Category: Faithful

1/9/2026 2 Comments

Diligence: The Key to Prospering

Every person I know who is successful—morally, spiritually, physically, financially, socially, or intellectually—is diligent. I can think of no exceptions. Without diligence, life falls apart. Consider a person who is morally inconsistent, who follows the rules or ethical mores only when it is convenient. That person’s reputation and standing will eventually fail because of a breach of integrity.

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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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12/9/2025 0 Comments

Love

Psalm 89:1--I will sing about the Lord’s faithful love forever; I will proclaim Your faithfulness to all generationswith my mouth.

I was driving down the road recently asking God to forgive me for a persistent sin in my life when I was overcome with the realization of how much God loves me. There is no greater feeling in the world than to be loved. I don’t know how your week is going but I do know this, God loves you. Consider and reflect on this awesome affirmation—God loves me! He loves me with a permanent, immeasurable, all-understanding, beautifully-sculptured, cross-bearing, resurrection-resounding love! Now pause with this succeeding thought. There is someone near me who needs to hear a poignant message, “God loves you!” Ethan the Ezrahite was so blessed by God’s love He would sing of it forever. Embrace his song and add your own harmony to the symphonic truth that gives hope today—“God loves us!”

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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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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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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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9/25/2023 0 Comments

Every Generation

God has left the planet. The world is a mess. He does not care about His people or humanity any longer. Have you ever had those thoughts? That is why it is so important to study Scripture.

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4/20/2023 1 Comment

The Critical Importance of Mentoring

Will is a senior at Liberty University and a member of the Army ROTC program. He will commission as an officer in less than a month. I was blessed when he asked me to help him create a sponsorship program for their ROTC department. In this case, sponsors are older men or women who have served in the military as senior officers or NCOs and who are willing to be mentors to any of the cadets who would like to be paired with them to meet and learn and become better prepared to serve as officers. With the help of four mature individuals I was able to recruit, we shared with several cadets who came out on a Monday evening to learn about the critical importance of mentoring.

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1/16/2023 0 Comments

No Choice in the Matter

David & Teresa

Around 2010, David was having his quiet time on his outside patio when the Lord said, “I want you to give me everything.” He responded, “Lord, You have everything . . . we served You on the mission field . . . ” The Holy Spirit then impressed on his heart, “I want everything in your bank accounts.” David’s heart broke, and he began weeping. Then he conceded, “Lord, it’s all yours.” He went to his wife, Teresa, and shared what had happened. She replied that before emptying their bank accounts, she wanted confirmation. After two days of prayer, Teresa heard from God and agreed with her husband. They emptied all their accounts and wrote a check to Eternal Perspectives Ministries. David told me, “It was fun to write that check but very scary.” About two years later, God directed them to move from Indiana to Oregon. Without funding or a job but full of faith, they obeyed. For six months, with two of their children and a dog, they slept on couches in friends’ homes until the time came when God blessed them with provisions to have their own place and ministry.

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12/31/2021 0 Comments

Finding Stasis

Meditation
Daniel 5:26-28--This is the interpretation of the message: MENE means that God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end. TEKEL means that you have been weighed in the balance and found deficient.PERES means that your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

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7/15/2021 0 Comments

More Capacity

Bill Bowman ministering in Uganda

Meditation
Acts 9:22--But Saul grew more capable and kept confounding the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that this One is the Messiah.

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1/7/2021 1 Comment

1 & 2 Kings: Inauguration

It might seem strange to start the year with a devotional on 1 & 2 Kings but it actually is quite appropriate. In this new year a president-elect is soon to be inaugurated. Somewhere around 1010 B.C., David, arguably the nation of Israel’s greatest king, just before he died passed great wisdom to his son Solomon. His words if heeded by any newly elected leader or monarch in modern times would make a significant difference.

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8/23/2020 1 Comment

Marking People With Grace

Ron and Joyce York

At the age of 88, my dad is walking the final chapters of his life on earth still on fire to share the gospel with any and every person he can. Mark Cahill wrote the book One Thing You Can’t Do In Heaven and that one thing is evangelism. Dad is making sure he maximizes now what he won’t be able to do once he is home.
I’m working on writing a biography of his life and was challenged by an entry in his journal on October 10, 1983 while he was serving as the country leader for the Navigators in the Philippines.

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7/31/2020 0 Comments

I & II Samuel

If you want to read great books on leadership, read 1st and 2nd Samuel. Early tradition suggests that 1 and 2 Samuel were originally one book in scripture so I will do my best to examine the combined 55 chapters and share key leadership lessons. No author is named for these books but scholars largely credit the prophets Samuel, Nathan and Gad. Based on 1 Sa. 27:6, the writing may not have been completed until about 930 B.C.[1]

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5/1/2019 1 Comment

"The Legend"

In 1976, through the encouragement of an Army Aviator and friend of the family, I applied for acceptance at West Point. My high school was Faith Academy in the Philippines and the chances of me becoming the first student from Faith to gain acceptance into a military academy were not great. Fortunately, I had a high school coach, Tine Hardeman, who understood the magnitude of the opportunity and who did all he could to help me complete the physical tests and paperwork.

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4/19/2019 1 Comment

Confession Liturgy

Sarah Tegtmeier (Dan York's daughter) with her family L-R Jadon, Luca, Leili, Mark, Simeon

Meditation
Psalm 85:15--But You, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in faithful love and truth

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9/24/2018 0 Comments

Flaky

They said they would do it, the task well defined
But then they turned left, then right, then behind.
They scorned those in power subverting their will
When sudden calamity finished their thrills.
So don’t hitch your wagon with those who rebel
Unless you would like your pain to excel.

Meditation
Proverbs 24:21,22—My son, fear the LORD, as well as the king, and don’t associate with rebels, for destruction from them will come suddenly; who knows what distress these two can bring?

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1/31/2018 0 Comments

Tie Them Around Your Neck

Sadao Munemori was born in Los Angeles, California. As a young man he joined the Japanese-American 442ndRegimental Combat Team which included the 100thInfantry Battalion, the most heavily decorated unit in World War II. Sadao, while fighting on a hillside near Seravezza, Italy, was faced with a wounded squad leader and an entire team pinned down by machine gun fire. Private First Class Munemori decided to engage in a one-man frontal attack. Using grenades he wiped out two machine gun nests but in the process became completely exposed to enemy fire.

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3/14/2017 0 Comments

Stay Awake

Jesus in the final hours before getting arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane asked eight of the disciples to sit while he prayed. Then He took Peter, James and John with him further into the garden. Disclosing His anguish to His three closest friends, He asked them to stay awake with Him. Then He went a little further and fell face down on the ground to pray. When He returned to the three he found them sleeping. He confronted Peter, “Simon, are you sleeping? Couldn’t you stay awake one hour?” (vs. 37)

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11/22/2016 0 Comments

Old Guard

The 3rd United States Infantry Regiment has three active battalions, and is identified by its nickname, “The Old Guard.” The regiment is a major unit of the Military District of Washington (MDW) and is the oldest active duty regiment in the U.S. Army. Originally called the First American Regiment in 1784, its mission is “to conduct memorial affairs to honor fallen comrades and ceremonies and special events to represent the U.S. Army.”[1]

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