Thought For Today

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.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Tuesday morning, the 21st of July, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.
We start in the Book of Genesis 4:9:
”Then the Lord said to Cain,” Where is your brother, Abel?” And he said, ”I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”
Oh yes folks, indeed we are! We are responsible for each other. Let’s look at Deuteronomy 22:1. The Lord says:
“You shall not see your brother’s ox or his sheep going astray, and hide yourself from them; you shall certainly bring them back to your brother.”
You and I have a responsibility, first of all to God and then to our fellow man. If we see something is not right, we have an obligation to help him. If somebody has lost something precious and you find it, it is not a case of finders keepers, losers weepers. Remember, we used to say that when we were young? No, go and find out who it belongs to and return it because this is what God requires of us.
I remember many years ago, we had a wonderful meeting on the farm. We had many, many men coming to Shalom. I had a beautiful maize crop standing, and the maize was just about ready for reaping. It was nice and golden in colour, and one of the men who came to the meeting decided he was going to take home a souvenir, so he took one of my maize cobs, a full maize cob, and he put it in his vehicle, and when it was over, it was a wonderful meeting we had, he went home with that cob.
Do you know, many years later, I am talking maybe 20 years later, I got this phone call, and he is probably listening to this message - and bless you, my dear friend - he said “I took it and it wasn’t mine and it has been bugging me ever since”. And he sent back that maize cob in a package to me on the farm. Obviously, I would have said to him, “Keep it, man. What is one mealie cob?” But there is a principle. It was not his, and he knew it, and so he returned it, and that brings peace to you.
Sometimes you might be a Comrades runner and a stone gets into your shoe. The best thing is to stop immediately. Take the stone out and then you will be able to finish that race properly. If you don't, eventually that stone will eat away and you will have a massive blister and probably won’t even be able to finish the race. Sort things out. If there is something that belongs to your brother, take it back to him so that you can have peace and joy in your heart.
Until next time, Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day.
Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Monday morning, the 20th of July, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.
We go to 2 Timothy 2:15:
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
A man by the name of Charles Kinsley said, ”Have your tools ready. God will find you work.” I like that! We are in such a rush to do things, but we don’t take time to prepare them. I remember my late father-in-law, who was a perfectionist when it came to his equipment and his tools. He was a steam engineer by profession, in those days before diesel came into the fore, everything was run by steam. I used to admire his workshop. When you went into his workshop, it was spick and span, it was clean, and all the tools were in the right place. He knew where everything was, right down to the last bolt or nut. As a farmer, I would go in often and say, “Dad, I need help here. Can you help me with a certain spanner?” He would walk straight to his tool-kit and bring it out and by the way, it was shining and sparkling clean, and I had to return it the same way!
It is such a pleasure to see an artisan working with his tools, whether he is a carpenter, whether he is a boiler-maker, whether he is a mechanic, especially when he arrives on the farm with his pick-up, and he opens up the side, and he has all his tools in front of him. There’s nothing that he needs to look for. You take him the problem with the tractor or whatever it might be, and he gets to work, and in no time at all, he has fixed it. Why? Because his tools are ready.
As a preacher, I can tell you, when I started off, I used to spend hours, if not days, preparing a sermon. Now I don’t do that anymore. I spend hours and days in prayer and waiting on the Lord and speaking to Jesus, and then, when my tools are ready, I can deliver the message with simplicity and clarity so that people can understand it.
Today, we need to understand that people need us desperately, but they want the truth, they want it in love, and they want to know that what you are telling them can be backed up every single time with the word of God. So today, as you go into the field, make sure that you have approved yourself to God as a good workman.
Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day.
Goodbye.