Category: Provision

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.

1 Comment

9/24/2024 0 Comments

On a Quest

Have you ever felt like you were on a journey to nowhere? Does life seem unfulfilling and taxed by unnecessary hardship? Do you find that what you thought would be meaningful is meaningless or empty? Imagine how the Israelites felt as they were exiled from their land by the Assyrians and Babylonians. Their lives revolved around loss, shame, and suffering. God told them, “You will be delivered by returning and resting; your strength will lie in quiet confidence. But you are not willing” (Isaiah 30:14). Like most people, the Israelites believed that they could solve problems and live however they wanted. God restored them to a worthwhile life only when they came to the end of themselves and recognized and renounced the evil of their rebellion.

0 Comments

2/6/2024 1 Comment

You Must Be Quiet

I was talking to my stressed certified public accountant (CPA). It is that time of year when he prepares tax returns for all his clients. The strain on his face was palpable, so his answer was no surprise when I asked him what I could pray for him. “Ask God to relieve the stress and anxiety of this tax season.”

Eric requests prayer for Ben and Kelly’s failing marriage. Erwin needs intercession for his beloved wife, Sue’s deteriorating health. Jerry seeks wisdom in his job addressing conflicts with Iran, Russia, Ukraine, China, Taiwan, Israel, and Hamas. Nanette argues passionately for the right to see her grandson to the deaf ears of a drug-addicted daughter. Her prayer is for reconciliation and healing.

1 Comment

1/14/2024 1 Comment

I Am Claiming God's Goodness

At the beginning of each year, I select a passage from Scripture to be my verse(s) for the year. This year, I picked Psalm 65:11.

1 Comment

6/5/2023 1 Comment

Drinking the Living Water

If you have ever hiked in the mountains, you know that the higher you climb, the purer the water source will be. But as the streams flow downward, they become part of the forest, and now purification tablets are needed to protect against giardia parasites which can cause giardiasis. Continuing downward, the stream merges with other streams and becomes a river. More pollutants are added as waste flows into the river from drainage systems, and people throw their trash, dump chemicals, etc., into the water. So what is my point?

1 Comment

4/30/2023 1 Comment

What Do You Want?

Oswald Chambers wrote a devotional entitled “What Do You Want?” The point of his message was that God is more concerned about us having a close relationship with Him than in our receiving gifts from Him. “There is nothing easier than getting into a right relationship with God except when it is not God Whom you want but only what He gives.”[1]Getting what we want may directly oppose what God knows we need and will provide in His perfect timing because it will have greater work not just in our lives but, most importantly, in our relationship with Him.

1 Comment

3/8/2023 4 Comments

Land of Cabul

Hiram, the king of Tyre, provided King Solomon with all the cedar and cypress logs, and gold, he desired for his construction projects. His servants cut the timber and then assembled the logs into rafts to transport down the Mediterranean Sea to Israel. His fleets brought goods like almug wood and precious stones from distant lands. In return, Solomon yearly provided Hiram with 100,000 bushels of wheat and 110,000 gallons of olive oil (5:8-11). After 20 years of this cooperative effort, Solomon gave Hiram twenty towns in Galilee.

4 Comments

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.

0 Comments

1/6/2023 1 Comment

The Lord Will Provide

The old Mary would have freaked out but not the new Mary. The old Mary was extremely insecure with finances and struggled with worry. The new Mary was all about trusting God, and now she faced one of the biggest tests in her life. One of her clients owed her over $60,000 and had missed several deadlines in paying their debt. She had leveraged her credit card to keep her business afloat, and if ever there was a time for panic, it was now. But instead of harassing the client to pay or taking them to court, she was gracious to them and kept her confidence that her business was God’s and not hers. He would provide. First, her hospital wrote off a bill she owed of $170,000! Second, other clients provided much-needed funds. Finally, a different bank gave her a new and better credit line of almost $200,000.

1 Comment

12/23/2022 0 Comments

Practice Hospitality This Holiday Season

Hospitality unites people. It helps us find room to help others in need and is the antidote to hostility and division. This holiday season, especially in these times of intense division, we should all practice this virtue and apply its power to strengthen relationships at home, work, with our fellow citizens, and even strangers. In the Christmas story (Luke 2:1-20), Mary was in labor while her husband, Joseph, sought shelter. The innkeeper had no available rooms, but seeing Mary’s desperate situation, offered the holy family shelter in a stable where the animals resided.

