Thought For Today

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Monday morning, the 23rd of December, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We go to the Gospel of Mark 3:35, Jesus says:

“For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother.”

Do you remember the story? Jesus was speaking to the multitude and they came and interrupted Him. They said, “Your mother and Your brothers are outside and they are waiting for You.” And that is when He said, “Who is my mother and my brothers?”

You know, I read a beautiful testimony of a young Muslim schoolgirl. She must have been a teenager, and she found Jesus Christ as her personal Lord and Saviour. She was absolutely elated, but she came from a strong, devout Muslim family. She was given a little Gideon’s Bible, a little blue one, and she used to hide it under her pillow. At night, before she went to sleep, she would read it and pray to her Jesus, and in the morning, early before the family got up, she would have her devotions again and then hide the Bible under her pillow when she went to school.

One day, her dad came home in the middle of the day, he needed something and went into her room and found her Bible. When she came home from school, he was furious and told her that unless she repented and stopped this nonsense and started to follow Allah and become a good Muslim girl, he would disown her. She said, “I cannot because I am part of His family now.” So her father threw her into the street, literally, with nothing and she had an extremely tough time. Eventually, Christians brought her into their family, and she grew up and went to Bible College. I believe she is even a teacher of the Word at this time. But you know, the amazing thing is, she never, ever denied Christ. Her mother used to meet her under a bridge somewhere quietly where none of the family knew about it and they used to cry together, and she would bring her some food and she would bring her clothes. After many years, her father saw that she was not turning her back on Jesus and she definitely was part of His family, and by her lifestyle, eventually, she was allowed to come home and visit her father. She had the privilege of leading her dad and her mother and siblings to Jesus Christ.

I want to say to you today, my dear friend, your father, your brother and your sister, are those who worship and live according to the principles of Jesus Christ. There is no doubt about that! Yes, we have got to love our biological family, but we must not be restricted because they do not want to follow Jesus. Every single one of us need to meet Him in a personal way. Why don’t we do what that beautiful Muslim lady has done? By her lifestyle, she introduced her whole family to Jesus Christ.

God bless you and have a wonderful day,
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Sunday morning, the 22nd of December, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. 

We go to the Book of Psalms 19:14: 

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Your sight,
O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.”

Yes, a very special scripture to me personally, I pray it every time before I preach, whether it be a large gathering or a small one. On that point, I want to tell you, folks, I am so proud of my grandson, 17 years old, yes - he has been on missions with a spiritual son of mine who is 50 years old, and their small team. They walked along the foothills of the mighty Himalaya Mountains, where Mount Everest is situated. Over 5000 metres above sea-level they walked. They walked sometimes up to 20 km a day, eating very, very meagre diets, maybe a little plate of rice if they were blessed to get that from some small cottage. And what were they doing? They were taking the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the lost.

I heard that there was an old person, I can’t remember whether it was a lady or a gentleman, something like over 80 years old and they wanted to hear the Gospel. These boys walked 20 kms to go to this little cottage to pray the sinner’s prayer. I can just imagine them as they were walking along those steep paths, struggling for oxygen, probably praying this prayer: 

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart 
Be acceptable in Your sight,
O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.”

Can you imagine them praying the sinner’s prayer with that older person? They came from the other side of the world to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and by the way, no - they were not speaking in any big stadiums, no - they were not on television, not at all, but I want to tell you they were surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. We find that in Hebrews 12, and I want to tell you something now folks, they have totally humbled me. 

Thank You, Lord, for faithful people who are prepared to take the Gospel to the ends of the world. Maybe today you need to go next door. That’s right, 50 metres, and knock on the door and say, “I want to speak to you. Can I have a cup of tea with you?” And tell them about the Saviour of the world!

Jesus bless you and goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Saturday morning, the 21st of December, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We go to the Gospel of Matthew 25:40:

“And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’”

We want to speak today about the microscope of little things. I want to read something to you from that wonderful hymn-writer, by the name of Frances Ridley Havergal. She said: ”We talk about the telescope of faith but I think we want even more the microscope of watchful and grateful love. Apply the little bits of our daily lives in the light of the Spirit, and how wonderfully they will come out.” We need to remember the little things. 

