Thought For Today

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Tuesday morning, the 15th of October, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We start in the Book of Jeremiah 22:21:

”I spoke to you in your prosperity,…” 

I listened to a beautiful reading from a man of God, and what he said is, sometimes God shades our eyes from the brightness of prosperity. Sometimes when we are doing so well, whether it be financially or whatever area, in our family, even in our health, sometimes He puts His hand over our eyes to shade us from the brightness of the sun of prosperity, because when we are prospering we don’t see the big picture so often. We are concentrating on how well things are going, and then sometimes when that shadow comes over the sun of prosperity we can see the bigger picture much more clearly. 

So today, if you are going through a tough time, maybe things are not just turning out the way you meant, do not be afraid, the Lord is with you He allows these things to happen. I didn’t say He causes them to happen. He allows them to happen sometimes so that we can get our bearings and see the bigger picture. Let me give you and example - many years ago when I was a runner, we had run a marathon and towards the end of the marathon you are absolutely exhausted. You have been perspiring, sweating for 42 kilometres or whatever the case may be, the sun is beating down on you and you are really struggling. As you come through the finish line, somebody is waiting, a loved one, with a beautiful bottle of delicious ice-cold water. When you drink that water, you are totally refreshed. You don’t want any fruit juice, you don’t want any Coca-Cola, you just want water, pure water!

Now, it’s because you have been through a rough time and you appreciate what you have got. Sometimes when we are doing so well and prospering, we forget the value of things in life. Today, let us appreciate that God sometimes puts a shadow over the brightness of that sun so that we can see clearly where we are going.

Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day,
Goodbye.

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

We go straight to the Book of Luke 20:2:

“Tell us, by what authority are You doing these things? Or who is he who gave You this authority?”

Jesus confounded the most brilliant minds in Israel. The Message Translation says, “Show us your credentials.” (Your qualifications). You and I need to spend more time with the greatest Teacher who walked upon the face of this earth if we want answers to the questions of life. I particularly want to address young students who are studying. It’s coming to the end of the year and they are studying for their exams. How much time are you spending waiting on the Lord and how much time are you trying to memorise your notes? I want to encourage you to spend more time waiting on the Lord. Do you know why? Because when you walk into that exam room, there will be a peace, because you would have committed everything into the Lord’s hands and that peace in your heart gives you a clear mind, then you can think clearly, not being totally stressed out trying to remember the things you were studying until the early hours of the morning.

I want to tell you about a very, very successful businessman. His name was Robert Le Tourneau. He was the inventor of earth-moving machinery. Now the interesting thing is that he dropped out of school at the age of 14. It reminds me of someone - yes, but he was a designer and an inventor of note. He designed all that heavy-duty earth-moving equipment. He was known by his contemporaries as God’s businessman. His foundational verse, by the way, that is on his tombstone is Matthew 6:33. We know it very well:

“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” 

He would confound the electrical and mechanical engineers that he employed. He would walk into one of their big design offices and they would all be studying different things that they had to put into place to develop a new machine, and they were scratching their heads, they didn’t know the answers, and this man with a very limited education would walk straight in, look at their plans and say, “Move that there, do that and do that.” And he would walk out and they would have it perfectly. 

That same man used to give 90% of his income to God’s work and live off 10% and he was a multi-millionaire. You see, his teacher was Jesus Christ and he put Him foremost. This man started universities and technical colleges all over the world. Today, spend time with the Teacher.

Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day.
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Sunday morning, the 13th of October, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We go to the Book of Acts 4:13:

“And they realised that they had been with Jesus.”  

Now according to C H Spurgeon, the great preacher, he said, “As Christians, we should be a striking resemblance to Jesus Christ. The best testimony and living example of Jesus should be written in the words and the actions of His followers. Yes, we should be pictures of Christ. People should say of us, “He has been with Jesus. His speech, his actions and most of all, the love that pours out from him, they all speak of the times he spends with Jesus. His everyday actions should speak louder than words.” 

