Joe Barnett

Like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand.   —Jeremiah 18:6 Carpenters do two things: they make things and fix things. Jesus was a carpenter. He made us: “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (Jn 1:3). But we stumble, fall, get […]

What do you have that God hasn’t given you?                           —1 Corinthians 4:7 “What do you have that God hasn’t given you? And if all you have is from God, why boast as though you have accomplished something on your own?” (1 Cor

Teach us how short our lives really are so that we may be wise.       —Psalm 90:12 A couple of hundred years from now historians will look back at this year with as much fascination as we look back on the world of George Washington or Bonnie and Clyde. They’ll try to picture

Powerful is your arm! Strong is your hand!   —Psalm 89:13 On Christmas Eve 1939, four months into the havoc of World War II, King George VI reached out to the ears of British citizens in a BBC radio broadcast. He closed his speech with the preamble to Minnie Louise Haskins’ The Gate of the

Be ready! You don’t know when the time will come.     —Mark 13:33 Every generation has had a few noisy, self-declared prophets who have screeched that they have nailed down the exact date of the world’s end. They’ve all been wrong. No surprise there, for Jesus said: “No one knows the day or the

Put your hope in God.      —Psalm 42:5 Simeon, a devout old man, had seen his world descend into depressing disaster: his homeland had fallen to foreign rule; political corruption, immorality, and religious decay had decimated decency. But he held on to hope. “It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that

On earth peace, goodwill toward men.                       —Luke 2:14 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s wife had recently died; his soldier son had been severely wounded; and he was grieving over Civil War deaths. On December 25, 1804, seeking to distance himself from depression, he wrote the words

Today . . . a Savior has been born . . . he is Christ the Lord.                —Luke 2:11 Angel Gabriel showed up at Mary’s door: “Greetings, you who are highly favored! . . . You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you

When the right time came, God sent his Son.  —Galatians 4:4 When the Old Testament ended, God turned off the lights, closed and locked the door and walked away. Or so it seemed. For the next 400 years, God was silent, while the Jewish world waited and wondered about the promise of a Messiah. Then

There was no room for them in the inn.                          —Luke 2:7 The Bethlehem innkeeper has caught a lot of flak for his callous cruelty in not making room for Joseph and Mary, forcing Mary to give birth to Jesus in a barn and