Thought For Today

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Tuesday morning, the 28th of October, 2025, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. 

We start in the Book of John. Now, the most famous verse in the whole Bible has got to be John 3:16. Ask your little girl, your little boy as you are driving them to school and they will quote it for you and they will:

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” 

But don’t we often just stop there? What about verse 17? Now, this morning, the Lord Jesus impressed upon me to share with you the importance of the next verse, verse 17:

“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” 

Oh, what a beautiful scripture!

The Lord does not condemn you today, Sir. The Lord came to forgive you of all your sins so that you can live a life that is abundant. If we go to Romans 8:1, I will confirm that: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus,...” If you love the Lord Jesus with all your heart today, He says, “I do not condemn you”, He says, “I came to set you free.” 

When the Father forgives, He forgets. Isn’t that beautiful? When you forgive somebody for something they have done and you have a bit of an off day, what do you do? Oh yes, you do! I do as well, ”Remember that thing that you did the other day?” No, when the Lord forgives, He forgets.

“Lord, remember that sin I committed before I became a Christian?”

“No, I don’t remember it at all, and I don’t want to hear about it.”

What do we need to do this morning? We need to repent. Say sorry for the thing we have done and then move on with our life. Now this is important that I am going to share with you. It is the devil, satan, who condemns you, but Jesus convicts you. There is a big difference. He says, “Listen, get your life right. Stop that nonsense, stop having that affair because it is going to catch you out and destroy your marriage, stop that drinking because it is going to kill you.” 

I want to say to you as we close, I remember a long time ago hearing a story about a little lake, and there is a big signboard which says, “No fishing here!” Now, you take that sin, that thing that is condemning you, throw it into that lake and put that sign up, “No fishing,” and move on with your life for Jesus. He loves you. That’s why He died for you.

Have a wonderful day,
God bless you and goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Monday morning, 27th October 2025, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We start in the Book of Exodus 25:8:

”And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings, just so you shall make it.”

Then we go to the Gospel of Mark 1:35:

”Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a “solitary place; and there He prayed.”

Do you have a solitary place where you meet with God every morning? It is very important, especially in this hectic lifestyle that we are living in at present. I want to tell you about a place called a poustinia. It is a Russian word for a quiet time place. It literally means a desert place. Yes, a physical one but also a spiritual one. Do you have a place where you can come aside on your own, where the family doesn’t come and distract you, or anybody, and spend undivided time with the Lord every day? A poustinia is a quiet place to contemplate, to think about, a place to encounter God. It’s a place where you remove all distractions. It’s a place for solitude and prayer. It’s not a thing, it is a practice.

Now, I want to tell you about my poustinia. When I travel, it is very busy. Sometimes I have to change planes, I have to wait in the departure lounge, maybe sometimes for an hour, two hours before I go to the next appointment to preach, and it is very busy. Then I close my eyes and go into my spiritual quiet time place, my poustinia, and I will describe it to you: There’s a place up in Zambia where they buried the heart of Dr David Livingstone after he died, and I went and spent time there. Now you walk down this little path and on the left hand side you’ll find a big log. I sit there quietly. I hear the birds singing. There’s a gentle breeze blowing the reeds and I pray and I spend time with God and refresh myself.

Then I hear on the overhead speakers, ”Flight number 256, flying to Nashville, Tennessee, is now boarding through Gate number 25.” I get up, take my bags and I move on. I am refreshed. I have spent time with Jesus.

You need to do the same today.
God bless you and goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Sunday morning, the 26th of October, 2025, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We start in the Gospel of John 3:7. This is Jesus talking:

”Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.”

Then we go to 2 Corinthians 5:17:

”Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

We must make a new start. We must be born again. That is not a charismatic or a Pentecostal statement, that is a Jesus statement. Every single man, woman and child must be reborn. You see, you telling me that, ”Ah, I come from a Christian family and I was born into a Christian family, and my mother and my father were Christians, and my grandfather and grandmother were Christians. I want to tell you something very carefully, the Lord has no grandchildren in heaven. Do you know what that means? It means that every one of us, me included, especially me, we need to make a clean start. We need to start all over again. Each one of us has to make a personal commitment to Jesus. That’s what Jesus told Nicodemus. Nicodemus said, ”How can a grown man go back into his mother’s womb for a second time?” Jesus said, ”You don’t know where the wind comes from and you don’t know where it goes but you can feel it. You can feel it on your face.”

