Thought For Today

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Thursday morning, the 3rd of September, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We go to the Book of Hebrews 12:1-2 and I'm reading two verses: ”Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Oh folks, we really need to run this race to the end. We need to finish strong! There's nothing more sad for me to see than half-built building, where someone has obviously had a vision, put their money and their effort into building a house and halfway through, run out of money, run out of strength and left it derelict. It is an eyesore to the surrounding land. We need to finish the job.As a farmer, when I look at crops, especially farmers who are so intense. They start so well, they do the land preparation, they put the seed in, the fertiliser, they spray the herbicide, weedicide and then they give up. The crop grows to a metre high and then the weeds take over and the crop is absolutely drowned in the weeds and eventually dies. We need to finish the job. It doesn't matter how old or how young you are. Finish the degree, finish your education, finish the job, and then, most importantly, work on that marriage. Do not throw the towel in. Don't give up. Work on the marriage. Sit down, talk to each other, love each other. God will strengthen the marriage and your children will rejoice when they see mom and dad falling in love again. Yes, it is possible, but it requires commitment. It requires a definite decision to fulfil the commitment that we made on our wedding day.Let us run that race for Jesus. God bless you and have a wonderful day. Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Wednesday morning, the 2nd of September, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We go to that very well-known scripture, Isaiah 40:31: ”But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” The Lord often uses the eagle as an example of how you and I should live. The eagle is a solitary bird, he is an amazing bird. He doesn't hang around on the power lines with the crows and gossip and talk about all the unsavoury things. No, no, no! He is a solitary bird. You will never see a flock of eagles flying around. No, they are solitary birds. He is majestic in his habits. Yes, he flies alone, and he flies at a very high altitude. They tell me that the eagle has incredibly powerful vision. He can see something like 3 miles away, that is over 5 kms, from where he is flying, and I am just thinking of Proverbs 29:18 - where there is no vision, the people perish. Some of us need to lift up our eyes. We are looking too low, folks. We really need a vision from God. If you have no vision, that means you have nothing to look forward to, nothing to get up for in the morning, nothing to study about, nothing to work on. We need to be like the eagle. He has got vision. He is also a bird that has got freedom. He is not confined in a space. If you put an eagle in a cage, he will die. He was not designed to be in a cage, neither were you and I. The Lord has set us free. If the Lord sets you free, you will be free indeed. He has also got incredible strength for his size. I have seen some of those eagles. They will tackle a fox, pick it up with their talons, and destroy it. They have got power and are very bold. He doesn't spend time eating dead, rotten prey. We, as Christians, we must have a faith that is alive and healthy. He loves storms. The other birds have to shelter in the storms. He loves the storms. He locks his wings, he catches those thermals in the air and he screams out when the storms get bigger. He doesn't fly away. As Christians, we need to know that Jesus is with us. He continually renews himself, pulls out his old feathers and allows new ones to grow. He has a personality, leadership abilities, mental habits, sharp focus, and emotional resilience. Today, let us be like that eagle and make the Lord Jesus proud that we are His children. God bless you and have a wonderful day.Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Monday morning, the 31st of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We go to John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, …” Then we go a little bit further to John 15:13: “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.”Oh friends, we need to be givers. Our Heavenly Father gave His only Son so that we might have eternal life. I was thinking about that mighty ship called the Titanic. They said it was unsinkable - big mistake. Never say anything like that to God. “It can't be done”. It went down like a lead weight when it hit an iceberg while going across to America. But I want to speak to you about a couple of people who were on that ship that we never think about, the real heroes, the givers, and the first one I am thinking about is Chief Engineer, Joseph Bell and his crew. They were working below the waterline. My mother's brother was a Chief Engineer in the Merchant Navy in the Second World War. These were the brave men. They knew that if they got hit by a torpedo, they would sink. They couldn't get out. They had to keep the ship sailing. Joseph Bell and his crew kept power and the pumps going to the end. They drowned giving their lives for their fellowmen.The wireless operators, Jack Phillips and Harold Bride, kept transmitting, they kept on sending out signals, S.O.S. (Save Our Souls); they also drowned. The band kept playing music right up until the ship went down to keep the folks calm and to keep their spirits up. These are just a few of the people who gave their lives willingly so that others might be saved. Today, think about somebody