The Seven Signs, part 2: John 2:12-22

Posted on August 15, 2025 by Steve Husting

Jesus disrupted the Jews’ lucrative commerce system in the outer court of the temple, which had been disturbing the worship of the godly non-Jews there (John 2:15-16). For this action, the Jews asked for a sign, for verification from God for His authority to do what He did (John 2:18). Jesus’ response was, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). John helpfully clarifies: “But He was speaking of the temple of His body” (John 2:21). Jesus and His union with the Father through the Spirit was the sign.

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The Seven Signs, part 1: John 2:3-12

Posted on August 13, 2025 by Steve Husting

This is the first article of a series focusing on the seven signs in the Gospel of John. It’s not often that a book states a purpose, but John’s gospel does: “these [accounts of miracles] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:30). John highlighted seven miracles to help us see that knowing Jesus Christ as the Son of God will bring about a spiritual life known only to those who have put their trust in Him. We can certainly affirm with doctrinal correctness that Jesus is the Son of God, but it isn’t the same as Jesus revealing Himself to us in such as way that we place our faith in Him as the Son.

The Gospel of John is unique among the gospels in that the Father plays a major role. In John’s gospel, we get a better sense of who Jesus is to the Father, of the relationship and communion of the Father and the Son. When we grasp this relationship and believe in Him with this understanding, then we will be oriented toward Christ in a deeper way, a life-affirming way. An abiding communion with the Father and the Son should heavily define the Christian life, which John’s first epistle covers in more detail.

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God, Savior, Lord

Posted on August 8, 2025 by Steve Husting

“Therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father” (1 John 2:24). We need three facts about Jesus to “abide,” or make its home in us, so we can progress in our faith and grasp of the Word. Jesus is God. Jesus is Savior. Jesus is Lord. These are facts we received when we heard and believed the gospel of salvation “from the beginning” of our faith journey. If these facts are not settled in you, then you will have doubts and fears and anxieties. How can we read the Bible with hope and progress with those feelings holding us back?

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Your Kingdom Come

Posted on August 1, 2025 by Steve Husting

When we consider the Our Father prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) from the standpoint of God’s promise to Abraham, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3), it adds a new dimension to this prayer. This prayer furthers a vision that the Lord has today, to bless all nations.

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Four Protective Practices

Posted on July 4, 2025 by Steve Husting

In his brief letter, positioned just before the last book of the Bible, Jude writes a lot about apostates (those who fall away from the Lord Jesus) in the past (vv. 4-11) and in the present (vv. 12-16). Jude writes of “ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness…” (v. 4). These ungodly people mischaracterized God’s grace as approval for doing immoral things. There are many ways we can be drawn away from the Lord. In this epistle, Jude focuses on straying because of listening to misleading ministers.

Jude gives us a four-dosage prescription (vv. 20-21) to keep our spiritual lives healthy and strong, so that we may not be led astray and meet the same doom as the errant instructors.

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Four Long Words

Posted on May 9, 2025 by Steve Husting

“Christ died for my sins on the cross.” These words roll off our lips with ease. Did you ever think about what salvation means, and how extensive it really is? I want to introduce four long Bible words that are packed with meaning, and that help us appreciate more powerfully what Christ accomplished when He died on the cross. Most of this material comes from the book, The Cross of Christ, by John R. Stott.

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Immanuel + Jesus

Posted on April 4, 2025 by Steve Husting

In the Old Testament through Isaiah the prophet, the Lord had given a sign to king Ahaz, “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (Matthew 1:23, referencing Isaiah 7:14). Immanuel means “God with us.”

Hundreds of years later, an angel visited Joseph and told him that Mary, his betrothed, “will bear a son, and you shall call his name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Jesus means “God Saves.”

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Come to Me

Posted on March 29, 2025 by Steve Husting

To us who are still loaded down with the cares of life, with its many distractions, with the endless to-do’s driving us with no end in sight, Jesus’ offer still stands: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28, NKJV).

Perhaps we cannot come to Him because our goal in life is quite different from “rest.” We want to achieve. We want the best. We need money. We need a friendly face. We have some place we want to be and rest won’t get us there.

Actually, it will.

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The Two Laws: Decoding Paul’s Mysterious Gap in Romans 7 (part 2 of 2)

Posted on March 22, 2025 by Steve Husting

Strand 2: The Inward Law from Adam

Our new strand begins with Romans 5:10, “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” The life of Christ will offer more than a resumption of the fellowship with God that we lost through sin. It will be the cause for keeping us living the righteous life in faith. More on this later.

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The Two Laws: Decoding Paul’s Mysterious Gap in Romans 7 (part 1 of 2)

Posted on March 16, 2025 by Steve Husting

Many of us at one time or another have scratched our heads over the two verses in Rom. 7:24–25, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! ” From “who will deliver me?” to “I thank God—through Jesus” presents a maddening gap in logic that has frustrated believers who knew the battle Paul faced: “For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do” (Rom. 7:15). What exactly was the solution that set Paul free?

