Category: Accountability

1/22/2026 0 Comments

I Have Observed

I remember, as an eighteen-year-old, living with my aunt and uncle in Coeur ‘d Alene, Idaho, who graciously took me into their home while I awaited my move to New York to attend West Point. Norm let me drive his Ford Ranchero and paid me to move pipes and water his crops. Whenever I got in a bind, he would flash his trademark Norwegian grin, which could be translated as “You are such an idiot.” I felt like a little kid in his presence. Given my mechanical stupidity, I’m sure he wondered how I would ever make it in an engineering school. Had it not been for God’s help and classmates like Kevin Stewart, who spent hours tutoring me, I would never have survived the Academy, and I wonder what would have become of my life. Wondering can be a healthy exercise in appreciating God’s sovereignty. This surely must have been the case for one of the world’s greatest leaders.

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12/9/2025 1 Comment

What Matters II

Pastor Daniel Mugeni

Each year, First Cause sends a Christmas gift to someone on our international team. This year, our gift went to Daniel and Aidda in Iganga, Uganda. Daniel wrote, “You have served my entire family of 30 members with Christmas. I have 26 needy orphans living with me, plus my four kids.” We did not realize that Daniel and Aidda were caring for 26 kids. Like our brother, Joseph, who pastors in Eldoret, Kenya, they do not just pastor needy families; they live by a daily faith that is stretched often beyond what seems possible.

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11/22/2025 2 Comments

Guard Your Deposit

Robert Kayanja walked three miles to school as a nine-year-old. One day after classes, he was exhausted and noticed a pick-up truck that he thought often drove by his home. He asked the driver if he could ride in the back of the truck, and the man said it was okay. But the driver did not turn onto the road to his home; instead, he drove a different direction. Robert saw dead animals in bags in the back of the truck and noticed the men in the cab, and immediately became frightened that he was being kidnapped. He stood up to jump, and the driver shouted at him to sit down as he sped down the road.

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11/9/2025 2 Comments

What Destroys Our Character?

Why is it so hard for Christians to finish well? Reading that question perhaps reminds you of someone who crashed and burned. It does not take much accounting to realize that many followers of Jesus who start well or accomplish great things somehow stumble at the finish line or simply quit running.

King Uzziah had it all. He had a brilliant military mind that conceptualized building devices that shot arrows and catapulted large stones from towers. These were crucial in defending Judah’s cities (26:15). God gave him success against his enemies, whom he defeated in battle, as long as he listened to the advice of Zechariah the priest.

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8/26/2025 0 Comments

Intentional

God is holy and intentional; He does nothing unintentionally. Paul wrote in Romans 2:4, “Or do you despise the riches of His kindness, restraint, and patience, not recognizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?” Can you imagine what life would be like if God discarded His holy and kind nature and became unintentional, capricious, unpredictable, a decision-maker whose will was based on whim? We would have no hope of redemption, an eternal relationship based on love, because His word would be open at any time to change, dependent upon the state of His nature.

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8/5/2025 1 Comment

Rescuers

I was reading in my quiet time Jeremiah 22, and I was struck by how David’s message praising God’s actions in Psalm 146 was like what God, through His prophet Jeremiah, called the king of Judah, his officials, and the people to do.

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7/30/2025 1 Comment

Restraint

Jeff [1] works in a start-up company that meets in a new office complex in Seattle. He is a bright, creative young man who would have a fantastic future except for one glaring character flaw—his inability to keep his words and emotions in check. When Jeff joined four other young entrepreneurs to launch Still Waters, a meta platform that focuses on AI research, his team was excited about his experience and skills utilizing AI. But after six months of working together, the team found several frustrating traits about him.

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7/12/2025 0 Comments

Breakfast at Banning's

Herb and Craig began meeting for breakfast in Tigard, Oregon, in 1992, weekly on Tuesdays. Later, they shifted their meetings to Friday mornings. Other friends have joined them periodically over the years, but it is these two men who have met together for 33 years and counting. It takes incredible commitment, faithfulness, love, and enjoyment to maintain such a longstanding tradition. Very rarely do friends have such a sustained track record.

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2/18/2025 1 Comment

The First Commandment

Aseret haDevarim are the Hebrew words which mean the “ten words” or “ten matters” and describe what is worldwide known as The Ten Commandments.[1]
"In the early fifth century, the Christian theologian Augustine of Hippo combined the first two commandments into one commandment, and split the prohibition on coveting into two commandments . . . Augustine’s list became the standard enumeration for the Roman Church."[2]

The Eastern Orthodox churches used a variation of Jewish thinking by making the first commandment, “Do not have other gods besides Me,” and “Do not make an idol for yourself . . .” (20:3,4a). But in Judaism, the first commandment is God’s declaration, “I am the LORD your God.”

