Joe Barnett

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.              —John 20:29 When his fellow-disciples said Jesus was alive, and they had seen him, Thomas retorted, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands . . . I will not believe it.” Seven days later, in a […]

He has risen!   Mark 16:6 The Saturday after the crucifixion was a dark day for Jesus’ disciples; a day of dashed dreams and extinguished expectations. At the beginning, they gave up everything to follow him; at the end, they gave up hope. They threw in the towel too soon, for Sunday’s shout was, “He

Never will I leave you.    —Hebrews 13:5 Affliction comes in sundry forms: physical, financial, relational, emotional. God’s healing of affliction comes in one of three ways: immediately, gradually, or ultimately. Sometimes God heals immediately; sometimes gradually, over months or years. When he doesn’t heal immediately or gradually, you have the promise of 1 John

Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord.   —Ephesians 5:19 Many hymns are miniature Bible studies, distillations of Bible truths that summarize our faith and verbalize our worship. At a revival in 1850, Fanny Crosby experienced an awakening—not from the sermon, but from the last verse of Isaac Watts’ hymn, Alas! and

You were called to peace.     —Colossians 3:15 In Jesus’ last meeting with his disciples before his death, he said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. . . . Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (Jn 14:27). On the Sunday evening following his crucifixion,

[Your beauty should be] the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.                   —1 Peter 3:4 Do you have runway beauty that causes you to be by ragged by reporters and pursued by paparazzi? Maybe. Maybe not. Regardless, you are a candidate for beauty unmatched by

Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest.                —Psalm 55:6 From age eleven until his death at ninety-six, cellist Pablo Casals’ life was consumed with practice and performance. He played for the queen in Madrid and Queen Victoria in

The Lord is my strength and my song.                      —Isaiah 12:2 “God is my salvation,” wrote Isaiah; “I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord, is my strength and my song.” Your emotions are raw from the chafing manacles of fear. Fear that

How many loaves do you have?                     —Mark 8:5 Back-to-back unachievable demands had the apostles perplexed. Jesus was telling them to do the impossible. According to Mark 6, he told them to feed an enormous crowd. Impossible! “How many loaves do you have?” he asked. “Five—and

Father, forgive them.     —Luke 23:34 The first of Jesus’ seven statements from the cross was, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” The callous centurion who supervised Jesus’ death had seen many grisly crucifixions. But he saw and heard things that day that he had never seen or