Joe Barnett

You are worth more than many sparrows.                                        —Luke 12:7 What a week! It was the week in 1997 that Princess Diana died in Paris, Mother Teresa died in Calcutta, and Viktor Frankl died in Vienna. And […]

When you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.           —Luke 22:32 Jesus told Peter he would deny him. Peter said he wouldn’t. He did. Satan won that round. But Jesus knew the fight wasn’t over and that Peter would win: “When you have turned back,” he said, “strengthen your brothers.” Not

Go now and leave your life of sin.                        —John 8:11 “Adulteress!” they shrieked. “The Law says to stone her. What do you say Jesus?” What did he say? “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a

Encourage one another and build each other up. —1 Thessalonians 5:11 “She believed in me!” That’s what Henry Ward Beecher said about a teacher who taught in the rural elementary school he attended as a youngster. At the height of his impressive career, he said she was responsible for whatever success he had achieved. Teachers,

Love your neighbor as yourself.                 —Mark 12:31 All around us are people who are fighting private wars, secret hungers, inner poverty. When Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” he wasn’t tossing out a cliché to slap on the refrigerator door; he was telling us to feel

I am poor and needy.      —Psalm 40:17 This morning’s chilling headline declared: Death of Innocents! The accompanying picture was haunting: starving children with tear-streaked cheeks, bloated bellies, and arms and legs like sticks. Such deprivation is foreign to most of us . . . but emotional hunger may gnaw at us; a craving

The evil I do not want to do— this I keep on doing.     —Romans 7:19 Some things are so routine we shuffle through them without giving it a thought. Others are so jarring they make our teeth rattle. That’s when we know we’re at war. Sometimes relationships hit the skids, and we go

So Jesus went with him.        —Mark 5:24 Mark 5:1–17 journals Jesus’ healing of a demon-possessed man, the drowning of a herd of pigs, and the reaction of the citizens. The citizens couldn’t have cared less about the man who was healed but were so agitated about the loss of the pigs that

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!       —Philippians 4:4 “How’s it going?” “Not so hot! I’ve had better days. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.” You’ve heard these down-in-the-dumps grumbles; maybe even growled them yourself. English churchman and historian Thomas Fuller rightly described many when he said,