Thought For Today

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

We start in the first book of the Bible, Genesis 12:3, and the Lord says:

”I will bless those who bless you…” [He’s talking about Abraham] “…and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” 

What an incredible promise to receive from God and how is that? Well, the answer is found in the Book of James 2:23:

“Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God.”

How would you like to be called the friend of God? Everybody wants to be God’s friend, even the devil, but I want to tell you something, this scripture tells us that God said, “That farmer, Abraham, is my friend.” He doesn’t say that to many people. We might ask ourselves the question, why? Well, it’s very simple - because Abraham obeyed the Lord. Abraham became God’s friend because he did what God told him to do.

A good idea is not always a God idea. I think you’ve heard us say that before. Abraham was a very prosperous farmer. He wasn’t going bankrupt, he wasn't trying to make “Plan B”. No, no! He was very prosperous, but he left everything that he had and he went, not to another country, not to another destination, to an unknown destination. God said, ”I will show you where to go.” He did it immediately. That’s why God loved Abraham so much folks. We need to hear from God! 

Many many years ago when I first met the Lord in a very real way, yes, close to fifty years now, I was so in love with the Lord, I still am, maybe even more so today because I know Him better. I felt that a good idea would be for me to give, not sell, my farm away, go to Bible College, study the Word, (there’s nothing wrong with that, by the way) and then become a pastor, but I went to the mountain and I fasted and prayed for six days and then I came back and I said to Jill, my dear wife, my best friend, I said, ”We’re not going anywhere. We’re not giving the farm away. We are staying right here.” And that is exactly what I did and as a result the Lord has blessed me unimaginably!  I could never dream what was going to take place on this farm. 

You do the same today - do what Abraham did. Obey God and He will be your friend!
Jesus bless you and goodbye.

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

We start in the Gospel of John 10:27:

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”

Can you hear His voice today? You know, I marvel when I maybe get invited to a birthday party and there’s are a whole lot of young mothers and they all chatting, having a cup of tea together, and all the little children are playing on the playground, maybe 10, 15 children, little ones, under 4 years old, and all of a sudden one of them falls and starts to cry. It’s a miracle. I just hear a whole lot of children shouting and playing but that mother, the mother of that child, straight away, she puts her cup down and she goes straight to the playground to her child. Why? Because she knows her child’s voice even if she’s crying. It’s incredible, it’s a miracle!  

I read something very special the other day. It is not unusual for a person who loses someone very dear to them to hang on to a final voice mail recording, just to be able to hear their voice again. How many times have you heard that? Sad but true.

The Good Shepherd knows His sheep and they know His voice. In the Middle East they don’t chase sheep around with sheepdogs like we do in the west. No, the shepherd calls his sheep and his sheep follow him, it’s quite something to see. I’ve got a son who uses cattle dogs to herd his cattle. These dogs are amazing. I love them, I pat them, I talk to them but they don’t listen to me. They only listen to one voice and that is my son’s voice. Why? Because they know him. When a child is in it’s mothers womb is already connecting with mom, and when it’s born and it grows and mom speaks to that child, and dad, every day, when they grow up there’s a bond that cannot be broken. Now, we need to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd. In John 14:6, Jesus said:

“I am the way…”.

We need to listen to that beautiful voice, still small voice, and we need to obey Him, then we will not get caught up on the wrong road and get ourselves into trouble.

Today, listen and hear the voice of God. He is speaking to you.
Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day. 
Goodbye.

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

We start in the Gospel of Mark 16:15:

“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”

Just that far - we need to do it! We can’t keep Jesus hidden in our homes. We have to tell the world the wonderful news. I read a beautiful illustration in one of Charles Swindoll's devotionals. This is how the story goes: “During the reign of Oliver Cromwell, the British government began to run low on silver for coins. Lord Cromwell sent his men to the local cathedral to see if they could find any of the precious metal there. After investigating, they reported: “The only silver we can find is in the statues of the saints standing in the corners.” To which the radical soldier and statesman of England replied: “Well melt down the saints and put them into circulation!” That brief but direct order states the essence of the practical goal of authentic Christianity, not rows of silver saints crammed into the corners of cathedrals, but melted saints circulating through the mainstream of humanity.”

