Thought For Today

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Saturday morning, the 9th of May, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.
We go straight to the Book of Acts 16:37:
”But Paul said to them, “They have beaten us openly, uncondemned Romans, and have thrown us into prison. And now do they put us out secretly? No indeed! Let them come themselves and get us out.”
What had happened was, Paul and Silas had been preaching the Gospel. They had been falsely accused. They had been stripped down, beaten, humiliated and put into prison, but once they had been put into prison, the magistrates realised that actually Paul and Silas were Roman citizens. It was forbidden for them to beat citizens of Rome openly and humiliate them. So the magistrates tried to get out of it and told the jailers, ”Let them go secretly.” But Paul, that’s why I love him so much, he said, ”I’m not having this. They must come, those magistrates, apologise and let us out of prison themselves.” Which, of course, they did, they apologised profusely.
We need to be careful that we, as believers, are not intimidated by bullies, wherever they may be. Because a man is wearing a uniform, that does not give him the right to do what he pleases to you or me, and I’ll give you an example. If you are going down the highway and a Traffic Officer pulls you over and he walks up to your car and says, ”You have been speeding, breaking the speed limit and you need to pay a fine.” You can say to him, ”Yes Officer, I’m quite prepared to do that, but can you show me evidence on your machine that I was actually speeding?” If he says, ”No, I can’t.” Then you are not obliged to pay anything because it’s his word against yours. He needs to give you evidence.
Many years ago I and my young wife Gill, we were just newly married, we were in another country, we were going through the Immigration and Customs and this one officer, quite an otherwise type of person, I don’t know why he didn’t take a liking to me, he pushed a form in front of me and said, "Sign this form so that you can leave the country.” I was about to sign it and this little voice behind me tapped me on the shoulder and said, ”Angus, what are you doing?” I said, ”He’s told me I must sign the forms.” She said, ”No, we are not signing any forms unless we can first read them.” And this man changed his tune all of a sudden and said, ”Yes ok, you can go.” Be careful, you don’t sign your life away, folks. Remember, because we are Christians, we don’t have to be doormats to everybody.
Have a wonderful day,
God bless you and goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Friday morning, the 8th of May, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.
We go to the Book of Deuteronomy 4:2:
”You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it,…”
Then we go straight to the Gospel of Matthew 5:18:
“For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.”
Spoken by the Master, Himself. By the way, a jot and a tittle is literally a stroke of a pen or one dot. Nothing is to be changed or compromised. Why? It is for our own good. The Lord did not write the Ten Commandments and the Bible for His good. He is God. He doesn’t have to obey the law. He is the law. We need to be obedient. It is for our own sake. Why? Because it keeps us safe. You see, the Bible is our compass. If you are going through the bush, all by yourself, and you get lost and you have a compass, the compass will lead you out of that jungle - north, south, east, west. It sees us through stormy nights when you can’t sleep at night and you need comfort. The word of God is a comfort. It really is. It is a light unto our feet and it shows us the way. It brings peace and harmony in the home.
You know, when mom and dad are arguing, boys and girls, when mom and dad are arguing, boys and girls, you can say, “Dad, mom, what does the Bible say about the situation? And that is the final answer. It brings security when you are feeling unsure of yourself. What does the Bible say. Do what the Bible says. And accountability - when you go on that long trip, sir, and you get tempted, you are lonely and you are by yourself at night, and this beautiful young lady comes and starts to speak to you, the Lord, through the word of God, reminds you that you have a wife and children back at home and they belong to you, not this woman.
It is a wonderful friend. Do not change it. It has been there since the beginning of time and this is not a time to try and take one thing away from it or add one thing to it.
Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day.
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name!
It is Thursday morning, the 7th of May, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.
We start in the Book of Proverbs 6:10-11:
”A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep—So shall your poverty come on you like a prowler, …”
Then we go to the New Testament to 1 Corinthians 15:58:
”Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”
It’s so important for us, as believers, to keep up the good work. It keeps the soul of a man or woman in good health. We’re talking this morning about spiritual exercise. We need to keep spiritually fit. Bishop Ryle said, ”Activity in doing good is one recipe for being cheerful Christians. It is like exercise to the body and it keeps the soul in good health.”
Did you get up early this morning? I trained many, many years ago for the Comrades Marathon, which is held in South Africa every year. It is a gruelling race - two standard marathons plus a few extra kilometres thrown in, but these serious competitors are extremely disciplined. They get up in the morning and they run. They run with lights before the sun comes up. Some of them run in the afternoon or even in the evening but they are disciplined because they know, if they are going to get that medal, whichever medal it might be, they have to be fit.
