Joe Barnett

In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice.                                          —Psalm 5:3 Paul got into a terrible mess in Ephesus … We were really crushed and overwhelmed, and feared we would never live through it. We […]

I will lie down and sleep in peace.                          —Psalm 4:8 Fear of burglars kept her from ever getting a good night’s sleep. One night she heard a noise, shook her husband awake, and sent him to investigate. He had been through the drill

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.                                                      

I know that you can do all things.                           —Job 42:2 There are three doxologies in your New Testament that begin with the words “him who is able” … “Now to him who is able to strengthen you” (Romans 16:25). “Now to him

I cry out to you, O God, but you do not answer.          —Job 30:20 Does the interval between your prayer and God’s answer sometimes seem long? Why doesn’t he answer? Why doesn’t he act? He does—when the time is right. Until then you have to wait. How often we waste time

Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.                                —Job 13:15 Trust isn’t tested in the church pew, it’s tested in battle. It’s tested when the night is dark, and cold, and lonely. It’s tested when loss is devastating and

If I perish, I perish.   —Esther 4:16 In a Commencement address at Stanford University, Steve Jobs said, “No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there.” He was right. We want to go to heaven, but we delay the trip in every way

You made the heavens … and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them.                                                          —Nehemiah

Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the Lord, and to teaching its decrees.                                                    —Ezra 7:10 Various translations of this text emphasize three things

We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you. —2 Chronicles 20:12 Hitler’s minions were put in charge of the German Protestant Reich Church in 1933 by rigged election. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a brilliant young theologian, vocally opposed the Nazi regime—a losing battle in the sense that he was imprisoned in 1943