Orange Moon Wednesday, August 3, 2022 "The Promise of Life"

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

"The Promise of Life"

    

     Nicodemus came to the Lord Jesus Christ to be taught.

    "Rabbi, we know that Thou art a teacher come from God" (John 3:2).

    The Lord Jesus, however, declared to Nicodemus that he needed life.  "Ye must be born again" (John 3:7).  Indeed, no one can know who Christ is, or understand His words apart from the Holy Spirit's revelation and illumination.  "The things of God knoweth no man save the Spirit of God" (I Corinthians 2:11).  

    Scripture indicates that Nicodemus responded well to the Lord Jesus' counsel (John 19:39).  Thus, He received the promise of the Holy Spirit, fulfilled after the Savior's death, resurrection, and ascension.  He was spiritually born again thereby, as is every sinner who has believed the Gospel since the day of Pentecost and been birthed into "newness of life" (Romans 6:4).  

   "But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name" (John 20:31).

   

   Scripture commands that believers view ourselves as "alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 6:11).  This involves the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit who spiritually birthed us, and who leads, motivates, and empowers us by living within us.  "I will dwell in them and walk in them" (II Corinthians 6:16).  This life imparts more than simply presence, as wonderful as that is.  It also provides power, the power of God that makes possible a life of faith and faithfulness.  In fact, the Apostle Paul declares "the power that worketh in us" to be "exceeding, abundantly above all we ask or think" (Ephesians 3:20).

   Do we believe "the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus" regarding our walk with God, as we believed when we were born again? (II Timothy 2:1).  We must.  A life - the indwelling life of Christ Himself - is a terrible thing to waste.  The New Testament resounds and redounds the assurance to believers that we need not - we must not - seek to live the Christian life by our own devices.  "We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead" (II Corinthians 1:9).  The risen Christ dwells within us through the presence of the Holy Spirit.  He will walk in us as we believe "the promise of life," and as we submit ourselves to Him in confidence of His leading and enabling.

   Nicodemus would joyfully tell us of the salvation that spiritually birthed him into the family of God.  He would tell us more of the life he lived thereafter through the indwelling life of Christ.  The same is true in all who trust the Lord Jesus.  God gave Himself to our hearts when we believed, imparting the blessedness of His presence, and the enabling of His power whereby the birth of life leads to the walk of life.  Yes, the Spirit of God lives in us that we may live through Him, fulfilling the promise, the promise of life in Christ Jesus.

"In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him."

(I John 4:9)

Weekly Memory Verse

   Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6)

   

   

   

  

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Orange Moon Tuesday, August 2, 2022 "Our Hearts Came Home"

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

"Our Hearts Came Home"

    

     Born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ exist as citizens of a Heavenly, eternal realm, while still living in the temporal venue of space, time, and matter.

    "But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:4-6).

    Our born again spirits, declared by the Apostle Paul to be united with the Spirit of God, dwell in our Lord's transcendent reality of the forever and the beyond.  "He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit… Ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you" (I Corinthians 6:17; Romans 8:9).  On first consideration, this may seem a fanciful notion that, while true, has little effect on our journey along the dusty paths of the fallen world in which we live.  Nothing, however, could be further from the truth.

    "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit" (Galatian 5:25).

    Every prayer we offer in sincerity and truth involves steps in our "walk in the Spirit."  Every reading of Scripture whereby we commune with our Heavenly Father and seek to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus involves our heart realizing its truest and most blessed home.  Fellowship with other believers transports our attention to the realm above "where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God," and where we spiritually "sit together with Him."  All acts of faith and faithfulness flow from eternal realities that indwell our spirits by Heaven's Holy Spirit.  Yes, a part of us, the very heart of us, already dwells in far nearer proximity to our Lord and His Heaven than we often realize or consider, but which we nevertheless experience day by day in our walk with Him.  "To live is Christ… we walk by faith, not by sight" (Philippians 1:21; II Corinthians 5:7).

    Little wonder that Paul calls us to "set your affection on things above" (Colossians 3:2).  While we still live in human tents of flesh yet to be glorified, and while we must responsibly address earthly matters, "Above" is home, the home of our spirits united with the Spirit of the Lord Jesus.  The realization, while beyond complete understanding, bears great weight and empowering influence in our walk with the eternal God, even as we dwell in time and space.  Yes, our hearts came home when they came to Him.  Remembering and affirming the blessed truth goes far in our walk upon the earth, illuminated by the light of our Heavenly habitation…

"O Lord, Thou hast been our dwellingplace in all generations."

(Psalm 90:1) 

Weekly Memory Verse

   Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6)

   

   

   

  

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Orange Moon Monday, August 1, 2022 "Faith To Faith"

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

"Faith To Faith"

    

   "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith" (Romans 1:16-17).

    The verb tenses of the original Greek in the Apostle Paul's declaration of the Gospel and faith all indicate an ongoing power administered, and an ongoing reception thereof.  That which began in the new birth through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ initiates a perpetual process of God's revelation of faithfulness and our responsive confidence in Him.  Indeed, we became spiritually alive by His grace received by faith.  We then seek to walk accordingly.

  

    "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him" (Colossians 2:6).

   We exist in a fellowship with God that involves perfect faithfulness - His - and what should and must be an ever growing faithful response - ours.  The former is certain; the latter is not.  Our Heavenly Father will always be who He is and do what He does for us and within us.  Conversely, we do not always engage in our "faith to faith" calling to consistently respond to His provision of "grace for grace" (John 1:16).

    "Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6).

    "If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful: He cannot deny Himself" (II Timothy 2:13).

   The contrast of His perfection and our need for growth leads to an inevitable conclusion: we must look to our Lord for light and insight in what it means to be faithful.  Moreover, we look to Him for ongoing provision of grace that we might trust Him through increasing responses of faith.  He alone can teach us about trustworthiness.  He alone exemplifies perfect faithfulness.  He alone dwells within us through the Holy Spirit to empower our growing consistency of steadfast loyalty to our bond with Him.  Thus, we must live for Him by living from Him.

   "We shall live with Him by the power of God" (II Corinthians 13:4).

    The Apostle Paul powerfully and succinctly proclaimed this blessed truth of grace that reveals our growing faithfulness proceeds from the realization of God's perfect faithfulness.  We close in the joyous light of His trustworthiness as the fount of our own …

"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)

"Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.  For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds."(Hebrews 12:2-3).

Weekly Memory Verse

   "Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." (Philippians 1:6)

   

   

   

  

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