I want to say to you today, please consider what the Lord is saying. It is so very important. We are living in the last days. Look around you, see what is happening. We need to make a complete change in our lives. Let’s do it today. I want to pray a prayer with you. There’s somebody that’s listening to this message who has been struggling with this issue for many years. Please let that pride fall away and say, ”Lord today, I want to tell you, I cannot carry on on my own, I can’t make it. This depression is killing me. The stress. The responsibility with the family.” I know, I was there. Now let us pray this prayer together. I’m going to pray it real slow so that you can grasp it and it’s going to be very simple.

Pray after me:

Dear Lord Jesus,

I know that I am a sinner, and I need you to save me. You have told me this morning, very clearly, through Your word that I need to be born again. I repent of all my sins and I ask You alone to be my Lord and my Saviour. I will serve no other gods but You. Thank You for dying for me, a sinner, on the cross of Calvary.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Now go out and tell the first three people you meet what you’ve done, ”I have become a born-again Christian.”

Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day,
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Saturday morning, the 25th of October, 2025, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

”...Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Nehemiah 8:10

I want to sing a hymn with you today. Do you remember Fanny Crosby? Remember, she was stone blind, but she wrote some of the most beautiful hymns that have ever been written. Do you know that beautiful one “Do not pass me by, oh gentle Saviour”?

Let’s sing it together:
Pass me not, O gentle Saviour,
Hear my humble cry;

While on others Thou art calling,
Do not pass me by.
Saviour, Saviour,
Hear my humble cry,
While on others Thou art calling,
Do not pass me by.

Doesn’t that make you feel good? Absolutely!

Now the other day, I was walking through the field and a young girl, I didn’t even see her, she was listening to me, I was whistling. I say with great sadness in my heart, how many people do you hear that whistle these days? I hardly hear anyone, but I love whistling, and I’m going to try and whistle this one for you today.

Go out today and whistle and you’ll feel so much better and Jesus will be so close to you.
God bless you and goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Friday morning, the 24th of October, 2025, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for the day.

We start in the Gospel of John 15:7. Jesus says:

”If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.”

Then we go to the Gospel of Matthew 11:28-29. Jesus says:

”Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

I really want to share my heart with you this morning, the Lord has been so very, very close to me. I’ve been listening to a broadcast by Andrew Murray, the South African preacher, whose books are still very well read, all over the world. The one I’ve been listening to is, “Abide in Christ.” Stay in the Lord, that’s what he wrote, and then just a few days ago I sent you that thought for today, “Practise the presence of God.” 

“Practise the presence of God” by brother Lawrence, the French monk who lived 300 years ago. People flocked around him all the time. All he was, was the cook in that monastery. He wasn’t the abbot or holding a senior position and he used to mend sandals, remember I told you. In fact, he himself never wore any shoes but the people flocked around him. Why? Because Jesus was in him! You see, he said that Jesus was with him wherever he went, and I want to encourage you today. 

That’s exactly what Andrew Murray’s talking about. He says, if you abide in Christ and He abides in you, then you are with God all the time. Whether you are a shoe maker; a cook in the kitchen; whether you are a CEO of a large company; whether you are an airline pilot, whether you are a policeman; a school teacher; a farmer; a miner, Jesus can be with you all the time if you allow Him to.

Remember Colossians 1:27:

”…Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

It’s not about going to church on Sunday. Yes, I go to church every Sunday. It’s not about going to a midweek Bible study, I go to two prayer meetings every week, but that’s not where I find Jesus. I find Jesus every moment of every day in my life, from the time I open my eyes to the time I go to sleep, and what these mighty men of God are talking about is that we can live with the Lord even when we are here on earth. We don’t have to wait until we get to heaven to experience the presence of God!

Today, open your heart, listen to the word of God and talk to Him because He wants to listen to you. 
Jesus bless you and goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Thursday morning, the 23rd of October, 2025, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We go to the Book of Exodus 23:10-11:

”Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow,…”

What does the word fallow mean? It means to do nothing with it. It means to leave your land and let it rest. It means to let the weeds grow. It means to let the earthworms do their work. It means to allow the ground to build up compost from the residue of the previous season. For six years we work the land, I’m talking as a farmer now, in the seventh year we must grow no crops whatsoever. 

