Orange Moon Wednesday, November 24, 2021 "A Gratitude More Glorious"

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

   

"A Gratitude More Glorious"  

    The New Testament depicts the Lord Jesus Christ giving thanks to His Father in nine passages, beginning with Matthew 11:25:

   "At that time, Jesus answered and said, I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes."

    Our Savior was the most thankful human being who ever lived.  He confessed complete dependence on the Father - "I live by the Father" - and complete provision by the Father - All things are delivered unto Me by My Father" (John 6:57; Luke 10:22).  Thus, the nine offerings of thanksgiving recorded doubtless serve as a mere glimmer of the glory that daily shone as the Son bowed heart and head to give thanks to His Father.   

   How wonderful it would have been to have witnessed the Lord Jesus pray, especially prayers of gratitude.  No such window of the past exists.  Wondrously, however, we may peer through an open and perhaps unexpected portal of the present to behold the Son offering gratitude to the Father.

    "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba Father" (Galatians 4:6).

    Greek scholars do not know the exact meaning of the term, "Abba."  They do know, however, it denotes a personal expression of devotion from one heart to another.  Such loving communication surely involves thanksgiving.   Thus, a grateful Lord Jesus dwells in believers by His Spirit.  Every sincere offering of thanks to our Heavenly Father ascends to the throne of God not only as the expression of our hearts, but as united with the very heart of our Savior.  Born again believers do not exist as merely ourselves, but as living spiritual temples inhabited, illuminated, inspired, and infused by the very life of Christ Himself.  "Christ liveth in me" exulted Paul (Galatians 2:20).  We must rejoice with our brother in this light of  "Christ in you, them hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).  Moreover, we marvel at the thought of a united gratitude - our Savior's and our own - that blesses the heart of our Father when we look toward Heaven with humble and sincere thanksgiving.  "The prayer of the upright is His delight" (Proverbs 15:8).

   This makes thanksgiving much more than we may realize.  We must  be supernaturally empowered if we are to give thanks genuinely, sincerely, effectually, and in a manner that blesses our Father's heart even as it illuminates our own.  The Spirit of Christ provides such grace.  "We live through Him" declared the Apostle John (I John 4:9).  This certainly includes our offerings of thanksgiving to God that soar to Him from our hearts, as borne on the wings of our Savior (I John 4:9).  The next prayer of thanks we express to God the Father will be graced by God the Son, as led and enabled by God the Holy Spirit.   Yes, thanksgiving involves a gratitude more glorious than time and eternity will ever fully tell…

"By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His Name." 

(Hebrews 13:15)

Weekly Memory Verse

   The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

(Galatians 3:24)

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Orange Moon Tuesday, November 23, 2021. "Heavenly Certainty"

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

"Heavenly Certainty"  

    My wife Frances once said, both wisely and profoundly, "We have more certainty about Heaven than we do about this life."

   "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, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:4-9).

    Note the assurances written by the Apostle Paul, which confirm Frances's affirmation of Heavenly certainties.

    First, God quickens (enlivens) all who trust the Lord Jesus Christ.  Couple this with Paul's teaching that the believer, once made spiritually alive in Christ, can never die again, and the most blessed Heavenly peace assures our hearts (Romans 6:9-11).

   Consider also the Apostle's affirmation of salvation by grace.  If our redemption rested upon any other foundation than God's freely given pardon and acceptance through the Person and work of the Lord Jesus, we could and would have no assurance of Heaven.  Through Him, however, all who believe can rest in another Apostle's blessed affirmation, "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life" (I John 5:13).

   Wondrously, Paul also teaches that a part of us, the very spiritual heart of us, has already ascended to "sit together in Heavenly places in Christ" (Ephesians 2:6).  Certainly, this constitutes much mystery.  No one completely understands what Paul meant by this.  However, we do know that purely spiritual realities transcend time and space.  Thus, the believer can be sure of Heaven because in some manner, a part of us is already there.  Indeed, how could we "come boldly to the throne of grace," as the writer of Hebrews commands believers, if we did not have proximity to that Heavenly seat whereupon sits the risen Lord Jesus? (Hebrews 4:16).

   Finally, Paul emphasizes salvation as a gift, the freest gift ever given, purchased by the highest cost ever remitted.  We do not pay our way into Heaven.  We do not work our way into Heaven.  We do not sacrifice our way into Heaven.  All such means of human endeavor would fail us utterly and disastrously.  No assurance  could proceed from any other way than…

   

    "I am the way… Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way….  Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them" (John 14:6; Hebrews 10:19-20; 7:25).