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The Faith of Hebrews 11 for Today

Posted on January 4, 2025 by Steve Husting

When we consider the men and women of faith in Hebrews 11–Abel and his excellent sacrifice, Enoch who walked with God, Noah who built the ark, Abraham who left for the unknown, elderly Sarah who received strength to bear a child, Moses who passed through the Red Sea–we find it hard to see ourselves walking in their shoes, having a faith like theirs.

Yet this is exactly what God intended with the offering of His Son. The communion they spent with God is ours with Christ. The faith stirred in hearing His voice is the same faith of the word that burns in our hearts today. The direction and calling they received is offered to us by the same Spirit in us who call Jesus Christ our Lord.

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My Recent Observations in the Book of Revelation

Posted on December 27, 2024 by Steve Husting

In our Bible college class, we were to read Revelation over the course of a week and write up our observations. Here is what I came up with, using the two main headings I was to fill in.

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How do we harmonize the nativity accounts of Matthew 2 and Luke 2?

Posted on December 24, 2024 by Steve Husting

I decided to examine the nativity accounts myself to see what the mystery is all about. (Spoiler alert: there’s no mystery; they work together perfectly.) I first made two columns on a sheet of paper and listed the main events of each book’s chapter two, and especially the locations of each event. My goal was to match up the events by similar location. I wanted to see if I could find a literal, historical account.

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Images of God

Posted on December 20, 2024 by Steve Husting

God created us in His image, after His likeness (Genesis 1:26-27). That image encompasses all of us, our heart, soul, mind, and strength expressing love to the Creator of all. He made us to be image-bearers reflecting His glory to the world wherever we go. 

History in ancient times tells us that when the emperors, like the Pharaohs, claimed new territory for their kingdom, they placed statues of themselves there to remind the occupants who their ruler was. Those images represented the ruler’s authority extended to there.

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The Way Back

Posted on November 22, 2024 by Steve Husting

There may come a time when we look at our lives and realize that God was no longer at work. We no longer enjoy the freedom, peace, and power we had with Him.

In the same way in Israel’s history, in the time of Saul, they had departed from God, but the reality did not hit them until the Philistines went to war with them and Israel brought out the ark of the covenant to the battle. Israel lost the battle, and the Philistines captured the ark (1 Samuel 4).

When we do something wrong and we knew better, sometimes it shocks us awake, especially when we could have resisted it before. We approached life as usual, then wham! The sin came out of nowhere and we were surprised. The Jews were surprised because they brought the ark with them, the symbol of God’s presence. But the Lord was not with them.

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A Rejected King

Posted on November 21, 2024 by Steve Husting

The elders of Israel asked the prophet Samuel to make a king over them like the other nations have. When Samuel prayed about this, the Lord replied, “they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them” (1 Samuel 8:7). 

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The Lord Makes Himself Known

Posted on October 6, 2024 by Steve Husting

Our God wants to make Himself known to the world. He had this desire from the very beginning in the garden of Eden when He created the first couple. He made them in His image (Genesis 2:26–27).

He wanted them to be “fruitful,” meaning to flourish with all the God-given abilities, talents, and gifts they were given. To “multiply,” to procreate more godly images of Him. To “fill the earth” with these God-honoring images of Himself (Gen. 2:28 NKJV).

But sin entered in when the couple chose the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil at the instigation of a Satanic serpent (Gen. 3). So their offspring was corrupted with a sinful image, one that no longer looks to God for guidance, but instinctively acts with autonomy, deciding what is good and right for themselves. So all people begin life with this sinful mindset. Meanwhile, God left a promise of a new man who was to come, saying to the serpent, “He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:15; “bruise” in these two uses can also be rendered “crush”).

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The Kingdom, Power, and Glory

Posted on August 9, 2024 by Steve Husting

The “Our Father” prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 humbles me. The entire prayer is pointing us to see our need for the Lord in everything. The Father is exalted in heaven. We pray for His kingdom to come and replace the sorry mess we’ve made on earth. We pray that His will be done because what we want often doesn’t rise to His level of importance. 

We need His daily bread because the world’s fare doesn’t satisfy. We need to face our sins and confess that we’re the problem after all. We need to forgive others and give them another reason to do well next time. The evil one is stronger than us and keeps leading us to temptation and ruin. 

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Seeking the Kingdom First

Posted on August 6, 2024 by Steve Husting

God desires that we be like His Son (Rom. 8:29). In the end, this is what salvation looks like, that we live the way He does because we have the relationship with God that He has. Jesus gave us a forceful command that helps us evaluate how we are living our lives and get back on track where we’ve gone off. 

He said to His disciples, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matt. 6:33).

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Declaration of Independence

Posted on July 1, 2024 by Steve Husting

As I read America’s Declaration of Independence this morning, I was struck by its many parallels to our times. The Declaration included a list of 27 grievances committed by the British king against the original “united States of America.” For these reasons, the colonies determined to be “Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown” and to live as “Free and Independent States.” (Uppercase and lowercase have been preserved from the original document.)

We have jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire, for the Declaration’s grievances against the king have parallels to problems we face now. 