As a young farmer, I really struggled with this scripture from the Lord because I have a rather small farm, and it’s an arable farm so we plant up the whole farm every year to grain crops. But becoming a Christian, I wanted to do the right thing, so I came up against this scripture, six years you plant, seventh year you rest, and so I said to the Lord, ”I can’t rest the whole farm for one year. I’ll go bankrupt.” And then I felt the Lord say to me, in my heart, ”Why don’t you rest one seventh of the arable land, and after seven years, the whole farm would have rested once.” I thought that was brilliant, so that’s what I did. I would leave one seventh of the land without touching it. No ploughing, nothing whatsoever. 

I’ll never forget, one day, a young agronomist came to see me on the farm. He was a very clever young man, and he was driving around my maize fields, I was growing seed maize at that time and he said, ”Your crop looks fantastic.” Then I took him past the one field that I was resting in and he said to me, ”What is going on over there?” because the weeds were about six feet tall and the grass was growing. It looked terrible and I went and parked our pickup right next to that field and I said to him, ”Do you really want to know?” He said, ”Yes, please, I do.” He was not a Christian by the way, and I said, ”The Bible tells me I must rest the land and that’s what I’m doing.” You know that he was so intrigued, we carried on talking and I ended up praying the sinner’s prayer with that young man and I’m trusting that maybe he’s even listening to this message at the moment. His name is Sean. Folks, I’m talking maybe over forty years ago.

I want to tell you, we also need to rest. The Lord says rest the land. Rest the animals, and we need to rest so that we can be strengthened. This modern idea of just go for it seven days week, it can’t be sustained. Something will break down.

Please, today, listen to God’s word and rest on the Sabbath. 
Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day, 
Goodbye

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Wednesday morning, the 22nd of October, 2025, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We start in the Gospel of John 2:11:

“This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him.”

Jesus turned the water into wine at the marriage feast in Cana, the first miracle. 

My dear friend, I want to say something to you. One genuine miracle equals a thousand sermons. I really believe it with all of my heart. Jesus was known by the miracles He performed, not one, but many. But the sad thing was, He performed very few miracles in His home town, Nazareth, because of the unbelief of the people. Jesus could perform very few. I want to tell you, it wasn’t His sermons that convicted the people, it was the signs and wonders and miracles. 

Apart from the sermon on the mount, I don’t know of too many other sermons that Jesus preached, but miracles, one after another, and I want to tell you that faith begets faith. Faith is contagious. When you see a miracle, it changes the whole situation. I remember many years ago, preaching right up in the northern part of Mozambique, a place called Montepuez. It was a huge meeting. The soccer field was full of people, but nothing was happening. No one was responding. 

I looked up and I saw there was a line of muslims right along the back of the soccer field. I could see them by the white caps they were wearing, and there was nothing happening. The Holy Spirit spoke to me almost audibly. He said, “Stop preaching. They are not listening. There is a man in the front row, (I looked down. I saw him. His leg was sticking out straight) “go and pray for him.” I went down off the platform. I did not know who he was but everybody else did know who he was. He was a woodcutter. That was what his trade was, and what had happened was, a tree had fallen on top of him and crushed his leg, and they had put a steel pin through his leg. 

I walked up to him, laid my hands upon him, prayed the prayer of faith, “In the name of Jesus Christ, the Miracle-worker”, asked him to stand up, we took the crutches away and he was totally healed. He was running back and forwards in front of the platform and the people went wild. I didn’t have to make an altar call that day. They wanted to give their lives to Jesus before I had finished speaking, and the funny thing was too, amazingly, after the service, the muslim people came behind the big Seed Sower which I was preaching off, and they brought their sick children and their sick people for prayer. We prayed for the muslims for a long time after that service. One genuine miracle equals a thousand sermons!

Jesus bless you and goodbye!

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Tuesday morning, the 21st of October, 2025, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We start in the Gospel of John 1:41-42:

“We have found the Messiah” (which is translated, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.” 

Who brought Peter to Jesus? It was Andrew. He introduced Peter to Jesus, and Peter, of course, eventually was the one who headed up the church when Jesus went back to heaven to be with His Father, but how many people remember Andrew being the one who introduced his brother, Peter, to Jesus? 

Somebody sent me a little clip some time back, and it was a beautiful story, and I want to share it with you. Two young men, 16 years old, heard there was an evangelist who had come to their local town, and these two young men decided to go and have a look. It was a tent meeting, as they arrived, they were looking for a seat, and they couldn’t find one, so they both walked out the back of the tent and thought, ”Oh well, we’ll just leave it.” Then an usher, yes, an Andrew, (and his name wasn’t Andrew, nobody knows his name. Only Jesus knows his name, and you and I will meet him maybe one day when we get to Heaven), he ran after them. 