   From Eden onward, the world has quaked with increasing uncertainty.  It's quaking now.  "The world passeth away" (I John 2:17).  Through it all, Heaven and its Lord have remained perfectly still and perfectly stable.  Look nowhere else for such certainty.  Paul, John, and yes, Frances, unite to remind us of such truth, and direct born again believers toward the Christ who is Himself the home of our hearts.  We will not find such such a place, or such a grace, anywhere else.  Nor do we need to…

"Our conversation (citizenship) is in Heaven."

(Philippians 3:20)

"Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear."

(Hebrews 12:28)

Weekly Memory Verse

   The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

(Galatians 3:24)

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Orange Moon Monday, November 22, 2021 "Code Or Christ?"

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

   

"Code Or Christ?"  

    Every human being, through the influence of heritage, upbringing, culture, education, and circumstance, adopts some form of moral code by which to live.  We set out  to establish our own righteousness (Romans 10:3).  The parameters run the gamut, from "I will do whatever I want that pleases me," to "I will seek to live by the spiritual and moral code of the Bible."  Most human attempts to implement our own standard of life fall somewhere in between the extremes.  Regardless of which code is chosen, one common trait characterizes all.  Failure.

   "The letter killeth" (II Corinthians 3:6).  The Apostle Paul refers to the law of Moses, the best of all moral and ethical standards because it is God's own guideline for character and behavior.  "The law is holy and just and good… Unto them (the Jews) were committed the oracles of God" (Romans 7:12; 3:2).  

     Israel began its determination to keep the code with the exultant, "All that the Lord hath spoken, we will do!"  However, before Moses  descended from Mt. Sinai with the tablets upon which God engraved His tenets, the Jews had already violated the first command by forging a pagan idol to worship (Exodus 19:8; 32:1-4).  This should have told Israel all it needed to know about seeking to relate to God by the law.  It should also tell anyone who reads the account how impossible it is for fallen human beings to live up to the standards of any code of morality, be it God's or our own.   The letter kills, not because there is anything wrong with God's law, but because it was given to expose rather than cure our our truest need (Galatians 3:24).  Indeed, the law was a diagnostician that could not treat spiritual and moral illness, but rather direct us unto the Surgeon who can.

    "The Spirit giveth life" (II Corinthians 3:6)  Humanity has a heart problem.  No code can solve this dilemma.   Christ can, however, and He does in all who freely receive His saving grace.

   "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Romans 8:2-4).

   "The law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope, by the which we draw nigh unto God" (Hebrews 7:19).

   A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you" promised the Lord to Israel long ago, referencing the national redemption still yet to come (Ezekiel 36:26).  Such personal redemption, however, already graces the born again believer in the Lord Jesus.   "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.  Old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new" (II Corinthians 5:17).  In the wondrous moment of the new birth, the Spirit of God enters the trusting heart to birth a "new man, created in righteousness and true holiness" (Ephesians 4:24).  God begins a work of transformative grace not from the outside in (as under law or code), but from the inside out.  God changes our hearts by inhabiting them, and by spiritually rebirthing the essence of who we are in newness of life.  Therein, we are not who we were.  Rather than lifeless and frustrated adherents of code, we are forevermore living temples of Christ, who "is our life" (Colossians 3:4).

    Of course, we still live in tents of flesh prone to be tossed by the winds of both legalism and licentiousness.  Legalism addresses our current consideration (with no intent meant to minimize licentiousness).  The flesh of even the most godly believer remains prone to transform our walk with God into something less than living relationship and fellowship with Him.  This always leads to frustration (see Paul's Romans 7 experience).  Indeed, many commands of "do" and "don't" grace the pages of the New Testament, mandates meant to be taken with utmost seriousness.  We seek to obey them, however, as sons and daughters of a loving Father, united to His faithful Son, and empowered by the ever-present and active Holy Spirit.  Indeed, believers live for God by living from God.  The moment we view ourselves and our lives in any lesser perspective is the moment we set ourselves up for the inevitable failure and frustration that proceeds from forgetting the Life our lives.  No code or ethic can replace the Christ who dwells in us by His Spirit, and who infuses our hearts with the motivation and enabling that proceeds from His living presence.

    

"To live is Christ."

(Philippians 1:21)

"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure."

(Philippians 2:12-13)

Weekly Memory Verse

   The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

(Galatians 3:24)

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