0 Comments

11/13/2022 0 Comments

The Night Before a Hanging

Esther is an amazing book that teaches why God’s people should trust Him, keep their faith, and not give in to opposition and persecution. The Israelite exiles faced elimination thanks to an antagonist named Haman, who talked his king into decreeing their destruction. Before the dreaded day of death came for the exiles, Haman constructed a gallows for his enemy Mordecai and went to sleep, confident of his diabolical plan’s fulfillment the next day.

0 Comments

9/19/2022 1 Comment

Inheritance

News flash—there was an attack by a Demon Assault Team (DAT) in heaven today, which wiped out an entire wing of the Central Automation Records Division (CARD) that contained the Book of Life (BoL) and the computerized records of those who are to receive a heavenly inheritance. Michael led a task force of angels that was able to wipe out the DAT, but the CARD facility was severely damaged, and the Book of Life (BoL) was badly compromised. It would seem that Satan hoped to disrupt God’s eternal life reward plan for His saints.

1 Comment

7/16/2022 0 Comments

The Missing Spatula Handle

Ron and Joyce, shortly after getting married, hosted a prayer breakfast at their home. A British Major General visiting Fort Benning was to be the speaker at the prayer breakfast. Joyce baked a coffee cake for breakfast that morning. While cleaning up the kitchen, she realized the spatula handle was missing. After looking everywhere, she concluded it must have fallen into the coffee cake.

0 Comments

1/28/2022 0 Comments

The Benefit of Help

Jennifer was suffering. Her finances languished after months of just getting past too many bills. Her favorite dog, Lightning, a family fixture for thirteen years, passed away. Her job required her to be vaccinated but she was allergic to the ingredients of the shot. Despite her doctor’s note exempting her, she was getting hassled by her coworkers. Yesterday her car broke down. Just how was she supposed to pay her mechanic for this unexpected disaster?

0 Comments

4/7/2021 1 Comment

Leaving

Meditation
Exodus 13:4—Today, in the month of Abib, you are leaving.

The month of Abib, (called Nisan in the post-exilic period), extends from March to April. Moses in the passage above was addressing his countrymen at a most historic time. God rescued them from their Egyptian oppressors and now they were headed into what would become a 40-year desert ordeal. They of course did not know that—they were expecting a fairly quick move to Canaan, the Promised Land. Their leaving was done in haste with little preparation and no doubt great anxiety mixed with the joy of liberation.

1 Comment

1/29/2021 0 Comments

Standing on the Rock

Meditation
Exodus 17:6—“I am going to stand there in front of you on the rock at Horeb; when you hit the rock, water will come out of it and the people will drink.” Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel.

0 Comments

11/24/2020 1 Comment

Thankful

It will go down in history as perhaps mankind’s most bizarre year. Never has the entire globe in unison shut down because of a virus. Restrictions in travel, work, recreation, size of gatherings etc., have ruined businesses, increased the number of suicides and deaths for those with other ailments who cannot be hospitalized, amped fear to unprecedented levels, and created a huge divide in opinion over what should or should not be done. Meanwhile political unrest, rolling waves of violence, storms and disasters add to the cacophony of 2020.

1 Comment

5/15/2020 0 Comments

These Are Your Promises

In hard times, the assurance of help is a cold glass of water to a parched soul. Isn’t it great to know that no matter the circumstances that surround us, God’s promises are real, present, and cannot be defeated? Joy comes when we live in God’s fulfilled word—word that is for us so that we might live in victory.

0 Comments

3/31/2020 0 Comments

Numbers

The fourth book of the Bible is Numbers which is a translation of Arithmoi, from the Septuagint. It is titled as such because the book contains two census counts, numerous statistics, tribal and priestly figures, and other numerical data. The Hebrew name is included in the first sentence of the book and means “in the desert of ”; an accurate description of the book’s content, which follows the Israelites through almost forty years of desert wandering.[1]
The story began in the second year of the Israelites escape from Egypt, as they camped in the Wilderness of Sinai around 1444 BC. It ends 38 years later “in the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho” (36:13) in 1406 BC.[2]

0 Comments

3/25/2020 1 Comment

Scared and Sustained

Have you ever been so afraid that you dropped everything you were doing and left everyone you knew to run and hide? Elijah did that and his petrified escape is an amazing story.

1 Comment