I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Thursday morning, the 7th of September, 2023, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. 

We start in the First Book of Timothy 5:8: 

“But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” 

I didn’t think there could be anything worse than an unbeliever, but we hear very clearly in the word of God that we need to take full responsibility for those God has given us to watch over. You know, mom, dad - that small little child actually belongs to Jesus. He is just allowing us to watch over those children for Him. He loves them so much. If we look at the word of God in Matthew 18:6, Jesus said: 

“But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone (that weighs about 5 tons by the way) were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” (bold comment added)

We need to put our family first before anything else, before our career, before our ambition, even before our ministry. We need to look after our loved ones first. I will never forget as a young boy, just going into my teenage years, when the peer pressure is at it’s worst, so competitive, everyone checking out to see what the other person’s got, I told my mom one morning before I went to school, “You know mom, I am one of the only boys in my class who don’t have a wrist-watch. All the other boys have got one.” She said, “Angus, we just don’t have enough money to buy one at the moment.” You know, we came from a middle-class family. My dad was a blacksmith, he worked very hard but we didn’t have a lot of money. My dad was just getting ready for work, I will never forget it, he walked up to me and he took his wrist-watch off his big, strong, muscular arm and he gave it to me and said, “There son, you put that on.” I have never forgotten that act of love in all those years.

You know, it’s not how much we give, its how much we love our family that counts. Go out today and do something special for your family.

Jesus bless you and goodbye.