I remember many years ago hearing a story of a man who was sailing in the South Sea Islands, and he was shipwrecked. He was a missionary, and the local islanders found him, and they gave him some refuge, and he tried to speak to them about Jesus Christ. They said to him, “You can stay with us. We have our own gods but we don’t want to hear about your God. If you speak about your God to us, we will kill you.” That man lived his whole life on that island. Many, many years later another group of missionaries arrived at the island. The tribesmen welcomed them and they sat down and they had a big talk together. The missionaries started to tell them about Jesus, about the Gospel of Christ, and the islanders did not seem surprised and they asked the islanders, ”Have you heard of Jesus before? Have other people been to the island and preached?” They said, “No.” “Well, how is it, you are not surprised by the miraculous story of the life, the crucifixion, the resurrection of Christ?” They said, “No, we are not surprised at all because he used to live here.” They said, “Really? Can you show us?” 
They took these missionaries to the graveside of the man who lived with them and never spoke a word of Jesus Christ, but his lifestyle showed them all about the Son of God. 

Today, let our words not be many but let our lifestyle speak of the love of Christ.

Jesus bless you and goodbye.

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

We start in the Book of Job 5:11:

“He sets on high those who are lowly,…”

Then we go to Ezekiel 21:26.

"He exalts the humble and humbles the exulted."

Wow! Then of course Luke 1:52:

“He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly.”

God has got a habit of using nobodies to do His work. Are you maybe feeling worthless today as you listen to this message? Are you feeling useless, are you feeling maybe disadvantaged? Maybe you didn’t get a great education. Maybe you are not physically strong as others and you are feeling very down. Please don’t, be of good cheer, for our Lord has a habit of using ordinary kinds of people to do His work. 

We think of Mary, the mother of Jesus. In Luke 1:46-48, this is what she says: 

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour.
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.”

Our Heavenly Father never chose the Queen of Sheba to carry His Son in her womb for nine months. Oh no, and the Lord neither chose Pharaoh’s nor Caesar’s wife. No! The Lord chose a beautiful young, godly maiden from a little insignificant country village, called Nazareth - a virgin, in fact, who who had never even known a man. God chose her to carry His Son for nine months in her womb and then to birth that incredible, beautiful Baby and to nurse Him, feed Him, teach Him and to walk with Him - I am talking about God, folks - for 33 years!

Those of you that are feeling this morning, of no consequence, must understand something - how God has work for you to do. Just make yourself available. 

Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day,
Goodbye. 

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Friday morning, the 11th of October, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We go to the Gospel of Matthew 20:22:

“But Jesus answered and said, “You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They said to Him, “We are able.”

Folks, we are talking this morning, not about a cup of prosperity, no - but a cup of suffering. Now Jesus was about to go to the cross, and when the disciples wanted to sit on either side of Him in Heaven, He said, “Can you pay the price, can you drink of the cup?” And they said, “We are able,” and they didn’t really know what they were saying. 

In my prayer room, I have a prayer cross. It was given to me many, many years ago by an Australian pastor when I was preaching in Australia. It is a replica of a cross, a hand cross that was found in the Catacombs of Rome when the Christians were being persecuted for their faith. When you take it up in your hand, you do it when you are praying and when you press on that cross, the corners of the cross press hard into your hand and it is painful, and it reminds us of what the Lord went through for you and me. You and I must count the cost and we must ask that question, “Can we drink of the cup?” Even Jesus Himself, in the Garden of Gethsemane, in Mark 14:36, said to His Father, “Not My will but Your will be done”. He didn’t really want to go through with it but He did because it is what His Father wanted. 

So often when you are going through a tough time, it’s not even the physical pain, is it? No, it’s more of a spiritual fight. 2 Corinthians 10:4-5:

“For the weapons of our warfare are not [a]carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,…”

The battle is actually in the mind. It is not so much in the flesh. False accusations when you follow Jesus, people making up stories about you, loneliness, loss of friends. You know, Jesus started off with 120 disciples. In the Garden of Gethsemane, they all ran away and left Him and He remained on His own. Oh, but I want to tell you, the Bible tells us in Psalm 30:5:

“Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning.”

God will see you through. Oh yes, I have seen it in my own life. In 2009, when we had the Mighty Men Conference on this farm, 120,000 men were here and what happened? I had two heart attacks, one under the platform and the big one at home. I was dying. I was lying there on the grass, in front of my house saying, “Lord, what is happening?” But you know, they put me in a helicopter and as the helicopter swept over the crowd, I saw 120,000 pairs of hands stretched out, praying for my healing.

