Joe Barnett

Humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.                  —Proverbs 16:9 “You can do anything you want to do and be anything you want to be.” If you were fed that line and swallowed it when you were young, you’ve probably suffered bouts of severe indigestion […]

Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ.                            —Jude 1 “Blood is thicker than water,” goes the German proverb. It doesn’t get much better than being part of a family that finds great joy in being together. It didn’t work out that way for

You are [God’s] child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.                  —Galatians 4:7 Do you sometimes get down in the dumps? Feel helpless to meet life’s challenges? “Remember who you are.” That’s what my friend’s father said to him every morning

When [the Samaritan] saw him, he took pity on him.     —Luke 10:33 A drunken bum with a slashed throat was picked up in the Bowery and dropped off at Bellevue Hospital—last stop before the morgue. He was thirty-eight. No one knew who he was. In the pocket of his ragged coat they found

Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.            —Isaiah 40:31 An unknown author has written: “A person can endure almost anything as long as they have hope, as long as they can believe there may come a change for the better. They can put up with privation; they

Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.      —Psalm 27:14 She was in her 90s and gave me advice on how to deal with problems by telling me how she dealt with hers. “Wait three days,” she said, “and somehow everything gets all right.” I doubt if that’s always true. But

Even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. —Matthew 10:30 God knows everything about you. Everything! He knows your shoe size. Your favorite color. Your blood pressure. The color of your eyes. The shape of your nose. The number of hairs on your head. Go to the mirror and have a staring contest

Gossip is so tasty— how we love to swallow it!    —Proverbs 18:8 TEV In a Reader’s Digest essay, William Arthur Ward wrote: “British surgeons recently removed two spoons, four coins, several pieces of wire, and a bed spring from the stomach of a 37-year-old Irishman.” Now there’s a man with an appetite for the

Watch out for false prophets.             —Matthew 7:15 War introduced us to camouflage. Battleships, harassed by elusive submarines, hid behind screens of smoke—camouflage. Guns were veiled in bushes, soldiers were covered with twigs and hay, vehicles were painted with designs to disguise their identity—camouflage. But camouflage is older than war.

Be made new in the attitude of your minds.                            —Ephesians 4:23 Everybody knows that an exemplary Christian must be pure in speech and conduct. Dirt under the fingernails in word or walk is fatal to Christian influence. Spoiler alert! Some who are