He said, ”Boys, where are you going?” 

“Sir, the tent is full, so we decided we’ll just go along.” 

”No, come with me.” 

He took them into the tent and brought them up to the front, found two chairs for those two young men and the rest is history. Who were they? Well, the one young man, his name was Billy Graham. I’m an evangelist myself and he’s one of my heroes. He’s a man who’s been used by God, to introduce more people to Jesus than anybody else, ever. 

Today, don’t despise becoming an introducer. People need to be introduced to the Lord and He, the Lord Jesus Christ, through the power of His Holy Spirit, will do the rest. Today, become an introducer. Maybe start in your own family.

Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day,
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Monday morning, the 20th of October, 2025, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We go straight to the Book of Exodus 20:15:

“You shall not steal.”

Then we go to the Gospel of Luke 19:8-9:

”Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold. And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house…”

We may not take something that does not belong to us. Zacchaeus was convicted when Jesus came to his home to have a meal with him, convicted by the presence of the Lord that he was a thief. He had been stealing money from his own people, charging them exorbitant tax fees and putting the money in his own pocket. He was convicted and said, ”Lord, I will repay anything that I have stolen from anybody else 400%.” Folks, that is beautiful, that is conviction, and I want to tell you that Zacchaeus slept very well from that night onwards.

What about you? Are you sleeping well at the moment? You say, ”But Angus, but I haven’t stolen anything from anyone.” Are you sure? The Holy Spirit’s been talking to me this morning. If you are not paying your income tax, that’s theft. You say, ”But I don’t believe what the government stands for.” That’s got nothing to do with it, my friend. The Lord says be no man’s debtor. Pay your debt. What about time from your boss? Are you stealing time from your boss? Are you doing other things in his time that you shouldn’t be doing? You are stealing his time. What about paying your debt?

I want to tell you a sad story. I remember a young man, many, many years ago. He was starting on his own as a mechanic. He would come to our farm and repair tractors or implements that I couldn’t repair myself. Eventually, one day, he never came back. I made enquiries, ”Where is this young man?” And they said, ”He’s gone bankrupt.” I said, ”Why?“ He said, “because the people would not pay their accounts and he couldn’t carry on.” 

So sad, and then lastly, what about the time you are stealing from the Lord? Oh, my dear friend, you need to have a quiet time with the Lord every single morning. You say, ”I can’t Angus, I’m too busy.” You can never be too busy to have a quiet time with Jesus. You owe it to Him. Give Him the first most precious moments of the day and you will be surprised how He will reward you.

God bless you and have a lovely day, 
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Sunday morning, the 19th of October, 2025, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

“Many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the Lord delivers him out of them all.”
Psalm 34:19

Then we go to Romans 5:3-4:

“And not only that, (this is Paul speaking) but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

I have never met a man or a woman, worth their salt, who has not been through a fiery trial. The Lord never promised you or me a bed or roses when we gave our lives to Him. No, He never promised us that He would take us out of the fire. When you and I gave our lives to the Lord, we gave our lives to the Lord unconditionally. He said, “I won’t take you out of the fire but I will walk with you through the fire.” You remember the three men of God, Meshach, Shadrack and Abednego in the Old Testament who were thrown into that fiery furnace because of their stand for Jesus? Well, the leader came and looked in the fiery furnace. They said to each other, “there are four men in those flames. We only put three in!” Yes, the fourth one was who else? No-one but the Master Himself, Jesus Christ!

The symbol of the Christian faith is a cross, and what does a cross represent? Well, it represents death, it represents pain, but it also represents resurrection and everlasting life. I want to encourage you today if you are going through a hard time, that the Lord is walking with you. Do not be afraid.

Many, many years ago there was a convoy of pickups that came driving through our entrance to the farm, Shalom. It was a group of young guys who were coming in with Nick Vujicic, the Australian, the young man who was born with no arms and no legs. He was an amazing man. He touched me deeply. He was a man who was full of grace and favour of God. He really impacted my life. He brought one of his books for me and he said, “Angus, would you like me to sign it for you?” And I looked at him, I thought he was joking. I said, “Yes please, I would love that Nick,” and they put a pen in between his teeth and he signed his name, and by the way, his writing is better than I have ever seen mine. 

Today, look up because Jesus is walking through the fire with you.
God bless you and goodbye.