executing wrath against His beloved Son, “made to be sin for us” (II Corinthians 5:21). Calvary was a moment like no other, filled with God even as He forsook His Son for us. At the time, however, we would not have viewed it in this light of the most brightly shining glory of grace and mercy.
Whatever this moment holds, it is itself held by the God who “worketh all things after the counsel of His own will” (Ephesians 1:11). We waste little time seeking to understand His ways “past finding out.” We spend much time seeking to believe the truth that no moment of either time or eternity will be found without the living and true God as its prime reality. We “live and move and have our being” in this wonder of our existence, and for the believer, in God’s presence and working that constitutes the very Life of our lives. “To live is Christ” declared the Apostle Paul (Philippians 1:21). It is. He is. The remembrance transforms our moments with our Lord’s promised “life and peace.” As it will this moment if we will by faith “see Him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:27).
“Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea. Even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from Thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to Thee. For Thou hast possessed my reins: Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.”
(Psalm 139:5-13)
Weekly Memory Verse
Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
(Romans 6:11)
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