Now, I have had the privilege, and it has been a great privilege, to meet many great leaders, kings - yes, prime ministers - absolutely, leaders of great companies, international sportsmen, I have met wonderful people all of them, but I want to tell you, and I honestly mean this, in my little prayer room, I have got some momentoes, and one of them is a sucker stick. I am telling you, a little sucker stick with little writing saying, “Jesus bless you”, given to me by a little boy. This little boy can hardly read or write, he is probably 3 or 4 years old. He came to me one day, very bashfully, at church, and he gave me this as a book marker. Well, I want to tell you, it is up on the wall. Oh yes! 

I have a photo of a little boy kneeling in the sand, his little bare feet put carefully behind him, his little hat off his head, his head bowed, and he is praying to Jesus. That brought many tears to my eyes. I have framed that photograph, someone sent it to me. It was taken at one of our large meetings where we were praying for the nation and there were thousands and thousands of people there, but that little photograph touched me so deeply, more than all the dignitaries who attended that great meeting, Governors of the different provinces, Representatives of the President, but that little boy touched me.

Today, remember, it is the microscope of little things that will touch Jesus’ heart.

God bless you and have a wonderful day,
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Friday morning, the 20th of December, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We go to the Gospel of Mark 14:50 -  It says that all of His disciples abandoned Him and fled. They all deserted Him, all of them.

James Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission, was a wonderful man of God who took the Gospel to China in the early days. He lived with the Chinese people and brought a revival which I think has been unparalleled. Even today, China is a communist country, it is not a friend of Jesus Christ, and yet the underground church is flourishing like never before. They say there is something like over 60 million believers in China! James Hudson Taylor said, ”Separation never comes from His side”. Separation never comes from Jesus’ side. We are the ones that leave Him, He never leaves us. He said that to us: “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5), and He means it, my dear friend. Many a time, people write to me and they say, “Where is God? Angus, when I was calling for Him, He wasn’t there.” Oh yes, He was, my dear friend. He will never leave you and He will never separate Himself from you. That is why I love Him so much.

I have been through many things in my life as I am sure you have as well, but I want to tell you, when the going gets really tough, He gets in even closer with us. Remember the story of the footsteps in the sand? Lord, every time things got tough, there were only one set of footsteps in the sand. Where were You, Lord?”  

“Oh My son, oh My daughter, I was carrying you on My shoulders.” 

Yes, Jesus Christ will never leave you and that is good news for you today. Go out and tell the world that many may betray you but Jesus, never.

“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends”.
John 15:13

Does that sound like betrayal? Does that sound like separation, my dear friend? No! Today, draw close to Him and He will walk with you through the fire.

Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day,
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Thursday morning, the 19th of December, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We start off in the Gospel of Matthew 16:24:

”Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”

Then we go to the Gospel of John 3:3:

”Jesus answered and said to him (to Nicodemus) ”Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 

What are we talking about today?  We are talking about dying to self; we are talking about denying ourselves. You see the symbol of the Christian is the cross. I love to see young ladies with beautiful crosses hanging around their necks. It looks beautiful, but I wonder if many of them know what it actually stands for. It stands for dying to self and following Jesus. Jesus never promised you or me a bed of roses. No, but He did promise that He would walk with us, right through all our trials and our hardships.

The other day I was listening to a song, a beautiful country and western song. I love country music, oh yes, I am a cowboy, and I really love American Country Western music. I heard this song and some of the lyrics go like this: “Everyone wants to go to heaven but no-one wants to die”. Wow, what does that mean? Well, it means you can’t have your cake and eat it. It means is you want to follow Jesus Christ you have to walk the Christian road. It means you cannot live like the devil and expect to go to heaven, it doesn’t work like that. If you’ve given your life to Christ, Jesus says you must be born again and if you do not give your life to Christ you are not going to heaven. It’s very simple.

Now, I want to say to you today, we need to check ourselves and we need to say, “Lord,” like Paul said, ”For me to live is Christ and to die is but gain.”

Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day, 
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Wednesday morning, the 18th of December, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We start off in the Book of Psalms 91:2:

”I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress; …”

What a beautiful promise! Then of course, we go to the Book of Hebrews 13:6:

“The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?” 

