Thought For Today

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Monday morning, the 25th of May, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.
We go to the Gospel of John 17:19, and this is the Lord Himself speaking:
”And for their sakes (that’s you and me) I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.”
Sanctified - I looked up the Oxford dictionary, it means, “something holy”.
“The only way that you and I can help them is by being the noblest and the best man or woman that it is possible for us to be.” That was spoken by a man named Phillips Brooks. You see it’s by example. That is how we help people. They won’t do what you tell them. I’m talking about your children; they will do what you do. So if you shout and swear, they’ll do exactly the same thing.
Never give a person a job you cannot do yourself. Show them, don’t just tell them. When you’ve got a new tractor driver and he’s ploughing and the plough is not set properly, and the front coulter’s going in too deep, and the back one’s sticking up in the air, and he’s driving it in the wrong gear, and there’s black smoke coming out of the exhaust pipe, don’t sit in your pickup at the headland and shout at him. Rather let him come to the end of the field and before he turns the tractor around, jump on the tractor, ask him to sit next to you and show him the right gear, then set the plough for him and then he’ll be very happy and he’ll listen to you, but if you don’t know how to do it then don’t try and tell him. We need to walk the talk. That’s what Jesus always did, and that’s why I love Him so much. Do you remember that old hymn: ”A new commandment I give unto you?” Should we sing it together.
A new commandment
I give unto you,
That you love one another
As I have loved you,
That you love one another
As I have loved you.
By this shall all men know
That you are My disciples,
If you have love one for another.
By this shall all know
That you are My disciples,
If you have love one for another.
Jesus said, ”A new commandment I give unto to you, that you love one another as I have loved you." He showed us how to do it. Let us go out into the world and make sure that we do not cause people to stumble but to love them in the noblest and the best way we can!
Jesus bless you and have a lovely day.
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Sunday morning. The 24th of May, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.
We start in the Book of Acts 19:19-20:
“Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them, and it totalled fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed.”
I just want to say to you this morning that we need to have a good hard look at ourselves and clean out the closet. What does that mean? Well, you know they talk about spring-cleaning. Normally at the end of a winter time, people will go through their homes and take out all the stuff that they don’t need and get rid of it. We need to clean out our closets, our wardrobes, our cupboards, our mantelpieces, things in our motorcars and boats that do not reflect the glory of Jesus. I am talking about burning horoscopes, folks. They are not acceptable. You don’t need a horoscope when you have the Holy Spirit. Tarot cards, statues of other gods - “Ja, but I got that from my granny and it’s an heirloom.” No, it’s not. It’s something you need to get rid of. Books and trinkets that have no bearing on your faith, get rid of it! You don’t need it. You see, it actually distracts us from worshipping the Living God, Jesus Christ.
Lucky charms - get rid of them. You don’t need them. You have Jesus. He says, “I will never leave you. I will never forget you.” So why are you thinking about things that have no power or relevance in your life? These people were convicted by Paul’s preaching, by his signs and wonders and miracles. They took anything and everything out of their homes that did not glorify the Lord and burnt them publicly. So we need to do the same. We cannot serve two gods.
Now, just to finish up - 2 Corinthians 5:17 says that if anyone is in Christ (that’s you and me) he or she is a new creation (brand-new). Old things have passed away, and behold, all things have become new. When Jill and I were convicted by the Holy Spirit to clean out our house, we took all those trinkets, and all those little statues, and those lucky charms and we took them to our donkey boiler. Now, for those of you in the big cities who do not understand what that is, it is a 44-gallon drum that we make as a little place for warming our water. We make a fire underneath it and we took all those things and we burnt them. And I want to tell you, it made us feel so good.
Today, show Jesus you love Him. Show Him physically in action that there is nothing in your life more important than Him.
Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day!
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Saturday morning, the 23rd of May, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.
We start in the Book of Acts 19:16:
”Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.”
Then we go back to the Gospel of Matthew 17:21. This is Jesus talking:
”However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”
Now remember what happened, the sons of Sceva, seven of them by the way, saw what Paul was doing, casting out demons from people who were demon-possessed, and they thought to themselves, “Well, we can also do that”, and they went in to deliver a man from an evil spirit. But what did this man say? He says, ”Jesus I know, Paul I know, but I don’t know you!’ And with that he attacked all seven of them, stripped them naked and wounded them and they ran for their lives. What happened there? Well, the same thing that happened with Jesus when the disciples came to Him after He had cast out a demon from a young boy who kept on harming himself, and they said, “Why could we not do that?” Jesus said, “This kind only comes out by fasting and prayer.”
