Orange Moon Wednesday, May 28, 2025 "Resurrections"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"Resurrections"  

    

 

     "Our conversation (citizenship) is in Heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself" (Philippians 3:20-21).

    The Apostle Paul references the future glorification of born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ by his assurance of the salvation of our entire being.  The Apostle John concurs: "We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (I John 3:2).  The entirety of our being - spirit, soul, and body - will be infused with our Lord's living and vital presence, perfectly recognized in ourselves as the very Life of our lives.  

    Presently, however, Paul also promises a limited experience of our "vile body" being changed into likeness to Christ's glorious body:

    "If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken (enliven) your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you" (Romans 8:10-11).

    The body of the believer is "dead because of sin" for two primary reasons.  First, it does not yet dwell in the direct presence of the life of Christ, as does our spirit.  "This mortal must put on immortality" declared Paul of our body (I Corinthians 15:53).  It therefore requires enlivening for even the simplest act of obedience to God.  The body is also inhabited by a "law of sin" that will always cause our earthly faculties to act contrary to God's will if left to themselves.  "I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members" (Romans 7:23).  Thankfully, the Apostle assures that our fleshly death can be enlivened by the Holy Spirit as we trust and submit to God.   Thereby, the body that would of itself be vile in its actions becomes glorious through the presence and working of "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).

   Consider the temptation to act selfishly.  Rather than walk after the law of sin in our flesh, we choose in our hearts to trust and submit unto God.  The Holy Spirit thereby leads us to act in the unselfish love of Christ.  A resurrection occurs as the body "dead because of sin" is enlivened to walk in a manner that reflects the character and nature of the risen Lord Jesus.  We may not perceive the matter in such terms, and the resurrection of our bodies occurs so quietly that we do not perceive the wondrous miracle of every obedient act.  The resurrection and the miracle occur nonetheless as the glory that began in our Lord's tomb becomes the glory that proceeds as the tomb of our body "dead because of sin" becomes the scene of the risen Christ yet again overcoming death by His life within us.

    Trillions of acts of faith and obedience have been performed by believers during the history of the church.  All have involved a resurrection.  From the simple offering of thanks before a meal to the martyr's sacrifice, obedience occurs because the Holy Spirit enlivens the earthly members and faculties of believers to "walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16).  We play a role in the wonder, the role of realizing that our Lord's resurrection so long ago bears present and powerfully vital impact in our hearts and lives.   In spirit, we are "risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God" (Colossians 2:12).  In body, we can be infused with our Lord's risen life whereby we think, speak, act, and relate in a manner that reveals the Lord Jesus is risen from the dead not only concerning the tomb just outside Jerusalem, but in the temple we are as the scene of His risen life.

"What is the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead." 

(Ephesians 1:19)

"Now is Christ risen from the dead… I will dwell in them and walk in them."
(I Corinthians 15:20; II Corinthians 6:16)

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, May 27, 2025 "Confidence... No Confidence

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"Confidence… No Confidence"  

    

 

     "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).

     

   "We are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh" (Philippians 3:3).

    "Being confident" and "have no confidence" lines the path of righteousness for born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.  We live more confidently than those who do not know the Savior, while at the same time confessing complete lack of confidence in our human faculties and abilities apart from His grace.

   Consider a task for which we seem naturally suited and have often skillfully performed.  Why the success?  Have we found a way to live apart from God's presence and working?  We might think so because we plan and execute the action by abilities that may seem inherently of ourselves.  If, however, God choses to withhold the "life and breath and all things" He gives to all, would our doings have been possible? (Acts 17:25).  Hardly.  Moreover, as believers, the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit infuses supernatural grace to enable our accomplishments.  "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" declared the Apostle Paul (Philippians 4:13; emphasis added).  Paul clearly suggests that even the most everyday and natural tasks performed by believers are subject to God's guidance, motivation, and enabling.  We may not consciously perceive such grace moving upon or within us.  However, if we regularly pray for the Lord to lead and enable us, He infuses the life of Christ to our doings, whether we sense His moving within us or not.  Paul could not have been clearer in affirming the entirety of our lives as subject to the enabling of divine life: "Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come" (I Timothy 4:8).

   In such blessed light of a life lived through Christ, we confidently affirm His enabling and our ability to act therefrom.  We also humbly assign a "no confidence" acknowledgment regarding our abilities apart from the Lord's empowering of them.  We affirm confidence in Him and in ourselves and abilities - as performed through Him.  We confess no confidence in supposed abilities we may be tempted to perceive as of our own making.   Both sensibilities form the conviction of believers who remember the words of the Lord Jesus - without Me, ye can do nothing - and the confession of Paul - "I can do all things through Christ which strengthenth me" (John 15:5).

"We also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you."

(II Corinthians 13:4)

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, May 26, 2025 "Changed"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"Changed"  

    

 

     How did the "Hebrew of the Hebrews" become "the apostle of the Gentiles?" (Philippians 3:5; Romans 11:13).  Paul tells us.

    "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us" (Romans 5:5).

     Heritage and experience taught the apostle to hate Gentiles.  Salvation and the indwelling presence of God completely changed Paul's heart and disposition.  Just as no one would have expected Saul of Tarsus to believe the Gospel, no one could have imagined Paul of the Lord Jesus Christ to devote his life - and ultimately sacrifice his life - to those he would have before wished dead.  "I will send thee far hence to the Gentiles" said the Lord to Paul.  "I will go unto the Gentiles" responded Paul (Acts 22:21; 18:6).  He went through the presence and working of the Christ who went with, and even more importantly, within him.  "He that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles" (Galatians 2:8).

   If ever we wonder about change in our own lives, Paul serves as a shining example of its possibility.  The unbeliever can be so transformed that "alienated from the life of God" becomes "accepted in the Beloved" (Ephesians 4:18; 1:6).  The believer lives in ongoing change as God works to conform us to the spiritual and moral image of the Lord Jesus (Romans 8:28-29).  While perhaps not as openly dramatic as Paul's experience, the presence and power of God no less works in every Christian to cause difference in how we think, believe, speak, act, and relate.  The process is ongoing, including in this day.  Whether obvious or obscure, the Holy Spirit presently works in us to change us more and more into Christ's likeness, through Christ's love.  "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).  Paul knew such grace, and communicates by both example and teaching that we can - and must - know the same.  "Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more" (I Thessalonians 4:1).

    Paul died in service to those he would before have slain.  The Hebrew of the Hebrews became the apostle of the Gentiles.  This constitutes an utterly, completely miraculous marvel of grace.  The Lord Jesus made the wondrous difference in Paul, just as He can in us.  Let us believe that God works in us no less to transform our hearts and lives.  He does, and as we anticipate by faith His ongoing process of change, we will find Him faithful to do, as in Paul, what only He can do.

"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)

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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