Isn’t that beautiful? You and I have to get out there and we have to be prepared to be melted if necessary, to be mocked, to be criticised but to make a difference, to tell people about Jesus Christ. It is no good keeping your Christianity hidden. We need to get out there and tell the people, just like Oliver Cromwell got those saints, melted them, made them into coins and sent the coins all over England. Let us get out there, not just be a Christian on Sunday morning, but Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and make a difference in a world that is desperate to hear the truth.

Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day,
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Wednesday morning, the 18th of June, 2025, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We go to the Gospel of Luke 8:48:

“And He said to her (Jesus), “Daughter, be of good cheer; your faith has made you well. Go in peace.” 

Then we go to Romans 8:11:

“But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”

What beautiful scriptures! 

Remember the woman who had the issue of blood? She could not stop bleeding. She had been to the doctors. She had spent all her money and the doctors had tried to help her, twelve years she was in that state then she went on her own when she knew Jesus was coming. She pushed through the crowd and she said to herself, “If I can only just touch the hem of His garment, I’ll be healed." And of course, she did, she pushed through, I can just imagine her going through the crowd and getting nice and low, touching the hem of His garment, and instantly the blood dried up and she was healed. Jesus turned around and said, “Who touched Me?” And the disciples said, “Lord, there are people pushing from all angles. How can we know who touched You?” And she said, “It was me, Lord.” And what did Jesus say? He said, “Go in peace because your faith has made you well.”

On Easter Sunday, Resurrection Sunday, just a short while ago, I took the service here at Shalom, and I told them I would be praying for the sick. A lady brought her son to be healed. He was a grown man. He had cancer of the brain. She came forward, we anointed him with oil like we did with all the people who came forward. We prayed a simple prayer of faith, and God, through the power of His Holy Spirit, touched that young man and healed him. Now, she went to the specialist the next week, and she said to the specialist, “My son has been healed in Jesus’ name.” She claimed his healing! The specialist looked at her and said, “No, he has got cancer.” She said, “Please do another MRI on him, another test." He did that.

He was very, very skeptical and he wanted to know what happened. She said she had been to a healing meeting and she believed her son was healed. Well, reluctantly, he went and did it and afterwards he came out and his face was quite pale. And he said to her, “There is no cancer in your son’s brain. He is healed!”

Today, claim your healing from Jesus.
Have a wonderful day!

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name. It is Tuesday morning, the 17th of June, 2025, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We go the Book of Genesis 11:9:

”Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth;…”

Then we go straight to 2 Corinthians 6:16:

“I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”  

Babel - you know, I looked up the Oxford dictionary. It means, confused noise made by many people speaking together. The Lord saw what the people were doing. They were trying to build a tower to get to heaven and so what He did was, He confused their language. They all started speaking different languages and they could not work together to try and build this tower to heaven. Often, the Lord will confuse an issue because He is trying to save us. He’s trying to save us from trying to be like God.

I have a beautiful grand-daughter. She is a speech therapist. She studied language and the art of speaking at university and she sat with me one day and she said to me, ”Grand-dad, it is so complex. The Lord has created us in such a very special way that to be able to speak, to use your tongue and your voice box is incredible. It is a miracle, there’s no doubt about it."

I have just taken a photograph of a stone carving that I picked up in Ethiopia. It is of the last supper, Jesus with His disciples, but at the bottom you will see a language. It’s the original language in Ethiopia which is 3000 years old. That language was written and spoken 1000 years before Christ was born. You’re talking about a long time ago, but I want to tell you that God sent His Son Jesus Christ down from heaven to earth to give you and me a brand new language. It’s called love.

I’ve spoken to people all over the world who can’t speak english and I can’t speak their language, but once we are in Christ, it is miraculous how we can talk to one another through the language of Jesus Christ which is the language of love! 

Today, go out and love someone even if you can’t speak their language and the Holy Spirit will unite you together in a miraculous way.

Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day. 
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name. It is Monday morning, the 16th of June, 2025, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We go to the Gospel of Matthew 11:28-30. 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. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” 

The Lord never promised us, when we gave our lives to Him, that it was going to be easy, but what He did promise us is that He’s going to walk with us through this troubled life in which we are living at the moment. We are stressed out, we are worried, we are fearful about so many things, but all the Lord has asked you and me to do is to stand. He says that in Ephesians. “Stand” He says. The battle belongs to the Lord, take it to Jesus. You say, “Why?” I’ll tell you why, because He knows, and He really does understand what you are going through.

I really want to caution folks who are trying to comfort others who are stressed out at the moment, who have been through a tragedy in their lives. Do not say, ”I understand,” especially if you’ve never been there. Rather, put your arm around them, love them, weep with them, and just sit with them and have a cup of tea with them, but don’t come and start giving them all your personal opinions. 

Oh, it’s happened to me. I’ve been in the depths of despair where there’s been no light at the end of the tunnel and I just don’t know how I’m going to get through or over this mountain. Those are the times when you need people who can come and sit with you and just love you and allow the Holy Spirit to walk with you through your time of testing. You see, Jesus does understand. He was in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was so stressed out that He was sweating blood, folks. He does understand. Take your burdens to the Lord today. Cast your burdens upon Jesus because He cares for you.

Today is a day that you can come aside and say, ”Lord, this is my situation, this is my financial situation, this is my relationship situation, this is my business challenge, and I’m giving it to You because You said to me in Your word,

“Cast your burdens upon Jesus because He cares for you”,

and you’ll find that in 1 Peter 5:7.

Jesus bless you and remember He cares, and He will see you through.
God bless you and goodbye

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name.  It is Sunday morning, the 15th of June, 2025, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

It is Father’s Day, and I really want to congratulate all fathers, not an easy job, on this day the scripture that I have for you is found in Exodus 20:12:

“Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.” 

It is the first commandment in the Bible with a promise added to it. Honour your dad, so that your days may be long in the land. Now, I want to speak to young people, and I want to be straight with you, this programme, we don’t do it to tickle ears. The truth of the matter is that a lot of dads, a lot of fathers don’t justify to be honoured. Oh no, some fathers are abusive, other fathers are absent, other fathers are adulterers. So what is the Lord saying? The Lord is saying that we must honour our parents, so you don’t have to agree with them, you don’t even have to love them. Now that might be tough one. You say, “Uncle Angus, I can’t love him”. But you can honour him because God says you must. You can pray for him because God says we must pray for one another and trust God for a miracle in your relationship.

But I want to speak to other dads. I want to say I am so proud of you. It is so wonderful to see sons and fathers, daughters and fathers together. You know, that’s one of the highlights for me at Mighty Men Conferences, to see a father standing arm in arm with his son. We always say, if a boy is twelve years old and he can ride a horse and can shoot a rifle, he is a man, and therefore he is eligible to come to a Mighty Men Conference, but to see them sitting together… 

It is not easy, young men, to honour your dads - different opinions, different generations, different backgrounds, but nevertheless, the Lord says He promises you that your days will be long in the land if you would honour your father. So today, just ask the Lord Jesus to give you that love for him, and I am telling you that it will change your life forever. 

Jesus bless you and have a wonderful Father’s Day today, dad, as your wives, your daughters, your sons, your grandsons (I have got a great-grandson), honour you today and give God the glory for your life.

In Jesus name,
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name. It is Saturday morning, the 14th of June, 2025, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

I want us to go to the Book of Philippians 4:19:

“And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” 

All your needs, not all our wants, no, but all our needs! 

I want to talk to you today about tools. You must have the right tools for the job. We need the tools for the work that God has called us to, and in Philippians 4:19, He has already told us that He will supply all of our needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. I had a tremendous desire, I still do, to get the Gospel of Jesus Christ into Central Africa, and the Gospel is the Word, and the Word, according to Psalm 119:105:

“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” 

I had a dream to have a huge truck and I would call it the Seed-Sower. I think you’ve heard about it! Yes, a 20-ton Mercedes Benz, 4 x 4 truck. 32 gears in that truck, an 80 kilowatt lighting plant on the back, a platform that came down from the side that could accommodate a whole band and the preacher, and one name on the side, “JESUS”, that’s all. The colour? Bright yellow because they tell me that that is the colour that is easiest to identify, especially when you are reading. It even had 4 diesel tanks. It could go almost through a whole country without having to refill. It had a water tank on the back because many places we visited had water that was not drinkable, and it supplied all of our needs: to shower, to cook, and to drink.

