I greet you in Jesus’ precious Name. It is Monday morning, the 9th of December, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We go to the Gospel of Mark 2:5:

”When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.”

Determination! Those four friends of that paralysed man were determined at all costs to make sure that Jesus was able to pray for him. The crowd was immense. They couldn’t get anywhere near the front door. So what did they do? Yes, they made a plan. They climbed up onto the roof of the house, removed the tiles and let the paralysed man down with ropes and placed him right in front of the Master. You talk about persistence! There’s no ways they were going to let the Lord leave without praying for their dear friend. I looked up the meaning of the word, “determination”. This is what it says: “Persistence in continuing to do something even when it is difficult.” Now that event touched Jesus tremendously. So much so that Jesus healed the paralysed man immediately and forgave his sins.

I want to tell you the story of a determined young man. He lived in my house. He is a son of mine in the faith. He joined the elite Parabat Regiment, one of the elite regiments in the South African Defence Force. He was on his last event when he jumped out of an aeroplane with all the other soldiers and something went terribly wrong, some of the ropes of the parachute caught his fingers and amputated a couple of them. It was just before he was going to graduate and get his purple beret with his wings. But he did not give up. He went to the officers in charge and said to them, ”I want to do the course again.” This course is an extremely hard course. Many men don’t finish -  and that young man did the whole course twice. You talk about determination! That’s the kind of man that I would like to go to war with. Oh, by the way, he’s now fully committed into God’s army.

Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day, 
Goodbye.