Joe Barnett

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.             —1 Peter 5:7 What’s eating at you? Health gone bad? Marriage gone sour? Child gone haywire? Finances gone south? Hope gone belly up? Does God know? Does he care? After all, he has his hands full. Somewhere in […]

Help me overcome my unbelief.                        —Mark 9:24 The child fell to the ground, thrashing and foaming at the mouth. “How long has he been like this?” Jesus asked. “All his life,” said his father. “If you can do anything, take pity on us and

I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?           —Jeremiah 32:27 There are three doxologies in the New Testament that begin by saying that God is able: “Now to him who is able to strengthen you” (Rom 16:25). “Now to him who is able

Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.                                  —Romans 12:10 Paul ends his list of the attributes of love with a snapshot of four ways it treats people. It always protects. It never drags the mistakes of others into

[If I] do not have love, I am nothing.               —1 Corinthians 13:2 The tabloids get prime space at the grocery checkout. There’s a voracious appetite for the lurid. “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil” (Is 5:20). What the Bible brands as evil is championed

Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.                        —Proverbs 19:11 Have you ever been mistreated? Unjustly judged? Been trash-talked? Probably. And there’s nothing you can do about it. But there is something you can do about

He who is slow to anger quiets contention.                               —Proverbs 15:18 A peculiarity of anger is that it is sometimes the vice of the virtuous—a blemish on the personality of an otherwise nice person. We all know someone who is attractive

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.            —Philippians 2:4 People demanding their rights are usually loud. Often angry. Sometimes threatening. We live in a culture that is concerned with rights more than duties; that insists on privilege more than

Be gentle and polite to all people.                            —Titus 3:2 “Rudeness is the weak person’s imitation of strength.” —Eric Hoffer “To make enemies by unnecessary and willful incivility is just as insane a proceeding as to set your house on fire.” —Arthur Schopenhauer

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.                    —James 4:6 C.S. Lewis said, “Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.” Boasting is unjustified since everything we have is a God-given gift. “What do