I want to say to you today, spiritually, you and I need to be fit! We need to get up, get out of our beds, go through and have our quiet time with the Lord, read the Bible systematically. We need to pray, read a nice devotional, listen to Christian music, and, most of all, speak to Jesus. When you do that regularly, you get stronger and stronger daily, even as you grow older, not weaker, stronger in the faith.
Let’s do it today. Let’s discipline ourselves physically, but more importantly, spiritually, so that God can talk to us!
Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day.
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Wednesday morning, the 6th of May, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.
We go to the Book of Acts 16:9:
“And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”
The one thing I loved about Paul, the Apostle, when I read all those letters, was that he was an obedient man. He was not interested in a good idea because he knew that a good idea is not always a God-idea! When he and Silas were travelling, they were going to go to Phrygia, and the Holy Spirit said, “Don’t go to Phrygia”, then to Mysia, “Don’t go to Mysia, don’t go to Bithynia, don’t go to Troas.” He never went to any of those places in Asia, but he crossed the sea and went to Macedonia, where the Lord Holy Spirit had told him to go. It is very important to do what the Holy Spirit tells you to do, not what other people tell you to do, not to accept every invitation that comes from all over. Only do what God tells you to do.
Now, I can really identify with this Macedonian call. Many of you will remember a few years back, I had a Macedonian call, and it was to Cape Town. Cape Town had had no rain for two years. They were in a terrible state, but that is not what called me. It was a Macedonian call, a young man by the name of Ashley, a very dear son in the Lord, whom I did not know. Through a daily reading of Scripture Union I was reading, I got the Macedonian call. I phoned him. He didn’t even know who I was, he thought it was someone playing a trick on him, but when I convinced him that it was me, I said, “I am coming to Mitchell’s Plain.”
Now, folks, as soon as people heard we were going to Mitchell’s Plain, they said, “You are mad. You mustn’t go there because those people will hurt you.” I said, “They will not hurt me. God has told me to go there.” And they said to me, ‘But no one will come and support you because no one will go to that area.” Well, we had over 250,000 people there, and by the way, it started raining in the middle of the meeting, and I don’t think it stopped since. Signs, miracles, wonders - the first time in my life, the Holy Spirit again told me to take my clothes off and give them to the young gang leaders who had come forward to give their lives, to change their guns for Bibles. It was an amazing event, probably one of the highlights of my preaching career.
Today, listen to the Macedonian call! When God tells you to do something, do it. If God tells you not to do it, don’t do it, and you will succeed in everything you do.
Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day,
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Tuesday morning, the 5th of May, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.
We start in the first book of the Bible, Genesis 4:8:
”Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.”
The very first family in the Bible, and two brothers, were in contention. They had a dispute, and one brother killed the other.
Then we go straight to Acts 15:39:
”Then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another.“
Oh, folks, maybe you’ve got contention in your family this morning. Maybe there’s a dispute that you just cannot seem to settle. I want to ask you to really reconsider before you do something that you might regret for the rest of your life. I looked up the word “contention” in the Oxford dictionary. It means a heated disagreement, it means being stroppy with the other, argumentative.
Folks, we are talking here about two giants of the faith. We’re talking about a man who actually wrote two-thirds of the New Testament himself. I’m talking about Paul the Apostle, and he fell out, he had a sharp argument with a man, Barnabas, who is regarded in the Bible as “the encourager”, and the two fell out because of an argument over Mark.
I want to say to you today, we cannot allow that to happen. We are living in very stressful times, and these heated disagreements must stop. I have seen men lose businesses because they will not settle the argument. They split up and the business fails and goes down. We need each other, we are talking here about relationships. Folks, marriages - it concerns me a lot, the amount of people that are getting divorced, and many times they come to me and I ask them, ”What was the reason? Where did it all start? Is there a third party involved?” “No, no, there’s no one else involved. We just cannot get on.” I want to say to you, it’s not good enough. You need to go back to God and repent. “Yes, but I’ve got my rights, Angus.” No, you don’t have your rights. If you gave your life to Jesus Christ, you surrendered your rights. We can agree to disagree. We don’t have to agree on everything, but we mustn’t allow these trivial things, because that’s what they are, to destroy your future. I’m talking about friendships, pick up the phone and say, ”Sorry man,” say, ”I didn’t mean to say what I said. Please forgive me.”
You know it takes two to Tango, as they say, you can’t dance by yourself and when you argue, if you say, ”Listen, I’m not going to go any further, I want to tell you. I want to leave it.” Leave it there, go to the Lord and reconcile with one another quickly. Do it today!
Jesus bless you and goodbye.