Joe Barnett

Keep on praying and never give up.    —Luke 18:1 It’s only a guess on my part, but I have a hunch that you struggle a bit in your prayer life. Maybe it’s just that I want company, feeling that my own prayer time is feeble and deficient. Why, since Jesus bids us to ask, […]

I have been with you wherever you have gone.    —1 Chronicles 17:8 What has been your greatest disappointment? A business that didn’t gel? A job that you didn’t get? A promotion that didn’t come? A marriage that didn’t work. Something else? King David resolved to build a temple for the Lord. God nixed the

Do what is good and run from evil.               —Amos 5:14 When Hurricane Harvey made landfall near Rockport, Texas, on August 26, 2017, officials ordered mandatory evacuation. Residents who refused to leave were asked by the mayor to write their name and Social Security number on their arm with

Look around me and see. No one cares about me.    —Psalm 142:4 The Sunday following Sarah’s funeral—acute myeloid leukemia—Jim, her young husband, perched on their usual pew. Miss Melissa, a grandmotherly saint, made her way down the aisle and sat next to him. She never said a word but held his hand for the

I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened.    —Jeremiah 25:3 This morning I wrote down the names of five ministers who have been with one church for fifty years or more. Each has experienced times of discouragement, considered moving, or resigning ministry altogether. God said of Jeremiah: “Before I

We have seen his glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father.        —John 1:14 The scenes on the mountain of transfiguration and at the hill of crucifixion are in stark contrast. On the mountain, Jesus was revealed in glory; on the hill of crucifixion, he was held in contempt and

Turn away from these worthless things and turn to the living God.           —Acts 14:15 Paul urged his Lystra listeners to turn from idolatrous worship and turn to the living God, who “made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them” (Acts 14:15). Here is the psalmist’s description of lifeless

Every eye will see him.    —Revelation 1:7 British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, an avowed atheist, said in an El Mundo interview in 2014: “Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation. [When I said] ‘we would know the mind of

He brought him to Jesus.         —John 1:42 The apostle Andrew is best-known for introducing his brother to Jesus: “The first thing Andrew did [after meeting Jesus] was to find his brother Simon and tell him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ . . . And he brought him to Jesus” (Jn 1:41–42).

Above all, be careful what you think.               —Proverbs 4:23 Jesus rattled the Jewish dietary cage when he said their “kosher” regulations had things backward: it’s not what goes into your stomach that corrupts but what goes into your mind. It is the thought-life that defiles you. For from