There we went out and took Bibles, thousands of Bibles and tracts and Christian books. We took food and clothes. The funny thing is, they never wanted the food and the clothes so much, but they wanted the Word of God, the Bible. We had the tools of the trade and then by faith we went out into unreached people groups where the Gospel had not been heard before, a most incredible experience, little children running out of their huts, never having seen a white man before. It was quite amazing and so open and so loving. Sowing good seed because we had the right tools! 

Get the right tools first before you do the job. 
Jesus bless you and goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Friday morning, the 13th of June, 2025, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We start in 2 Corinthians 8:9:

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.”

What a beautiful promise from a wonderful Saviour!

Then we go straight to Philippians 2:7:

“…but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.”

Our beloved Lord Jesus, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Lily of the Valley, the Bright Morning Star, the Great Ploughman, the Shepherd of the sheep - He came from Heaven, left His throne, and was born in a manger, (a feed trough, that is what a manger is, where you put food for cattle and sheep to eat, that was His manger), in the form of a helpless little Baby. The King of Glory to become a helpless little baby! He gave up everything for you and for me. 

My dear lady, I want to tell you, God loves you that much! He became poor so that you and I could become rich. All we have to do is receive that gift. Say “Thank You, Lord, I receive it, I once was lost but now I am found.” He has made us in His own image and He has given us the ability to receive all the riches that He has in store for us. What is it today that you require of the Lord?

You say, “I am poverty stricken, I can’t read very well, I can’t speak very well, I can’t write very well. I am not much of a sportsman.” Are you talking about me? That’s exactly how I was. Ja, I left school early but I had one desire and one dream. “Lord, I want to tell people about You.” Remember, I used to practice, preaching to the maize plants in the field, and then when I wanted to pray the Sinner’s Prayer with them, a gentle breeze would come up and all the maize plants would bow their heads. Yes, it is a joke but it is not a joke actually, it is true and He can do the same for you. All you have to do is to ask Him. He says,

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”
Matthew 7:7

Do it today and He will help you!
Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day,
Goodbye. 

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Thursday morning, the 12th of June, 2025, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We start in Genesis 9:13:

“I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.”

Then we go to the Book of Hebrews 12:24:

”…Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant,…” 

God gave us, you and me, the most beautiful sign in the sky that He would never ever flood the earth again. Now, being a farmer, I study the clouds, I study the weather, and after a beautiful shower of rain on a hot summer’s afternoon, what do we see? We see a beautiful rainbow in the sky, a sign that the Lord has given to you and me that He will never flood the earth with water again, but God has now given us yet another even more powerful sign - a cross. You know folks, I want to tell you honestly, Jesus Christ has been made the Mediator (that is what it says in Hebrews) between God and ourselves. What is a mediator? Well, the Oxford Dictionary calls a mediator, a peacemaker, a go-between, a middleman, and that is what Jesus Christ is to you and I. 

I don’t know how many and maybe a lot of you listening to this message have seen it as well - I have seen a cross in the sky. Oh yes, I have seen a cloud with a cross cut out of the cloud. Then I have seen a cloud in the form of a cross, not once, many times in our great outdoor meetings, and there are thousands of witnesses who have seen the same cross. That cross is a New Covenant between you and me and the Lord Jesus Christ. The Father sent His Son down to finish the job. “Go down Son, and be the final covenant between Myself and man.” 

If any man or woman, boy or girl, be in Christ Jesus, they are a new creation. So if you love Jesus Christ today, you have nothing to fear. When you see the rainbow in the sky, it is a beautiful reminder. Oh, but when you see the cross, you know that we have eternal life through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Have a beautiful day and continue to be a cloud watcher, because remember, at the end of the day, the Master is coming back in the clouds to take you and I home to be with Him in glory forever and ever, amen.