Jesus healed me in 15 minutes and I was preaching the next morning. We need to press on, count the cost and the Lord will give us the victory.

Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day,
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Thursday morning, the 10th of October, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We start in the Gospel of Matthew 20:15. Jesus says:

”Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things?” 

Why are we always telling God what to do? He says here, “Can I not do what I want with my own things?” Then we go to Romans 9:21:

”Does not the potter have power over the clay,…?”

Folks, I used to keep sheep on this farm. We had 500 beautiful stud Isle de France ewes, beautiful sheep. We won many prizes with those sheep at the local shows but never once did my sheep tell me how to live. You’ve never heard of a sheep telling a shepherd what to do or how to look after the flock. Now the Lord says to us the same thing with the clay. Where have you ever seen a lump of clay telling the potter how to make a pot? It’s ludicrous isn’t it? it’s ridiculous! - the same as the worker who does not tell the employer how much he must pay his men, we can’t argue with God, we need to simply obey.

Now, we know the story of the landowner who got up early in the morning and wanted to hire labourers for his vineyard. So the first men that came, he said he would give them a denarius a day, that’ll be the pay, and then later on in the day he hired some more men and he said here that he would pay them as well, and so the day went on and right to the very end of the day, there was only one hour left and he went and employed another group of men. When it came to paying the men he hired last, he paid them a denarius. Now, the men that had been working all day thought, “Well, these men have only worked for an hour, so we are going to get a lot more money because we’ve worked all day”. Then the landowner gave the men that came early the same pay, one denarius. They were most upset, ”How can you give us only one denarius and these men here have only worked for one hour and we’ve worked for eleven hours?” And that’s when the landowner said, ”Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things?”

Folks, we must stop saying “It’s not fair” because Jesus will do as He pleases. It’s only Jesus who has paid the full price for your salvation and my salvation. Did you hang on a cross? Did you die for anyone? Therefore you’ve got no right to say anything. What we need to say is, ”Lord, thank you for saving us.”

Today remember who is in charge and I’m so happy to tell you, His name is Jesus.

God bless you and have a lovely day, 
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Wednesday morning, the 9th of October, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We start in Ezekiel 18:32:

”For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord God. “Therefore turn and live!”

Then we go to the Gospel of John 3:7:

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

That scripture from Ezekiel puzzled me for a long time - “I have no pleasure in the death of a dying man, therefore repent and live.” What is the Lord meaning? He is saying that He does not want a sinner to die and go to hell, but He wants everyone to be saved and go to Heaven. It’s all about choices, isn’t it? Jesus is known by many titles. He’s known as the Great Ploughman; the Shepherd of the sheep; the Alpha and the Omega; the Beginning and the End; He is known as the Bright Morning Star; He is known as the King of kings, but the title I love the most is known as the Friend of sinners. We have to make a choice, and it’s not about good people going to Heaven at all. You have heard me saying that so many times. When you think about it, when Jesus walked on this earth, He spent most of His time with tax collectors, prostitutes, thieves, lepers, widows and orphans - not the successful! He said, ”I came for the sick, not for the healthy.” So what about you today, where are you standing today?

I looked at The Message Version of the Bible and this scripture ends up where He says, “Make a clean break! Live!” You and I, let’s start to live today.

I want to pray for you and I want to really pray this prayer from my heart, not only for you but for myself, because you know folks, we’ve got to work out our salvation with fear and trembling the Bible says. What does that mean? It means we can’t live a life where one day we’re in and one day we’re out, one day we are for the Lord and the next day we are not. We can’t live like that. We have got to make a decision. ”For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord God. “Therefore turn and live!” 

Why don’t you pray this prayer with me? 

Father God, 

This morning we come to You and we ask You to save us. Save us Lord from sin, from iniquity, but save us mostly from ourselves, we keep letting You down. 

Lord, we commit our lives completely and entirely to You today. 

In Jesus name, Amen.

God bless you and goodbye

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Tuesday morning, the 8th of October, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. 

We go straight to Psalms 91:1, and today I’ll be reading it out of the Amplified Version of the Bible. It says:

”He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
Will remain secure and rest in the shadow of the Almighty [whose power no enemy can withstand].”