What a beautiful promise again from the Lord! At this time when we’re living in dangerous, fearful times, this is the time that we need to take the promises of God’s Holy Word and hide them in our hearts. I read a beautiful reading this morning. The little bird that builds his nest goes deep into the dark forest and looks for a leafy tree and then he builds his little nest there, where no one else can see it, and then he flies out and gets all the food he needs, and when he sees the big black clouds of a storm coming up, then he flies to his little nest, and he hides there until the storm is over.

J R Miller said, ”There we should fly in any danger or alarm hiding there in our soul's nest until the storm is past. There are no castles in this world which are so impregnable as the words of Christ.”

Today, make sure you’ve got a nest, you’ve got promises from God, Scriptures the Lord has given you over the years, and when those storms of life come up against you, you shelter yourself in your soul with the living word of God. Jesus says: “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5. The Lord says, ”I will be with you always, even until the end of the world.” The Lord says “I will protect you”. Yes, He says, ”I will hide you in the cleft of the rock.” 

Today, let us hide in the promises of God when the storms of life try to upset us.

Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day, 
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Tuesday morning, the 17th of December, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We start in the Book of Proverbs 18:24:

“A man who has friends must himself be friendly,…”

Then we go to Daniel 6:3:

“…because an excellent spirit was in him;…” 

Another version says, “an extraordinary spirit within him, it distinguished him amongst all the others.”

Do we have that spirit in us today? You see, that is what King Darius found in Daniel. He was different to the others. He was a man of an excellent spirit, and that is what we have to do, folks. 

So often I have heard young people say, “Ja, but I have no friends.” Well, maybe because you are not friendly. Maybe you are always argumentative, maybe you are always critical, maybe you are sarcastic. They say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. It always comes at the expense of somebody else. We have got to stop that. We have got to start affirming people. We have got to start having a godly spirit within us. We have got to be known as trustworthy, honest, level-headed people.

I remember when I was a young man and I am not proud of it. I was a wild man, I had gone into the far country, and on a Friday night, after work, we were exhausted, all the boys working on the farms.  I am talking about overseas, and when we went out to a party, we were going to have a real time of fun. You know what we did? We looked for the man who first of all was levelheaded. He didn’t drink, he didn’t smoke, he didn’t swear, he was a bit of a corny kind of a guy. We didn’t think too much of him, but he had an excellent spirit. So we would give him the keys of the motorcar because we knew that when it came to coming home we would be under the weather but he would be sober because he didn’t drink alcohol. And I want to say to you, when I look back, he was an honourable man, a man who we might not have liked, but I want to tell you, we respected him. 

Now today, let us be level-headed. Somebody said to me, “That Angus, he is just a Jesus man.” Folks, I want to tell you, that is probably one of the greatest compliments I have had in my life: “He is a Jesus man.” Of course I am! What other man would I love to follow than the One who had an extraordinary Spirit? His name is Jesus.

Have a wonderful day, 
God bless you and goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Monday morning, the 16th of December, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We go to the Book of Daniel 5:27:

“You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting…”

Now, this Guest was not even invited to the king’s palace, to his celebration, but He wrote on the wall. This was the One who was not invited but He came and He wrote with His finger upon the wall. What did He write? “You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting…” 

How is it with you this morning? I know with me, without God, I’ve got no chance. Without the Lord Jesus Christ, I am in terrible debt. I remember as a young farmer and I’m sure this applies to businessmen, it applies to everybody. We put in a beautiful crop, oh what a crop it was that year! It was golden unto harvest. We had two months to go and then we’d reap that crop, pay all our debt and we’d carry on living. Then we got the phone call from the bank. Oh dear! The lady said, “The Bank Manager wants to see you urgently.” Now I knew that my time was up, I had to pay. The crop was there it was on the ground but he wanted his money obviously. So I got in the pickup, I asked Jill - I said, “Please just pray for me," and off I went to town. I gingerly walked into his office. Of course, you take your hat off, especially when you owe money. I walked into his office, I sat down at that beautiful big oak desk and he sat at the other side of the desk. He had his glasses on and he looked at me over the top off his glasses. He said, ”Angus, I’ve called you here today with regard to your overdraft.” I said, ”Yes Sir, I understand and Sir, I’ve got a wonderful crop and I’ll be able to pay you.” He said, ”Hang on minute, I haven’t finished.” He said, ”Yesterday, somebody walked into this office and paid the whole overdraft, cash. He’s anonymous. He doesn’t want to be known.” I couldn’t believe it. I think I maybe broke into tears. I said, ”Thank you very much.” I went out rejoicing. As I was walking out the door, I said, ”Sir, who is he?” He said, ”He’s a Carpenter.” It’s just a story -  but so true is it not?

