Thought For Today

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Sunday morning, the 26th of July, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.
We go to 1 John 4:16:
”And we have known and believed the love that God has for us.”
The love that God has for us. I read a most beautiful reading written by a wonderful man of God. His name is A B Simpson, and this is what it says. I want to read it to you, and I want to paraphrase it, but it is so encouraging. He says, ”The secret of walking closely with Christ and working successfully for Him is to fully realise that we are His beloved. Let us but feel that He has His heart upon us, that He is watching us from those heavens with tender interest, (He has got His eye on us) that He is working out the mystery of our lives with solitude and fondness, that He is following us day by day, (now listen to this:) as a mother follows her baby in his first attempt to walk alone. (Isn’t that beautiful?) That He has set His love upon us (that’s Jesus), and in spite of us (how many times have you seen a little baby push your hand away because he wants to walk on his own but you stay with him because you know he might fall? We do that as well, don’t we?), and in spite of us, He is working out for us his highest will and blessing as far as we will allow Him. (Many of us are not allowing God to help us) Then when we do that, nothing can discourage us. Our hearts will glow with response of love, our faith will spring to meet His mighty promises and our sacrifices shall become the very luxuries of love for one who is so dear to us. This is the secret of John’s spirit.” (He said:) “We have known and believed the love that God has for us (and then lastly) and the heart that has fully learned this has found the secret of unbounded faith and enthusiastic service.”
Today, remember you are not alone. He is walking with you, He loves you, He wants to help you. Please allow Him to do it.
Jesus bless you have a wonderful day.
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Saturday morning, the 25th of July, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.
We go straight to the Book of Deuteronomy 25:4:
“You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.”
Very, very important, especially for men and women in business, and those who are overseeing people who are working for them. Do not be short-sighted!
As a farmer, we will select our best animals and we won’t give them a minimal amount of food, we will give them more food because we want them to be productive. In the old days, the way they used to thrash the corn was to have a stake in the middle of a circle of hardened surface, and they would pour out the wheat and the stalks onto a hard surface, and then an ox would walk around and around and around, and by his feet he would shell the grain. Now he was allowed to eat as much food as he wanted while he was doing the job.
I want to say to you that principle must be implemented in whatever you are doing. Remember what Jesus said, He told the parable about the talents. He gave the one man so many talents, the other one so many, and the one man he gave one talent, and what did the man with one talent do? He hid it. He didn’t use it, he didn’t work hard, and when the owner came back and found out that the man with the one talent had done nothing with it, he took that talent and he gave it to the man who had the most talents.
When I was reading that parable, it’s just a story, I said, “But Lord but that seems unfair because the man who’s got the most is getting even more”, and the Lord spoke to me in my heart, very clearly, about the fact that if you work hard and are diligent with what God has given you, He will give you more, but if you are lazy and you mismanage what He has given you, even that which you have, He’ll take away, and He’ll give to another.
So let us not hold back. If you’ve got somebody that’s working for you that’s showing promise, give him more. You can never pay too much for a good employee, but you can definitely pay too little. Any young man, any young woman showing promise, don’t hold them back. They are working hard and are diligent and honest and God-fearing. Invest in them. Not in the product but in the person who’s making the product.
Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day.
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Friday morning, the 24th of July, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.
We go straight to the Book of Genesis 28:15:
”Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.”
I just feel that there’s somebody this morning that’s listening to this little message, who is really, really in a bad place.
We speak about three things here, and I got this from an anonymous writer, all he said was, ”With you - companionship, keep you - guardianship, bring you - guidance.” We need to understand that the Lord will never, ever leave us. Now you are maybe very lonely today. You’re saying, “I don’t have a friend in the world, my family is overseas, I’m by myself.” No, you’re not. If you look at Proverbs 18:24, the Lord says:
” …there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”
That’s companionship.
Guardianship - Who is looking after you? You say, “There’s no one to look after me. I’m stuck alone in this old age home, there’s no one that can help me.” Yes, there is. Jesus says in Hebrews 13:5:
“I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Isn’t that good news? Then there’s another person listening at the moment who’s saying, ”I need guidance. I need to know what to do next. I don’t know where to go, and I don’t know who to turn to.” Well, guidance, Psalm 119:105:
”Your word is a lamp to my feet, And a light to my path.”