Yes, that shelter we are talking about is our quiet time every morning, in our special place, wherever that might be, spending time in the presence of the Lord, praying, reading the word of God, meditating, and then we are strong enough to go out. I received a beautiful poem just the other night, we were having a prayer time up in the chapel and my son Dougal said, ”I want to read something to you.” He got it out of a Scripture Union booklet, that was printed in the 1950’s but listen to this poem. It’s called The Secret:

I met God in the morning when my day was at it’s best 
And His presence came like sunrise, like a glory in my breast.  
All day long the presence lingered, all day long He stayed with me 
And we sailed in perfect calmness over a very troubled sea. 
Other ships were blown and battered, other ships were sore distressed 
But the winds that seemed to drive them brought to us a peace and rest. 
Then I thought of other mornings with a keen remorse of mind
When I too had loosed the moorings with the presence left behind. 
So I think I know the secret learned from many a troubled way. 
You must seek Him in the morning if you want Him through the day.

Jesus bless you and goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Monday morning, the 7th of October, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

“Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler…”
Psalm 91:3

- now the Amplified Version says: “For He will save you from the trap of the fowler,…” It’s the little things we need to look out for. Now, the fowler is the devil of course, and he is continually trying to trip you up and to trip me up.

A man by the name of Mark Pierce says, “He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler” - that means from the little things, the hidden traps, the nets that are set for us. Great sins frighten, but little snares entangle. It is easier to escape the huntsman’s arrow than the crafty lure, and where are they not set? In riches and also in poverty, in sickness and in strength, in prosperity and adversity, in friendships and in loneliness, the work and the lack of it. Each has it’s snare wherein not only are the unworthy caught, but the wise and the watchful also sometimes fall prey. Little things, mere threads, hardly worth guarding against, yet they are strong enough to hold us and to hinder us, and may be the beginning of our destruction.”

We need to be so careful. Years ago when I played rugby, I remember clearly, I used to play in the loose forward position, either a flank or an 8th man, and we were known as “the spoilers.” A young man would break away with a ball and all you would do is just grab the edge of his rugby jersey and just pull him back for half a second, that’s all, and he would miss his move, and that is why often, you would see in the middle of a match, the guy stands up and punches somebody else, and you say, “Look at that dirty player” but it is actually not him at all! It’s somebody in the scrum that has just held him back for half a second from making his move. Now that is exactly how the devil works. It is the little things, the things that we don’t notice that hold us back, but the Lord says that He will deliver you and I from the devil and his sly moves if we keep our eyes on Him. 

Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day,
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Sunday morning, the 6th of October, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We start in the Book of Ezekiel 18:20:

”The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.”

The Lord has got no grandchildren. Every single person will have to give an individual account of their lives here on earth. What do I mean by that?  Well, If your father is a believer that does not guarantee that you will get to heaven. You have to accept the Lord for yourself. Now, maybe there are some young people who are very concerned about their parents because they will not turn their lives towards Christ. Our responsibility is to pray for our loved ones, that’s all we can do. To love them and to be good examples of a Christian life. You and I will not be held responsible for their lifestyle here on earth.

I had the privilege many, many years ago of leading my dearest old mother to Jesus Christ. I remember it like it was yesterday, one of the highlights of my life. Sitting by the fireplace on a very cold morning in Greytown, the little town where we had bought a house for our mom and dad and she was crying and I said, ”Mom, what’s wrong?” She said, ”It’s not the same anymore.” In that beautiful Scottish brogue. “It’s nae the same anymore, Angus.” “Why mom?” She said “Things are different.” What had happened was I had given my life to Christ a few weeks before, myself, my wife, Jill and my children and straight away there was a blockage. Oh, I got on my knees and I started to weep with my mother. I said, "Mom, don’t you want to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour as well?” She said, "Aye, laddie that would be very good.” At that moment, we prayed the sinner's prayer together. Oh folks, I want to tell you from that day onwards, my mom and I had fellowship every single day. 

Then a while later, the same thing with my dad. He was in hospital. My mom had already gone home to be with Jesus and I said the same thing. ”Dad, don’t you want to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and saviour.” In that Scottish brogue he said, ”Aye, laddie, not before time. It’s time for me to give my life to Christ,” and I led my dad to Christ in front of everybody in that hospital ward and what a hallelujah time we had.

Romans 10:13
“…whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Pray for your loved ones, your children, your parents, your families and leave the rest in God’s capable hands.

Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day,
Goodbye