If your trick-or-treating days are over, come hear Buck 25 (aka Dan/Joe/Paul/Amy/Sam) play at Jameson Brown Coffee Roasters in Pasadena. Admission is free. Costumes are optional. Don’t miss special guests Alex Puelma and Steve Kuchenski, as well as Dan’s much-talked-about Bono impression.
Beginning July 19th, I will be leading worship for the 11:15 service at Sierra Madre Cong. Church. Brenda and I are very happy to have found a new church home, and have loved getting to know many of the welcoming and gracious people at that place. If you are in southern California, come visit us sometime.
“SEVEN LAST WORDS”
© 2005 Daniel Radmacher
When Jesus Christ upon the cross did hang,
Seven last words He spoke with dying breath,
Seven times with faltering voice, harangued
By lookers on, love interrupted death.
Lingering where no soul would dare be stayed
He paused between His life and death to free
These words, and grace to sinking souls conveyed:
Helpless they, Helper He, suspended on the tree.
As death determined coursed His emptying veins,
Our Lord’s last will and testament was read.
Seven last words He spoke, writhing in pain;
Let us consider well the things He said.
Brenda and Drake at the Huntington Library
Courage. In my entire life, I have never heard a sermon preached on courage. And yet, exhortations to courage permeate the psalms. Why don’t we ever preach about it? I believe that we tend to think of courage in human terms—as the confidence and the mental muscle that we can muster from our own strength when faced with adversity. But I believe that biblical courage is different. Biblical courage seems often to be connected with waiting upon the Lord for what He will provide, bolstered by a confidence of what we have seen Him do in the past. When we experience God’s providence in our lives, it is always a reassuring and faith-building exercise. We come away from it rejoicing, our strength redoubled, and our confidence in our Creator greatly increased. But in the wake of these exultations, we can often begin to confuse providence with permanence, thinking that when God has worked in a particularly wonderful way, His providence will never change. Interestingly, change is essential to growth, and it is our growth that is of top priority to the Holy Spirit. We can become addicted to the comfort of providence, but without the discomfort of change, we simply will not grow.
