I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Friday morning, the 12th of April, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We go to the Song of Solomon 1:6:

“They made me the keeper of the vineyards,
But my own vineyard I have not kept.”

Charity begins at home. Service starts with valuable time, spent first of all, in the presence of Jesus Christ, and then your family, and then your work. The Gospel of Mark 8:36 says: 

“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” 

We need to spend more time in the presence of Almighty God, both quantity and quality. We need to be careful, and I am talking to myself here more than anybody, that the work of the Lord does not keep us from the Lord of the work—so busy for Jesus that we have no time to spend with Jesus. We really need to be so careful of that fact.

A man I have the utmost respect for, one of my heroes was James Hudson Taylor. That young man took the Gospel of Jesus Christ to China. As a result, they are having one of the greatest revivals in the world in the underground church in China, at the moment, and yet, that man could say, and I am going to read it, “Our attention is here drawn to a danger which is pre-eminently one of this day: the intense activity of our times may lead to zeal in service, to the neglect of personal communion; but such neglect will not only lessen the value of the service, but tend to incapacitate us for the highest service.” In other words, if we are not having a proper quiet time with the Lord, if we are not interacting with the Lord, it will even affect our ministry, let alone our family that will suffer, and most of all, our personal relationship with the Lord.

Remember, first the Lord, then your wife or your husband, then your children, then the rest of your family, and then the ministry or the work that God has called you to. If we do it in that order we will not fail.

Jesus bless you and have a lovely day,
Goodbye.