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Grace, not Works 

Posted on June 1, 2024 by Steve Husting

Paul, who devoted his life to earning righteousness through the Mosaic law, found something that was foreign to him: grace. To clarify grace, he later wrote, if it is “by grace, it is no longer of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace” (Romans 11:6 NKJV). Grace is not dependent on us having something to offer as a prerequisite. If we say, “I can’t receive grace because I did not do well,” we have turned grace into a reward. It is no longer biblical grace. Grace (for instance, in the form of God’s help to us) isn’t given based on how well we’ve behaved, good deeds we’ve done, some charitable work we are proud of, or some difficult goal we’ve achieved. If we have received Christ, we are positioned for blessing because grace depends on his finished work, not ours. 

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Pen Pal Letter

Posted on January 8, 2024 by Steve Husting

I read with interest the quotes you had gathered about repentance, addiction, and other subjects to help you grow. They are really good quotes. 

I see one glaring problem with your quotes. First, read Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation [deliverance, rescue, or setting free] for everyone who believes…” The glaring omission from your quotes is Jesus Christ. He should be the star on every page of your quotes. V. 16 says so. 

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Steady Growth Movement 

Posted on January 1, 2024 by Steve Husting

Some of us may wonder why Christian growth seems to take such a long time, and we wonder if it is happening at all. Jesus addressed this issue in Mark 4. It’s a matter of how well we are hearing and receiving the message the Bible passage is trying to teach us. Frankly, the principles behind Bible learning are the same as learning other things as well. 

How well do we listen? Regarding the message of the word, and hearing it, Jesus said, “But these [seeds] are sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred” (Mark 4:20). 

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The Fall of Adam and Eve

Posted on December 27, 2023 by Steve Husting

When Adam and Eve disobeyed the Lord and ate the fruit of the wrong tree, the Lord spelled out the consequences for each of them in Genesis 3:16-19. These curses were not because God was angry or vindictive. It was much worse than that.

After these curses, we learn that Adam called his wife’s name Eve, “because she was the mother of all the living,” v. 20. Yet she was not the mother of all all life, was she? She did not create the animals or creeping things, neither the creatures of the air nor sea.

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A Overlooked Ingredient in the Christmas Story 

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Steve Husting

Many words have been inked about the Son of God becoming a human being in the Christmas story. However, I seldom read of one aspect of the story, one important reason that’s left unmentioned, of why Jesus had to be born a human male. 

Yes, He came to die for our sins, be buried, and rise from the dead, saving us from the wrath to come and giving us hope. Yes, He came to fulfill prophecy. He came to set up His kingdom. To reveal what God is really like and be our example to follow. To break the power of sin and the devil. To offer salvation by grace through faith for all. All of these blessed reasons are true and not to be taken lightly. 

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More to Follow

Posted on November 24, 2023 by Steve Husting

After seeing King Solomon’s riches and hearing his wisdom, the queen of Sheba said to him, “Behold, the half was not told me. You exceed in wisdom and prosperity the report which I heard” (1 Kings 10:7, NASB). 

What wonderful words to say when we’ve had our fill of daily bread in the Word of God, “The half was not told me” of my Lord. How wonderful is the wisdom of our Savior and the riches of grace we have in Him. 

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Old Testament consequences in the New Testament times

Posted on November 11, 2023 by Steve Husting

While King Solomon stood before the people before the newly dedicated temple, he prayed for several scenarios in which they would need to pray before the temple of God’s presence. “When your people Israel are defeated before an enemy because they have sinned against You” (1 Kings 8:33). This scenario of defeat will tell the people they have sinned and they’ll need to confess it to get God’s wisdom and strength for victory again. When they humble themselves and seek the Lord, order will be restored and the Lord will once again lead the way.

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A Light to the World

Posted on October 28, 2023 by Steve Husting

At the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem, a house of prayer, Solomon prayed that when a foreigner “comes and prays toward this temple, hear in heaven” and answer their prayers that they “may know Your name and fear You” (1 Kings 8:41-43).

The contrast between the Pharisees of Jesus’ time and the Old Testament times regarding Gentiles is striking. Here, Solomon prays for the Lord to hear the Gentile prayers. And when we look among David’s mighty men in 2 Samuel 23:8-23, we find many non-Israelite nationals. Moses married a Moabite woman. Ruth was a foreigner, yet by God’s grace her story put her in the lineage of the Messiah (Matthew 1:5).

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Israel at War

Posted on October 20, 2023 by Steve Husting

How do we tie a war to Israel and the end times? Is the current war related to the end times, and is the antichrist figure about to appear? This article is written with the 2023 war in Gaza uppermost in our minds. The newspaper headlines about war in the Middle East will come and go, but the details in the Word of God will remain faithful to show us the truth. 

Let’s turn to Zechariah 12-14, which talks about war with Israel from a unique perspective. 

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When I Sin

Posted on September 16, 2023 by Steve Husting

.  My pain and loss echoes His own pain over our broken love relationship, for my sin separated me from God. I confess to hurting Him. 
.  I confess that it was my fault and my sin alone that understandably drove Him from me. 
.  I acknowledge that I still love Him more than my sin. 
.  I’m sorry for what I’ve done. I feel terrible over how I could chose momentary sin over a life with Him. 

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