In my prayer room, I’ve got a beautiful painting that a lady sent me many years ago, it’s of a man walking through a dark place holding an old-fashioned lantern. He’s carrying it in his one hand, and he’s walking down this little path that is dark. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but that light is giving him direction. You and I need the very same light and we’ve got it. His name is Jesus Christ and He is the same yesterday, today and forevermore!
I want to say to you today, keep your eyes on the Lord, and He will make sure that you reach your destination, which is heaven, by the way.
Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day.
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Thursday morning, the 23rd of July, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.
We start in the Book of Psalms 62:5:
“My soul, wait silently for God alone, For my expectation is from Him.”
Then we go to the New Testament to the Book of Philippians 4:19:
“And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus (our Lord).”
Amen!
I want to tell you a little story. My faith was surely tested. How? Well, faith is my subject, it is what I always preach, it is what I do, it is what God has given to me from the time that I first met Him. I have been travelling in Central Africa in my camper with my dear wife, Jill, and we had a breakdown. I arrived at a city in a country just north of ours, desperate to know what to do because the camper would stop and it wouldn’t start again, and I couldn’t get it going. Eventually, I got it going and managed to limp into a town. I got to this town, and there was a man there, his name was Rocky. Then the Workshop Foreman was a man by the name of Master - a nice name - and then another man, Sepeng, was one of the mechanics. I had them all working on this vehicle of ours and in vain.
They took a couple of hours trying to repair the vehicle. Eventually they said, “We can’t fix this. The problem is the ignition switch and we don’t have one in stock, and we only order them when needed because it hardly is a problem with this vehicle. If we have to order it from South Africa, it will take about 5 weeks to get here and then we will have to fit it.”
I couldn't wait that long and was struggling with that issue. These men knew who I was and I had been speaking to them about Jesus, and they knew that Thought For Today was going out all over the world. They were receiving it themselves, which is a great encouragement for me, and I was at my wits' end. Do I go back home to South Africa, all the way back, or do I carry on? The Workshop Manager said to me, “We can do nothing for you now. We have tried everything we can apart from getting the spare part. So what you need to do” (Listen to this, he said to me, who is supposed to be the man of faith), he said, “is to just move on with your journey and trust in God.” Trust in God! And that is exactly what I did. God has been so gracious and kind to us thus far.
Jesus bless you and trust in God for everything.
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Wednesday morning, the 22nd of July, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.
We go to 2 Timothy 1:12:
”… I know whom I have believed…”
We are talking this morning about personal friendship with Jesus Christ. It is a very real thing.
I read a beautiful reading by an anonymous writer who said, ”Personal experience and friendship with Jesus is a very real thing. It’s like a tree. A tree uses up every hour of sunshine for it’s growth, it thrives in the sunshine and then it is refreshed by the rain. Then storms come, and the storms make it fasten on its grip firmly to the earth for its support, pushing the roots right down deep. So if we are troubled in heart today in all our experiences we are going through, these things happen so that you and I might grow closer in intensity with Jesus Christ as our Lord and saviour.” I really want to encourage you in that area.
If you look at those thorn trees in the dry, arid areas, you’ll see those trees are very, very slow in growing, but the wood is very dense and very heavy because it goes through much tribulation, drought, fire, floods, and yet it grows from strength to strength. The other tree however, the poplar tree, is more like Balsa wood, it’s light, it’s soft, it’s very easy to cut down, it burns very easily but there is no depth in it.
We as believers need to understand that our personal relationship with Jesus Christ needs all the things the tree needs. We’re talking about the sunshine for growth. We’re talking about the rain for refreshing. We’re talking about the storms of life which put our roots right down deep, so that we can take it when it comes. Today, let you and I not be afraid to trust in the Lord because He will never leave us nor forsake us. He says that clearly in Hebrews 13:5.
May the Lord bless you as you have a fair day today, knowing that the King of Glory is right next to you.
Jesus bless you and goodbye.