I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Thursday morning, the 10th of October, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We start in the Gospel of Matthew 20:15. Jesus says:

”Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things?” 

Why are we always telling God what to do? He says here, “Can I not do what I want with my own things?” Then we go to Romans 9:21:

”Does not the potter have power over the clay,…?”

Folks, I used to keep sheep on this farm. We had 500 beautiful stud Isle de France ewes, beautiful sheep. We won many prizes with those sheep at the local shows but never once did my sheep tell me how to live. You’ve never heard of a sheep telling a shepherd what to do or how to look after the flock. Now the Lord says to us the same thing with the clay. Where have you ever seen a lump of clay telling the potter how to make a pot? It’s ludicrous isn’t it? it’s ridiculous! - the same as the worker who does not tell the employer how much he must pay his men, we can’t argue with God, we need to simply obey.

Now, we know the story of the landowner who got up early in the morning and wanted to hire labourers for his vineyard. So the first men that came, he said he would give them a denarius a day, that’ll be the pay, and then later on in the day he hired some more men and he said here that he would pay them as well, and so the day went on and right to the very end of the day, there was only one hour left and he went and employed another group of men. When it came to paying the men he hired last, he paid them a denarius. Now, the men that had been working all day thought, “Well, these men have only worked for an hour, so we are going to get a lot more money because we’ve worked all day”. Then the landowner gave the men that came early the same pay, one denarius. They were most upset, ”How can you give us only one denarius and these men here have only worked for one hour and we’ve worked for eleven hours?” And that’s when the landowner said, ”Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things?”

Folks, we must stop saying “It’s not fair” because Jesus will do as He pleases. It’s only Jesus who has paid the full price for your salvation and my salvation. Did you hang on a cross? Did you die for anyone? Therefore you’ve got no right to say anything. What we need to say is, ”Lord, thank you for saving us.”

Today remember who is in charge and I’m so happy to tell you, His name is Jesus.

God bless you and have a lovely day, 
Goodbye.