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11/19/2024 0 Comments

Hidden Things

Jesus performed many miracles in the cities He walked, which should have authenticated His message, and yet most of those He encountered would not repent of their sins. Their hardheartedness kept them from recognizing the hand of God’s Son at work and connecting their need to listen to Him. He criticized them for their attitude and warned them of God’s impending judgment (Matthew 11:20-24).

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11/12/2024 0 Comments

Omnipresent

When I was a junior officer attending Infantry Officers Basic Course (IOBC), we sponsored foreign military officers. Some of those officers were married Muslims who were quite happy to be in America and to engage in all kinds of immoral activity. When asked why they were getting intoxicated and frequenting strip clubs when they had wives back home and strict rules against consuming alcohol, their answers were quite revealing. “Allah cannot see us. He is not present here.” They firmly believed that only in their own country were they visible and accountable for their behavior. Their Allah was a god with limitations.

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9/11/2024 1 Comment

Debating

Meditation
Jude 9--Yet Michael the archangel, when he was disputing with the Devil in a debate about Moses’ body, did not dare bring an abusive condemnation against him but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”

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7/23/2024 1 Comment

Frivolous

My West Point classmate Larry Turrentine recently shared this wisdom with our weekly prayer team:
A week ago, I passed through Detroit's Metro Airport after attending a funeral and a repass. As I walked through, I spotted a curious name for a shop. It was called "Frivolous," with a subtitle "wonderfully necessary." Clearly, it was designed for those with extra time and extra money. It fit the former. So, with my extra time, I went in and looked around.
Nothing really caught my interest, and moments later, I was gone. It occurred to me that my experience was a microcosm of a Christian Pilgrim's progress through life. Why do many of us spend significant amounts of time in the shops of our lives called "Frivolous"? If it is true that only what we do for Christ will last, why do trivial pursuits (frivolity) fritter away our lives? If the airport were on fire, would we patronize the shop called "Frivolous"?
We are the ecclesia, the called-out ones, and our call is to be Ambassadors to a lost and dying world, to a world on fire. Our call is purity and holiness. But as long as the shop called "Frivolous" exists, so must our mandate to pray.

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6/23/2024 2 Comments

Bad Company

Judas Iscariot had a great life going. Selected by Jesus, the world’s only perfect leader, he joined a team of eleven others to follow God’s Son. We don’t know much about Judas, but John 12:4-6 is revealing.
Then one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot (who was about to betray Him), said, “Why wasn’t this fragrant oil sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor?” He didn’t say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief. He was in charge of the money-bag and would steal part of what was put in it.
Was Judas a rebellious, immoral man? Or was he a confused follower who occasionally stole money for his pursuits? Why would he betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver when he could have prolonged their time together and continued his successful pilfering?

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5/18/2024 1 Comment

Not Shrinking Back

What is the purpose of your life?

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5/10/2024 1 Comment

We Are His

Ed* was adopted. Not knowing who his real father and mother are causes him to doubt his self-worth. Rather than see himself as one made by God, he struggles to find value in his identity. Instead of building solid relationships with others and finding meaning in who he is and what he does, he avoids people and floats from one job to another, perpetually dissatisfied with little sense of purpose or calling.

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4/21/2024 1 Comment

Swerving

Driving today requires more situational awareness and alertness than ever before. Too often, I am behind a truck or a car and notice it crossing into adjacent lanes—sometimes even going off the road onto the shoulder. Virtually every time I pass the veering vehicle, the driver is texting or engaged on their phone and not paying attention to their surroundings. For this reason, I no longer bicycle on roads, even if they have designated lanes—it’s simply too dangerous.

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3/27/2024 1 Comment

Training Surpasses Trying

In his message, “Run to Win,” Pastor Craig Rochelle told a packed room of men to “stop trying and start training.” Scripture does not ask us to try to be godlier. It says to be godly. According to Rochelle, “Trying is an attempt to change with minimal commitment . . . Trying gives you permission to fail.” Conversely, training involves a wholehearted commitment to achieving a goal because you act according to your commitment.

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1/21/2024 0 Comments

Purify Yourselves

My father was given a valuable porcelain Buddha figurine from an Asian antique collector. He would display it in the house until guests came over and then hide it in a drawer. He always knew where it was. Years later, my brother, Nate, was at a point in his life where he decided to follow God. He was convicted that his music collection was holding him back spiritually. So, he purged his CD collection of music worth over $1000 by breaking them apart in our parent’s garage. Seeing what Nate was doing, Dad was convicted of his Buddha figurine. He brought it out to be destroyed. While holding a bowl of eggs, he placed the antique on a stump and brought an ax head down to smash it.

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11/30/2023 0 Comments

Taking Blows

Fragile. Thin-skinned. Does it increasingly seem that we live in an age when many Christians cannot take criticism or rebuke of any sort without getting defensive and angry? Try confronting a believer over sin and see how that goes. Observe someone’s attitude or comment on questionable conduct, and be prepared to be attacked or shunned. Myles Munroe wrote in Waiting and Dating, “Being open to correction means making ourselves vulnerable, and many people are not willing to do that.”

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