Thought For Today

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Wednesday morning, the 27th of May, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.
We start in Proverbs 16:32:
“He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, And he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.”
Then we go to Romans 7:19, and this is Paul speaking,
“For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.” (Verse 24:) “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”
Now this is the great apostle, Paul, struggling also with his own feelings and control of himself. You know godliness with contentment is great gain. You will find that in 1 Timothy 6:6. We really need to take control of our emotions. We can blow it so easily, can’t we? We can be really spending time with God, we can be in the presence of God, then get into our motorcar and go to town and somebody cuts in front of you and all of a sudden you are in a rage and shaking your fists at that man, instead of just praying for him. You don’t know why that man cut in front of you. Maybe he is trying to get a sick person to the doctor. We don’t know what it is. We really need to ask the Holy Spirit to give us control over our emotions.
One man of God wrote, “More dear in the sight of God and His angels, than any other conquest, is the conquest of self, which each man with the help of Heaven, can secure for himself.” We really need to ask the Lord to take control. Now, I have mentioned to you before, Brother Lawrence, the French monk who lived 300 years ago, wrote that little booklet. He didn’t write it. It was written about him, “Practicing the Presence of God,” when he came to the realisation that it doesn’t matter what you do in life, if you give it to the Lord, He will give you His peace. He was the guy who washed the pots and pans in the monastery, the one who sewed up the sandals of the other brothers whose sandals had broken. And they used to gather around him because they wanted the peace and the self-control that they saw evident in his own life, and it was simply because he handed it over to Jesus.
Today, hand over to Jesus everything and let Him control your life.
Jesus bless you and goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Tuesday morning, the 26th of May, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.
We go to Deuteronomy 8:17:
“…then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.”
Then we go to the New Testament, Luke 12:19 (This is a very successful farmer):
“And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.” ’But what happens after that? The Lord says, ‘Foolish man! This very night your soul will be required of you...”
We need to be very careful how we stand, lest we fall. Bragging is a very dangerous thing, and I really want to stress today that the Lord was warning the Children of Israel in the first scripture verse I read to you in Deuteronomy, that all these riches that you had were given to you by Me, not by your own hand, but only by the love of God.
Don’t forget who gave it to you! We really need to be careful of that one. Never forget to say, if somebody says, “Wow, you have done so well”, - it is only by God’s grace.” If we go to James 4:15, instead of bragging, the Bible says we ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” because we don’t know how much time we have left on this earth.
So it worries me when I see a young man who has been very successful in sport, commerce, industry, even the ministry, and he starts to take the glory. Never, ever touch God’s glory. That is the most dangerous thing you could ever do. We need to let our words be sweet when we talk because one day we might have to eat them! So just say, “God has been kind”.
I love to drive around a farm where I see a hard-working successful young farmer and I say, “You have done so well here. Your crops are looking good, your cattle are fat, your sheep are looking great,” and to hear the young man say, “Yes sir, but it is only because of the kindness and the grace of God that I have them.’
But when I see a young man who is arrogant, “Oh yes, I am going to work for a couple more years and then I am going to retire, and I am just so pleased with myself.” Be careful, it is only through God’s grace.
Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day.
Goodbye.

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.