StephenBarkley.com

The true prophetic message
always calls us to a spiritual defiance
of the world as it now is.
— Richard Foster (Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home)
There are two types of false prophets in the world: frauds and psychopaths. I’m not sure which variety is more dangerous. Frauds know they’re wrong. They are in it for the money, [...]

The healthy Christian is not necessarily the extrovert, ebullient Christian,
but the Christian
who has a sense of God’s presence stamped deep on his soul,
who trembles at God’s word,
who lets it dwell in him richly by constant meditation upon it,
and who tests and reforms his life daily in response to it.
— J. I. Packer (A Quest for [...]

In order to promote a sentimentalized love
we try to excuse God
from everything that might cause us to fear him.
— Gerhard O. Forde (On Being a Theologian of the Cross)
Imagine yourself as one of Ezekiel’s contemporaries in Babylon. You already have reason to believe that the priest-turned-prophet is a few fries short of a happy meal. [...]

Just so anyone reading this knows, I am taking some holidays from the office this fall, so I am going to miss this week’s devotions.
Once I’m back, I will be posting one devotion per week due to the increased schedule of the fall season.
In Christ,
Steve.
PS — I hope you stick around with Ezekiel.  The first [...]