I remember the story of William Duma, a wonderful, powerful man of God. He lived in the Umkomaas area of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He was coming home one night in his little motorcar, driving towards the township. He was on a dirt road and, all of a sudden, out of the bush came some robbers. He had had to stop his car because they had put logs across the road. As he got out of his car they came running to him with knives and clubs and they were going to attack him. He looked at them and he said, “Do you know who I am?” And they stopped in their tracks. He said, “I am the son of God. If you touch me, you touch God.” And with that, they dropped their knives and their clubs and their steel pipes, and they ran for their lives, and he moved the logs out the way, got in his little motorcar and proceeded to his destination.
Do not attempt to do things for God if you are not prepared to do them. You see, William Duma spent hours in prayer and fasting, in reading the scriptures and spending time with God. They recognised Christ in him, but you and I, if we are not going to spend time with the Lord, we must not try and take on those things which God has prepared for those who are equipped, but if you are, if you are a prayer warrior, if you are one who spends time in fasting and time with the Lord, you can do the very thing that Paul, the apostle, did.
Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day.
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Friday morning, the 22nd of May, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.
We start in the Book of Deuteronomy 8:3:
”…you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.”
Then we go to the Gospel of John 6:35:
”And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger…”
Jesus is the one who satisfies your hunger today, no one else and nothing else! Oh, I can tell you from the bottom of my heart, as a young man, I tried everything. I thought that I would be fulfilled when I became a successful sportsman. I thought that I would make it if I just owned my own farm, then I would never hunger again for anything. Then I met my dear wife and I thought, “That is it, now I have everything I need in life!” Then came along the children, even an extra blessing - but still an emptiness in my heart.
Are you there today, my dear friend? Are you feeling that way? ”Angus, I’ve tried everything, I’ve done everything, I’ve succeeded in so many ways and I am still not satisfied.” This message is for you today. You see, Mark 8:36 says:
”For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?”
Our hunger is satisfied only when we eat the Bread of Life and His name is Jesus Christ. The wisest man that ever lived was Solomon, and what did he say after he had achieved everything? “Vanity, vanity,” he said, “it’s like chasing the wind. I’ve done it all and I’ve got nothing to show for it.” We need the meat. We need the Word of God. I want to pray for you today because maybe you’re in that position.
Father God,
I pray for my friend listening to this message today, that you will show them the only time that they will be satisfied and filled up is when they seek You first. I pray Lord, that they will start to get up early in the morning, spend time in Your presence, in prayer, Bible-reading and in thinking about the things which have eternal value, and Your peace, Your shalom, Your satisfaction will be all they need.
In Jesus name, amen.
God bless you and have a wonderful day.
Goodbye

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Thursday morning, the 21st of May, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.
We go to the Book of Acts 19:11:
“Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them.”
Oh, I want to ask you a question today. Do you believe in miracles? I really do and I have seen too many of them to doubt the hand of God. I looked up the Oxford Dictionary to get the definition of the word “Miracle”, and this is what it says: A miracle is a welcome event that is so extraordinary that it is thought to be the work of God or a saint. It is a wonder, it is a marvel, it is unbelievable.
Now, I want to tell you about another miracle that happened in my life. Many years ago, there was a farmer. His name was Job. He was going through a terrible drought in the north-west of our country. He reached out and said, “Please pray. We need rain. My boreholes are drying up. We don’t have enough water.” He had a dairy farm and his cows were really battling, no food, no water. So we flew up to the farm and before we went up there I had read the account of Elisha and the salt. If we look at 2 Kings 2:22, and this is what it says: “So the water remains healed to this day, according to the word of Elisha which he spoke.” So I took a bag of coarse salt with us, about 5 kilos, and we flew up in the aeroplane. I got to his farm. I wanted to know, “Where is his main borehole?” and I walked up and all the staff got around. We poured the coarse salt down into the borehole and we prayed a prayer.
Well, it wasn’t a week later, we got a report that there was a flood in that area and there was so much rain that it actually washed the road away. God answered prayer.
I’ve been to that very spring which Elisha poured the salt into the bitter water and I can tell you it is sweet even to this day. Please do not limit God!
Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day.
Goodbye.