Orange Moon Friday, August 1, 2025 "The Truths We Love"

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

"The Truths We Love" 

   

    

   In our memory verse for the week, the Psalmist declares his hatred for thoughts that do not factor the presence and working of God in our lives and in all things.  Even more, he affirms his love for the revelation of God and His truth.

    "I hate vain thoughts, but Thy law do I love" (Psalm 119:113).

    "Vain thoughts" include any notion crossing our mind that contradicts our Lord's promise to be with us always, and to work all things together for good for those who love Him (Romans 8:28).  Scripture promises God's pointed and universal involvement in the entirety of our life experience, a truth often hard to perceive by our natural senses and understanding.  The Holy Spirit, however, works incessantly in the hearts of born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ to assure us that our Heavenly Father keeps His promises.  This includes His presence, purpose, and power regarding every moment of our eternal existence in this life and forevermore.  "I am with you always" declared the Lord Jesus of His dynamically active determination to be and do what we need in all things, at all times, and in every contingency (Matthew 28:20).

    "Thy law do I love" affirmed the Psalmist, a confidence profoundly enhanced in born again believers who know the "grace and truth" of the Lord Jesus (John 1:17).  We love a much fuller revelation of God's freely given presence and working, which includes His permanently abiding Holy Spirit given as the Life of our lives.  We will encounter no moment in which He is not present and active, although many moments tempt us with the vanity to perceive otherwise.  God allows our spiritual enemies to challenge us with "vain thoughts."  Even more, He works to empower our overcoming of them: 

    "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" (II Corinthians 10:4-5).

   Any notion that courses through our minds contrary to the countless Biblical assurances of God's faithful presence and working must be viewed as a hateful thing.  We do this by affirming the truths we love, namely, "the exceeding great and precious promises" that cannot be broken, promises declared by One who "cannot lie" (II Peter 1:4; Titus 1:2).  We do well to hate even a seemingly passing thought contrary to God and His Word.  We do even better to love and saturate ourselves with the grace and truth of the Lord Jesus, whereby we discover the truth so beautifully proclaimed by the prophet…

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee."

(Isaiah 26:3)

"How precious also are Thy thoughts unto me, O God!"

(Psalm 139:17)

Weekly Memory Verse 

    I hate vain thoughts, but Thy law do I love.

(Psalm 119:113)

7542

 

Orange Moon Thursday, July 31, 2025 "Good"

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

"Good" 

   

    

   Gather the finest hearts and minds of human history, give them 1,000 years to contemplate, consider together, and formulate an answer.  Then watch them fall to their knees in utter failure to more than begin to offer findings regarding what might appear to be as simple a statement as exists in the pages of the Bible…

    "The Lord is good" (Psalm 100:5).

    Infinite goodness comprises the being and nature of the living and true God of Scripture.  Regardless of how wondrous we discover our Lord to be in His Word and our personal experience of Him, an endless voyage into the glory of His heart awaits us.  Perfect unselfishness forms His being and guides His every word and action.  "Charity (love)… seeketh not her own" (I Corinthians 13:4; 5).  Whether in the bestowal of grace or the administration of judgment, God acts in perfect altruism and devotion to others.  He cannot be or do otherwise as the darkness of egoism has no place in the glory of who He is.

    The Lord Jesus Christ, of course, most revealed the nature of the triune God during His earthly lifetime.

    "He that sent Me is with Me: the Father hath not left Me alone; for I do always those things that please Him" (John 8:29).

    "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but minister and give His life a ransom for many" (John 20:28).

   The Lord Jesus did all He did devotion to His Father and to us, overcoming every temptation to selfishness He experienced during a lifetime of devilish and worldly challenge (Hebrews 4:15).  In so doing, He revealed the guiding motivation of otherness in God.  "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9).  The beauty of such a life graces the pages of Scripture to reveal the eternal glory of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in their devotion to one another, which now manifests in the love of God for us.

    "Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me: for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world… And I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them" (John 17:24; 26).

    Of all that we can know about God, nothing more sanctifies us.  "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).  Our Lord defined the essence of His glory when Moses asked to see it.  "I will make all My goodness pass before thee" He answered (Exodus 33:19; emphasis added).  Wondrously, the glory of such sublime wonder now not only passes before believers, but dwells within us.  "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us" (Romans 5:5).  Thereby, we find the goodness of our Lord in the most unlikely venue of all, as the Apostle Paul testified, "It pleased God… to reveal His Son in me" (Galatians 1:15-16).  How good is God?  We will never fully know.  However, that He dwells within us to reveal His goodness, made possible through the most sorrowful of all sacrifices, surely tells us that our journey of discovery into His glory - His goodness - will never end.  

   A final thought.  I do not remember it often enough, but sometimes when I pray, a thought occurs to me.  "I am communicating with a Being of such infinite goodness that no selfish thought has ever found a place in His heart or mind."  Upon every such consideration, I pause and think, "How can I even utter a word to such a One?"  But then I remember that God in His goodness beckons me to do so.  The prayers that follow are never as they would have been apart from the remembrance of so simple a statement - the Lord is good - which bears a wonder so glorious that we will never more than begin to know its infinite measure.  

 

"Oh, how great is Thy goodness!"

(Psalm 31:19)

Weekly Memory Verse 

    I hate vain thoughts, but Thy law do I love.

(Psalm 119:113)

7541

 

Orange Moon Wednesday, July 30, 2025 “The Owner and Sole Proprietor”

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

"The Owner and Sole Proprietor"

  

   

    

   Peace ensues when we realize we do not belong to ourselves - a foolish and ill-fated notion - but rather to the One who made us, and who alone can effectually care for His own.

"I am Thine."

(Psalm 119:94)

    When Adam and Eve embraced the lie that "ye shall be as gods," the delusion and illusion of personal ownership and autonomy infected the heart of humanity (Genesis 3:5).  In a creation originated and sustained by God, and which relies upon Him in every second for continued existence, only one owner can be known as "the possessor of heaven and earth" (Colossians 1:17; Genesis 14:22).  Angels belong to Him, human beings belong to Him, and everything that exists belongs to Him.

    "The earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein" (Psalm 24:1).

   This factual reality forever abides, whether we know and embrace it or not.  Our personal experience of reality, however, ebbs and flows in accordance with how well we affirm within our hearts that "ye are not your own" (I Corinthians 6:19).  Wisdom decrees that we  build and frequently return to the heart altar whereupon we sacrifice any notion that we bear the capacity to own and govern ourselves.  Thereby, we progressively walk in truth and reality rather than illusion and delusion.  The Psalmist's "I am thine" must pave the path of our lives, the only way of peace our feet can find, and the only haven of rest our hearts can know.  "I trusted in Thee, o Lord. I said, Thou art my God" (Psalm 31:14).

    Look for no peace apart from the growing realization of God as the sole proprietor of all things, and of ourselves.  Expect much peace as we remember and affirm that "we are His" (Psalm 100:3).  Moreover, born again believers belong to God personally, as part of His family through the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ as the indwelling life of our lives (Galatians 4:6).  This is peace indeed, the only peace possible in a lifetime and eternity where we joyfully acknowledge to the Owner and Sole Proprietor, "I am Thine."

"Yield yourselves unto God as those which are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God."

(Romans 6:13)

Weekly Memory Verse 

    I hate vain thoughts, but Thy law do I love.

(Psalm 119:113)

7540