Joe Barnett

You were dead in your transgressions and sins.       —Ephesians 2:1 Unemployed, addicted, and deeply in debt, Ohio resident Donald Miller went on the lam in 1986, leaving behind a wife and two children. He was declared legally dead in 1994. He reappeared in 2005, discovered that he had been declared dead, and […]

Trust in the Lord and do good.                 —Psalm 37:3 Your mindset determines how you deal with life, and how you deal with life determines the outcome of life. Put your mind to it we’re told, and you can accomplish anything. “As you think, so shall you become,”

Love the Lord your God.            —Mark 12:30 In A General Theory of Love, authors Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon wrote: “Where intellect and emotion clash, the heart often has the greatest wisdom . . . Who we are and who we become depends on whom we love.” Recitation

Lay aside every weight, and sin.                —Hebrews 12:1 Back in my Junior High days, there was a two-panel ad that was burned into every adolescent’s psyche. The first panel pictured a bully kicking sand in a scrawny weakling’s face. The second panel pictured the wimp, morphed into a

They did not understand.                 —Luke 9:45 “Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you,” Jesus said. The disciples listened . . . but “they did not understand” (Lk 9:44, 45). Sometimes our spiritual journey takes us down a path marked “Unknown,” which activates an exasperated,

Be moved to treat one another as more important than yourself.               —Philippians 2:3 Political campaigns bring out the worst in people: slander is rampant, character is vilified, truth is distorted. You wouldn’t let a ten-year-old get away with the name-calling and finger-pointing that litters the campaign trail. Candidates

When David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep.                          —Acts 13:36 If there had been just one different husband-wife match-up in your genealogical tree, you wouldn’t be here. But here you are! At this specific time, in this specific

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed.                                    —Romans 4:18 We see faith at its finest when we watch the heavyhearted Abraham pack his sacrificial gear and with his son in tow begin the three-day trek to Moriah to

We will be saved through him from God’s wrath.       —Romans 5:9 Human anger and Divine anger have nothing in common. Human anger is explosive, uncontrolled, and sometimes dangerous. You’ve seen people blow their top—it’s not pretty; you keep your distance. Human anger is usually self-centered, the fuse most often lit by real

Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus.            —Romans 1:1 For a Roman citizen—which Paul was—to identify himself as a slave would shock his proud Roman readers out of their sandals. Nevertheless, the first word he used to describe himself when he wrote a letter to the Romans was “slave”—“Paul, a slave