Do you remember that beautiful old hymn we used to sing? I want you to sing it with me, it goes something like this: 

He paid the debt, He did not own. 
I owed the debt, I could not pay.
I needed someone to wash my sins away, 
and now I sing a brand new song
Amazing Grace. 
Christ Jesus paid the debt I could never pay.

Jesus bless you and have a lovely day, 
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Sunday morning, the 15th of December, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start off in Proverbs 16:18: 

“Pride goes before destruction,
And a haughty spirit before a fall.”

Then we go straight to the Book of Daniel 4:31 and:

“…the kingdom has departed from you! “

Oh my dear friend, we need to be careful of that terrible thing called pride. Nebuchadnezzar was the most powerful man on earth. He was the King of Babylon. That is modern-day Iran. He ruled the whole world in those days and yet he fell in a moment. He ended up grazing grass in the field like an ox. The Bible tells us his hair grew long, his nails like claws of a bird. For seven seasons he did that until he humbled himself and acknowledged that Father God was the Ruler of the earth and everything in it. 

We need to put men and women around us that can advise us and then we need to be humble enough to take their godly counsel. It’s safe to have men and women around you to guide you. Listen to your wife, young man. She loves you and will tell you the truth. Be careful of flatterers, those who guide you and tell you what you want to hear. Yes-men around you are very dangerous. You don’t need them. I have no less than five advisers. These are men of substance. They are from different churches, different walks of life, and we meet every year regularly and they advise me on what to do. They don’t tell me what to do, they advise me, and they don’t necessarily agree with me because they are trying to look after me and the Word of God. 

When Nebuchadnezzar finally had understanding, the Bible says, 'reason', he realised he could do nothing without God and when he did that, his kingdom was restored to him. Today, take good counsel from people who love you and don’t tell you what you want to hear but tell you the truth and then you will succeed and God will get all the glory through your life.

Jesus bless you and goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Saturday morning, the 14th of December, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. 

We go straight to the Book of Mark 2:17:

When Jesus heard it, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”

Oh folks, He came for the whosoever’s. He came for you and He came for me, and that is why we love Him so much. Isn’t that so? He came for the tax collector, the prostitute, the drunkard, the so-called untouchables. And you know, the amazing thing is, when people like this get saved, when they meet Jesus Christ, they change and they change forever, and they have an incredible witness to the world for what Jesus Christ has done for them. Like overnight, after being an absolute waster, becoming a follower of Christ. 

Remember Zacchaeus, that little man who climbed up the sycamore tree because he wanted to see Jesus? When Jesus came past, the Lord looked up, and He saw Zacchaeus. I don’t think He had ever seen him before in His life and He said, “Zacchaeus, I am coming to your house today to have lunch with you!” Zacchaeus must have gotten such a fright, he probably nearly fell out of the tree. He went and called all his friends, all the thieves, the prostitutes, all the tax-collectors, and they had a huge banquet, and Jesus was seated right in the middle of them. 

But you see, what happened was, there was such repentance in that place that Zacchaeus got up and he said in the midst of all his friends, “Lord, if I have taken anything away from anyone, I will repay them four-fold, 400%.” Some of us think we are doing well because we give the Lord our tithes of 10%. This man who had been saved, this sick man, this sinner, who had been set free by Jesus Christ, said, “I will pay any man that I have taken anything away from, 400% in return."  And what did Jesus say? He said, “Today, salvation has come to this house.”

We really need to understand what The Friend of sinners means. I love all the titles that are given to the Lord, make no mistake - The Alpha and the Omega: The Beginning and the End; The Bright Morning Star; The Lily of the Valley; The Great Ploughman; The Shepherd of the sheep; but the title that I love and brings tears to my eyes, more than any other is when He is known as The Friend of sinners.

Oh today, speak to Him. He wants to meet with you.
Jesus bless you and goodbye.