Joe Barnett

[M]ay the whole earth be filled with his glory.   —Psalm 72:19 After viewing earth from space, Payload Specialist Charles Walker said: “I felt strangely unfulfilled. Here was a tremendous visual spectacle, but viewed in silence. There was no grand musical accompaniment, no triumphant, inspired sonata or symphony. Each one of us must write the […]

I know my sheep and my sheep know me.                             —John 10:14 “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” These words, written by Anna Warner in 1860, quickly became, and remain, one of the best-known and most-loved

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?                    —Matthew 27:46 In Gethsemane Jesus prayed to be delivered from the agonizing ordeal coming at him. Silence. A few hours later he was impaled on a cross. “He trusts in God,” slanderers sneered; “let God deliver him

[I]n Christ all will be made alive.            —1 Corinthians 15:22 Trust is tested when the cold winds of sorrow and loneliness blindside you. The words of the hymn ’Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus were written in the darkest hours of Louisa Stead’s life. Her husband drowned, attempting to

Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor.                   —1 Chronicles 29:11 God didn’t allow King David to build the temple, but he let him warehouse a large inventory of priceless supplies that his son Solomon would

[T]he Lord has assigned to each his task.                    —1 Corinthians 3:5 According to a 2012 Reader’s Digest article, contacts in a national survey were asked to finish this sentence: “For one day, I would like to trade places with . . .” Here are some of

Come and share your master’s happiness!                      —Matthew 25:23 Jesus pitched a parable about a rich man who packed his bags, consigned his property to three servants, and headed out the door. When he returned and reviewed their Reports, he scorched one, but praised two: “Well

[Y]our sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother . . . and in your mother.                    —2 Timothy 1:5 There will be a final harvest, Jesus said; the weeds will be burned, and the wheat put in the barn (Mt 13:30). When this planet pulls into

Where can I flee from your presence?                  —Psalm 139:7 Psalm 139 sketches the scope of God’s knowledge and presence. It says there is no limit to his knowledge. He knows us through-and-through: knows when we sit and when we stand; knows what we think before we think

We love because he first loved us.                    —1 John 4:19 How about this thing between God and us? He started it. God told the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart” (Jer 1:5).