you can help and especially somebody who cannot give you anything back, because that is what our Father in heaven did. He gave His Son. We cannot possibly repay Him. All we can say is thank You, Father, for allowing Your Son to die for sinners like us. Go out today and be Jesus to those who have nothing. God bless you and goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Sunday morning, the 30th of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the Gospel of Mark 8:36. Jesus says: “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” Then we go to the Book of Romans 14:17: “for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Life is just so much more than eating and drinking. Years ago, we took a 20-ton Mercedes-Benz truck, we called it The Seed Sower. We took that truck from Cape Town as far as Kampala, Uganda, over a number of years, spending most of our time in the rural areas where there are very poor people, people who don't have much clothing to wear, people who don't have a lot of food to eat. We filled up that truck with food, clothes and Bibles. Now, this is very interesting because when we got there, we would take a big open area, advertise properly, and the crowds would come, because there was nothing else to do when you are in a rural area where no one goes. They would come in their numbers, I am talking about thousands. Some of these little children were dressed almost in rags and you could see that they were very hungry, and the women and the men had very sparse clothes. Their clothes were old and tattered. We would bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We had a platform that came down the side of that truck and with my good friend, Peter Motale, as my interpreter, we would preach the undiluted, simple Gospel. We would make the altar call and the whole crowd would come to the front every single time. Now these people, were not interested in the food. They were not interested in the clothes. They wanted the word of God, the Bible. Now how did they know that? These were uneducated people. They knew because of the Spirit of God in them. There was a hunger for the truth, so much more than eating and drinking. I saw it with my own eyes. Sometimes they were concerned they might lose out and wouldn't get a Bible. They ended up having fisticuffs, now that is the honest truth, because they wanted a Bible. The one time, I thought that they were going to turn this massive truck that was 18 metres long, that they were going to turn it over. They were scuffling so much. I got my young nephew, who was with me, to take a box of Bibles on his head and move away from the truck and distribute the Bibles there. Well, I just saw a cloud of dust and then I never saw my nephew again for a while until he came out, but the Bibles were given out!Today, remember this life is so much more than eating and drinking. It is about life eternal. Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day.Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Saturday morning, the 29th of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the Book of Malachi 3:6:“For I am the Lord, I do not change…” Isn't that amazing? When you think of the world we are living in at the moment, I mean it's changing by the minute and here's another scripture, Numbers 23:19: “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” A sure thing. Oh yes, that's one thing we can take for granted and of course the Master Himself, Jesus, in Matthew 24:35 said: ”Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.” I want to really encourage you, as I'm encouraging myself today, to start taking God's Holy Word literally. You can count on it. It is for sure. If God has promised you, young lady, that He has a husband for you, you can be sure that husband is coming. Do not make a big mistake and run ahead of God and marry somebody because you think that you're becoming too old. Don't do that. God has got the man for you.I want to say to that young boy at school, who is struggling to get his finals. He's about to sit down and write them anyway, and he doesn't think he's going to pass. You call out to the Lord. The Lord says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5. Do your best and leave the rest to the Lord. God is faithful! We need to understand that. The only thing that can upset the Lord is our doubt. When we say, ”No Lord, You can't do that. It's too big.” No, don't do that. I can tell you by experience that the Lord that I am serving, the Lord that we are serving, if He says it, He'll do it. He promised me that He'd bring the biggest tent in the world to this farm. He did it. He promised me that He would bring a million people to one place in one day with six weeks to organise it. He did it. He promised me that if I am faithful, He will give me the strength to bring you a message every single morning. We are well over two thousand messages, different scriptures, different illustrations, every single morning without fail thus far. We are pressing towards three thousand Thoughts for Today. I think we should have a big party when that anniversary comes along.Folks, I can't encourage you enough today. Take your eyes off your situation. Put your eyes on Jesus, and He will do the rest. Have a wonderful day and God bless you.Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Friday morning, the 28th of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the Book of Romans 14:3. This is Paul speaking, he says: ”Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; …” When you go to somebody's house, you eat whatever they give you. There are some people who are so foolish, they will go to a primitive village somewhere in Central Africa, they will preach a fiery sermon, the local people will be deeply touched in their hearts and they will pray the sinner's prayer. They will invite you to their humble home. They have very little food to eat but what they've got they will offer you, and they might bring in a nice big leaf and on it are some big, fat, juicy worms. You're a missionary, you are trying to bring the Gospel of Jesus to these people now. What are you going to do? You are going to do exactly what they do. You are going to pray, “Sanctify this food to my body, Lord,” and then you are going to eat those worms heartily, and they will be so appreciative of what you have done. But if you preach a wonderful sermon, they give their lives to the Lord, you go to their home, they offer you the food that they've got and you turn it away - you say, ”No, I can't eat that” or “I don't eat that” - that will do more harm because you are judging them.Jesus says in Matthew 15:11:”Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.” When in Rome, do what the Romans do! You've heard that said as well. In South Africa, we eat something called biltong. It is dried meat. No, it has not been cooked. It is delicious. It is one of my favourite dishes. We also eat something called dry wors, it's a sausage that has been dried and hasn't been cooked. We eat it heartily, and if you want to win a soul to Christ, don't judge him, just eat heartily, and he will probably be more impressed by the way you treat his wife and his home than by any fancy talking.Jesus bless you and eat it heartily. Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Thursday morning, the 27th of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.We start in 1 Corinthians 11:1. Paul says: ”Imitate me, just also as I imitate Christ.” Then we go to the Book of Ephesians 5:1: “Therefore be imitators of God as dear children.” Then the last one, Philippians 3:17: “Brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern.”Ooh, that's a tough one today, isn't it? We have got to be examples. Lead by example - follow me even as I follow Jesus. Don't tell people how to live. Rather, show them how to live. Dad, your children are watching all the time how you treat their mother, and this is very serious. If you just get out of the car and walk into the shop and mother has to run after you, that's disgraceful. It actually brings a tear to my eye. That is not what Christ did. Remember, Jesus was known as the One who washed feet. He washed the dirty feet of His disciples as an example. Your son, dad, will not do what you tell him. He will do exactly what you do. If you are a drunkard, he will become a drunkard, even though he hates himself for it, because he doesn't know any other way. We need to lead by example.On the aeroplane, coming back from a big event we had in Namibia many years ago, I was on the platform, it was a capacity crowd, and it was amazing. We got on the plane flying home and there was a rugby team on the same plane. These boys had obviously had a wonderful weekend, and they were all having a few beers and I was sitting towards the back of the plane and I noticed a young man who I think had been at the event. He was sitting in the aisle seat in the front, and he kept on looking at me, and I didn't take any more notice. The air hostess came up to me. She said, “Would you like to have a drink?” I said, “Yes, thank you. I will have a coke. She brought me a Coke, and as I popped that Coke open, I looked up, and there was this young man, and he had a smile on his face, and he gave me a thumbs up. Now folks, we need to lead by example. I was probably speaking about lifestyle on that platform.If I was sitting there putting the beers back and this young man is looking to me as an example, what would that have done to him? It might have destroyed his faith. We need to walk the talk. We need to do what Jesus said and not tell other people what to do and then do the opposite.Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day.Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Wednesday morning, the 26th of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We go first of all to the Book of Joshua 14:7. This is Caleb speaking: ”I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me…” I'll stop right there and then we go down to verse 10. He continues and he says:”…these forty-five years, ever since the Lord spoke this word to Moses while Israel wandered in the wilderness; and now, here I am this day, eighty-five years old.” Oh folks, what a man, hey? We're talking about Caleb. He was sent by Moses, by the Lord, to go and spy out the land. He was only forty years old. He came back with a good report, and then we see that only he and Joshua were the two who survived from the whole nation of Israel that was set free from Egypt as slaves.Now Joshua said to him, ”You can choose any part of the promised land for your home because of your good service.” What did he say? ”Give me the big mountain where the big giants live.” It says he was as strong when he was eighty-five years old as he was when he was forty. What a miracle but we haven't finished there.Then we go to Luke 3:23. “Now Jesus began His ministry at about He was thirty years of age…” and we know that He died on the cross for our sins, three years later. His whole ministry spanned a mere three years.I want to speak to you about age. Age is just a number. There's that old song, I can't remember exactly who sang it. He said, ”How old would you feel if you did not know the year you were born.” That's an interesting thought, isn't it? You'll feel as old as you feel because you're walking with the Lord.You see, the faithfulness of God to Caleb was because Caleb lived a holy life. Numbers 14:24: ”But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land…” (which was of course the promised land.)An amazing man! Through holiness and spending time with the Lord and dedicating his life to the Lord, and what about Jesus? His ministry only lasted three years and He changed the whole world.Today, use this day as if it were the last day you were going to live and live it to the full, and God will do the rest.Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day. Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Tuesday morning, the 25th of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the New Testament, Romans 13:1: ”Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities.”Then we go back to Matthew 22:20-21: ”And He said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?'” They said to Him, “Caesar's.” And He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” We have to obey the authorities. I can hear somebody right now getting very hassled, ”How can I obey a corrupt situation?” Well, when the Pharisees confronted Jesus about this very thing, the Romans were oppressing the Jews at that very time and yet Jesus said we must obey the law.I remember many years ago, I was down in the Eastern Cape. I had been invited to speak on a panel to farmers. There were a number of us. I don't like panels, by the way, because you get put on the spot in front of everybody, and often you don't even have time to think about it. There were five or six of us on this panel, and there was a group of farmers, and one farmer got up, he was quite upset. He said, ”How can I pay taxes to a corrupt governing authority?” And he aimed the question straight at me. For a moment, I didn't know what to say because it is a very difficult question, and God is speaking to somebody right now. You are trying to justify why you are not paying your income tax. My friend, don't do that because Jesus said, ”You must give to Caesar what is Caesar's.” Anyway, I said to that upset farmer who stood up in front of everybody, I said, ”Do you have a ten rand note in your pocket?” He said, ”Yes.” I said, ”Can you bring it to me, please?” And I took the ten rand note and I said, ”Whose name is on that note?” He said, ”It's the name of the government.” I said, ”Well, give to the government what is due to the government and give to God what is due to God.” And that was the end of the story.I want to say to you, there are a lot of things in this world that are not fair, but I want to tell you that if you start doing your own thing, there will be chaos when everybody does their own thing. We have to obey the authorities, and we have to pray that God will convict them if there is dishonesty and unfair governance.Let us concentrate today on what God has told us to do, and He will see to it that we, in the end, are justified.Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day.Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Monday morning, the 24th of August 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the Book of Joshua 14:2: “Their inheritance was by lot, as the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses,…” Then we go straight to the Book of Romans 2:11: “For there is no partiality with God.” Isn't that wonderful? God has got no favourites. No, no teacher's pets! And I am so happy about that because I didn't feature too well at school. I can tell you right now, He has no favourites. That is why I love Jesus Christ so much. He chose me with all my imperfections, and He loves you just as much.They used to draw straws, that is what drawing a lot is. So there would be 4 or 5 straws. The one who chooses the shortest straw is the one who gets the position. There can be no favourites. It has nothing to do with size, it has nothing to do with intellect, it has nothing to do with roots, where your family came from, what part of the railway line you grew up on, the good side or the poor side. It is purely because the Lord loves you and He loves me.I used to say to my mother, “Mom, did you give my brother more food than me when we were small?” (Because my brother is 6 ft 3” and I am 5 ft 8.5”). My brother was a professional sportsman all his life. I could barely hit a golf ball, let alone make a score. Folks, I want to say to you - it's good news today - maybe you are feeling like you have been left out, that God has forgotten you. No, no, no, no! God has not forgotten you. He loves you so much that He even gave His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, for your salvation. I want to pray for you.Lord, I pray for my dear friends today, that they would understand clearly that You have no favourites, and that from the day we were born, You have loved us unconditionally, whether we have made it or we haven't made it according to the world's standard. “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.” John 15:13 - and that is exactly what You did for us, and we love You for it, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.God bless you and remember - you are special in the sight of God. Have a wonderful day!Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Sunday morning, the 23rd of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for the day. We start in the Book of Exodus 20:3:“You shall have no other gods before Me.” Then we go to Matthew 19:22:”But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” Nothing must come before the sovereignty of God, Jesus first all the time! A man by the name of Guthrie wrote something which I thought was quite challenging. He says, ”If you find yourself beginning to love any pleasure better than your prayers, any book better than your Bible, any house better than God's house, any table better than the Lord's table, any person better than your Saviour, anyone better than your soul, a present indulgence better than the hope of Heaven, take alarm.” Folks, that really, really rocked me. Now you see the rich young ruler said to Jesus, "I obey all the commandments, right from when I was a young boy.” But Jesus said to him, "Give away all your riches and come and follow after Me.” The Bible says he couldn't do it, he walked away because his riches, his possessions, were worth more to him than following Jesus.I remember a minister telling me many years ago that he believed that Jesus was standing, looking at him, with tears running down His face because that young man was on his way to hell. I also believe, and so did that minister, that if he had said, ”Lord, I will follow You,” the Lord would have given him back all his riches. The Lord doesn't need your riches, my friend. He doesn't need my riches. He doesn't need your reputation, He doesn't need my reputation. He needs us, and today let us take note of anything in our lives. The Lord says in Matthew 6:33:”But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” He doesn't want to spoil your life. No, He wants to give you life abundantly. That's what He said in John 10:10. Today, let's put Jesus first and then He will ensure that we get the rest.God bless you and goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Saturday morning, the 22nd of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. Psalm 23:1: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Then we go straight to Romans 12:12: “…rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer…”This morning we want to speak about memory verses. As a brand-new Christian, I started to memorise scriptures. The first one I memorised was, of course, John 3:16: ”For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” The second one: 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” These are scriptures that have kept me going for close on 50 years. I want to encourage that young child, driving to school with mom at the moment, listening to this, to start to memorise Scripture because when you get into a tough spot in life, and you don't have access to your Bible, you can remember the word of God. It will keep you going. Now, let's look at Romans 12:12: Number one: Rejoicing in hope - so we get excited. We hope that the Lord will bless us with a good crop of maize this coming season. We are hoping, by the grace of God, that we will pass our exam at school and that this business venture will not fail. We are hoping that we will meet the right man who will become our husband, rejoicing in hope!Then the second one: Patient in tribulation - when the going gets tough, you have to hang in there and trust God and not panic. Whether it is a financial decision, or you have been to the doctor and he says you are very sick, there is not much hope for you. Patient in tribulation: “Lord, I am trusting You. You are my Healer.” Patient when things are going very tough, patient because they are going to come right!And then, listen to this: Continuing steadfastly in prayer - You pray in the morning, you pray in the evening, you pray at lunchtime, you pray while you are walking, you pray while you are running, you pray while you are cycling, pray while you are riding your horse. Prayer must become a lifestyle. Then you will find things will change.There is an older lady listening to this programme right now. She says, “My memory is very poor. I can't remember things, Angus.” Well, I am going to give you one verse to start with. Mark 11:22: “Have faith in God.” That's it. Let's memorise that one first. Have a wonderful day!Jesus bless you and goodbye!

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Friday morning, the 21st of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the Book of Exodus 24:13: ”So Moses arose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up to the mountain of God.” Then we go straight to the Gospel of Matthew 4:19: ”Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” What are we talking about this morning? We're talking about legacy. What are you going to leave behind when you go home to be with the Lord? What are you going to leave your family? What are you going to leave your relations and your workers, maybe? What are you going to leave behind? The Oxford dictionary defines the word, ”Legacy”, as something handed down by a predecessor. Moses left Joshua a powerful legacy of spiritual leadership, faithfulness, and authority, so that Joshua could lead the children of Israel into the promised land after Moses had done his work and gone home. Jesus did exactly the same thing. He taught His disciples lifestyle. He taught them how to live a life of faith. He taught them about humility and love. He taught them about the power of God through the laying on of hands of miracles.What is so sad for me is when I see a man and wife work so hard to leave a legacy for their children, but they don't teach them how to use it. It's like giving your sixteen-year-old boy a Ferrari sports car and telling him to go and drive it. He will kill himself within the first couple of days because he was never taught how to manage the power of that motorcar. My friend, it is so sad for me when I see a family leave money behind, a farm, a business and they have never taught their children how to use it. It lands up in chaos every time because that power, that money, that legacy, will kill your children.Today, let us be like Jesus. Jesus taught His disciples, and then He sent them out into the world, two by two, to preach the Gospel. Let us be like Moses who taught Joshua. Joshua walked with Moses for forty years before he was promoted to take the Children of Israel out.Today, I believe the Lord is saying to us, ”Be very careful what you leave your family behind. Teach them the things of God, and then they will succeed, and the Holy Spirit will bless them.Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day. Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Thursday morning, the 20th of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in 1 Samuel 17:45: “Then David said to the Philistine (that's Goliath), “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.” Then we go straight to the New Testament, 2 Corinthians 10:4-5: “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal (fleshly) but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, (verse 5) casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,…”Our battle today is not a physical one. It is a spiritual battle. Maybe this morning you are in a state of fear. You are wondering, how am I going to pay these accounts at the end of the month? Maybe the doctor has told you that your child is sick, very sick, and you are in a panic situation. What must I do? Where must I go? Well, you must do exactly what the young boy, David did - he was only a teenager.He was minding his father, Jesse's sheep on the mountain. What was he doing? He was writing psalms, he was singing to God. He was having a quiet time. Oh, my friend, are you having a regular quiet time with Jesus in the morning? You say, “No”. There is your problem. The weapons of our warfare are not physical. They are spiritual. So when the boy brought food for his big brothers down to the valley, he saw a 9 foot giant by the name of Goliath, mocking the people of God. He did it for 40 days. And he said, “Who is this man?” And his brothers must have told him to leave the food and go back and look after the sheep.“He said, “No ways! No one is going to get away with this, mocking my God!” He stood up. He said, “Let me sort him out.” Remember Goliath said, “Do you think I am a dog, that you come up against me with sticks and stones?” And listen to what he said. He said, “I come against you in the name of the Lord God, The Commander of the armies of Israel.” And with that he killed him and cut his head off.Today, you need to do the same. You need to get into your closet, spend time with God. Ask God to show you what to do, and then go out and take it because God has already given you the victory. Jesus bless you and have a victorious day today.Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Wednesday morning, the 19th of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. Today I am going to read a scripture out of the Amplified Version of the Bible - Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the assurance (title deed, confirmation) of things hoped for (divinely guaranteed), and the evidence of things not seen [the conviction of their reality—faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses].”That is very powerful. I want you to try and meditate on that fact. You see, faith is real, but you can't see it, you can't touch it, you have to believe it. Now, yesterday I shared with you how John Wesley, on his trip to America, got caught in a huge storm, was devastated, thought the ship was going to sink, the passengers were panicking, and there was a group of Moravian believers standing on board, singing calmly, singing hymns. They were not afraid at all, and it blew him away.He realised he wasn't even saved. Now I want to continue. Once Wesley came back to England, another Moravian, Peter Böhler, came along 3 years later, in 1738, and he told him he was at his lowest ebb spiritually. In fact, he wanted to give up preaching altogether. This is what Peter Böhler said to him and it has impacted my life as well. He said, “Preach faith till you have it, and then because you have it, you will preach faith.” I want you to think about that.In 2008, the Lord laid upon me to book the biggest tent in the world at that time which could seat over 30,000 people. It took 17 40-ton trucks, with containers on board, to bring it to the farm, and took over 2 weeks to erect it by a man called Attie Van Staden, whose life was impacted by erecting it. It was the size of 4 rugby fields in the end. I had R500 in my pocket, that's all I had but by faith I booked it but I didn't ask for a penny, I never charged for a ticket, and we had it on this farm and we had an amazing encounter with God. Because of faith, God sent 60,000 men, 30,000 in the tent and 30,000 outside of the tent, and He paid for everything. I want to encourage you today to trust God. He will not fail you.Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day.Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Tuesday morning, the 18th of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the Book of Hebrews 11:6: ”But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” In other words, without faith we can't please God.Then we go to Romans 10:17:”So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Lots of people have written to me over the years and asked me, ”How do you get more faith?” Well, there's the answer. It comes by hearing and listening to the word of God and reading the Bible.John Wesley tells a story that took place in 1735. He boarded a ship for the USA, and on board were many English passengers and Moravian people going to America. Moravians from the early church that was started in Germany. As they went to sea, it was winter, it was freezing cold. A great storm arose, the mast broke, and it looked like the ship was about to sink. Now remember, John Wesley was a theologian. He had a Master of Arts Degree in Theology. He thought he was a man of faith. He thought he was a Christian but listen to the story.The storm got so violent that the English passengers aboard were panicking and screaming. Then Wesley looked up on board, and he saw the group of Moravians quietly, calmly singing hymns to God as the sea washed across the top of the ship. Then he realised that he was not saved and that he did not really know God. It changed his life. I'm talking about faith being a practical thing. Folks, we need to realise faith is not a noun like a cupboard or a chair. Faith is a doing word. It is a verb. By action, those Moravians showed John Wesley that he wasn't even saved, but afterwards, in a little Bible study in Aldersgate in London - he went to a Bible study. He sat there quietly, and he said a strange warmth came over his heart, scales fell from his eyes, and he believed that at that moment he was born again. We need to walk the talk. People need to see our faith by our actions.Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day. Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Monday morning, the 17th of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the Book of Joshua 10:13:”So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. And there has been no day like that, before it or after it, that the Lord heeded the voice of a man; for the Lord fought for Israel.” Remember, Joshua asked the Lord to hold the sun in place until he defeated the enemies and that's exactly what God did. The Lord works miracles! He expects you and me to believe Him and to trust Him completely.Then we go to the Gospel of John 14:12 and Jesus said:“…I say to you, he who believes…” That's where we come in.”… he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.” If we, you and I, can believe for the miracle, the Lord can do it. If the Lord can make the sun stand still so that the man of God, Joshua, can win the battle, then surely, the Lord also can do it for us. The problem is many of us won't believe it. “No, no Lord. You can't do that.” He says, ”Try me and see.”Many years ago on the farm when we had just started, we didn't have much money, and we desperately needed water, and so I got on my knees, and I prayed, and I said, ”Lord, I'm going to take a peg. I'm going to put it in the ground and I'm going to believe you that I am going to hit water when I call the drilling company to come and drill a borehole.” Yes, I got some experts to give me an idea roughly where the rock formation is situated, but as you very well know, you can drill a hole and miss the water by a few centimetres. So I went out prayerfully, with faith, and I put the peg in the ground. Then I called the drilling company to come and drill in that place. Oh my dear friend, all the Glory to Jesus! You know that was fifty years ago. We are still using that same water from the same borehole. It has never gone dry even in drought years because our God is a faithful God. Now, today, trust Him. I'm going to pray for you. Jesus, my friend, who is listening to this little message is desperate for the answer to the prayer of faith. I stand and I put my faith together with theirs and I believe for that baby that they have been waiting for, for so many years. I thank You by faith, she will conceive. They will have a child and they will give that child to you. In Jesus name, we give You all the glory, amen.God bless you and have a wonderful day. Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Sunday morning, the 16th of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We go to the Book of Romans 11:20-21: “Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either.”I looked up the Oxford Dictionary to get the direct meaning of the word, “haughty”. It means arrogant and superior towards other people. My dear friend, you and I need to be very careful how we stand. If we look at 1 Corinthians 10:12: “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” There is nothing worse for me than to see a young man whose father has worked so hard and built up a very powerful and huge business and then his young son comes into the business - he struts around like a cockerel, shouting the odds to all the employees, telling them what to do, completely arrogant, and yet he himself did nothing towards the building of that huge company. We need to be careful how we stand, lest we fall!Do you know that lovely old song? I am not sure if I have got the words correct, but it is a song that touched my heart deeply, and I want to sing it to you - just in case we start becoming a little bit haughty and thinking that we have done nothing special. Paul, the apostle, says, “Be careful how you stand.He paid the debt he did not owe, I owed the debt I could not payI needed someone to wash my sins awayAnd now I sing a brand new song, "Amazing grace"Christ Jesus paid the debt I could never payJust remember, we are saved by grace alone, undeserved loving kindness, unmerited favour from God, so let us not become haughty. Let us be grateful that the Lord has seen fit to save a sinner like us. Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day.Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Saturday morning, the 15th of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the Book of Joshua 9:14: “Then the men of Israel took some of their provisions; but they did not ask counsel of the Lord.” Then we go straight to Matthew 6:33: “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”I want to say today, we need to be careful of the smart-talkers, the sweet-speakers. The men from Gibeon fooled the man of God, Joshua, into making a deal with them, a covenant, that he could not break. They said that they came from very far off. They wore old clothes, broken sandals, stale food they had brought with them, and they needed protection. Joshua had compassion on them and made the deal, only to find out that they were actually their next-door neighbours. Joshua never sought the Lord first, and this is very important for you and me in these difficult days in which we are living. We need to hear from God, and He needs to confirm any relationship or decision we make. I am talking to that young girl who is wondering whether she should marry the young man or not. Seek the Lord first because some of these young men are very sweet talkers, and then things don't turn out that way after the wedding ring and the covenant has been made. Don't do it. Seek the Lord! Don't be rushed into any decision. Take your time. They will always tell you, you have to do it immediately. I know a very sad story I want to share with you about a man I respect greatly, and he brought some young men into his business. He mentored them. They came in looking very innocent, and they were so excited to be brought in and to get shares in the business, but they had an ulterior motive and the businessman, my friend, did not know about that. Eventually, they literally voted him out of his own business and he lost everything. A godly man, maybe he should have sought the Lord first before bringing in these up-and-coming businessmen. Today, let us seek the Lord before we make any decision, and get confirmation, and then things will go well for us. Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day.Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Friday morning, the 14th of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in 1 Kings 19:18: “Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel – all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.'” Then we go to Romans 11:4. The Lord again says: “I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” I have got a very special son in the Lord, who has been called by God to go to some of the most dangerous places on earth to encourage the church. He has just returned from Ukraine, and he told me that he went to a church that meets every Sunday regardless of what happens, on the border between Russia and Ukraine. He says this to me in the message he sent me: “Ukraine has really opened my eyes to the devastation of the war. People are living in so much fear, but the church is standing strong.” He says: “I am sending you a message. These are all old retired people having church in the city on the Russian border. Almost everybody has lost a family member in the war. They can only meet for one hour maximum. The reason for this is that if the Russians find out there is a gathering, it takes them one hour to find the location and send a missile from Russia to kill them. They have been meeting since the war started.These are the words of one of the songs that they sing:Thank You Lord, for another day Thank You Lord for making a wayThank You Lord that our eyes can see Prepare us for the bride to be.He says he has not sensed the power and the sincerity of worship like that before. I want to say to you, God has got His people all over the world. He says He has reserved them. Do not lose heart. Keep up the faith wherever you might be receiving this message. Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day.Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Thursday morning, the 13th of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in Psalm 23:6:”Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever.” Then we go to John 19:30:'…“It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.” The Lord has done it all. He completed the task. He has done the work. He ran His race, and He said at the end, ”It is finished!” And with that He bowed His head and He went home to Heaven where He is waiting for you and for me.How are you feeling about that this morning? Well, I want to use an illustration for you which used to be so wonderful for me. When you plant a crop of maize or wheat or barley, it takes a lot of preparation. You have to prepare the land. You have to get the right seed. You have to calibrate your planting machine. You have to wait for the right time, and then you start planting, and depending on the size of your crop, some men have to plant night and day for weeks on end, and eventually you get the crop planted completely. In between times, you have to stop maybe for a while because the rain is coming down so heavily you cannot get in with your tractors, but the rain stops, the sun comes out, and then you continue and it is critical you get your crop in by a certain time otherwise you start losing the yield when you reap the crop. There is a proper time. There is a special time to get that crop in. So you are working night and day, literally with lights at night, not getting much sleep. Eventually you finish the crop. It's done, it's completed, that's exactly what Jesus has done for you and me! He has finished the job, and the Psalmist said, ”Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever.” Once we've done the job, stop fretting. Stop being afraid. Do your best, do what God's called you to do and then leave it to Him to do the rest, to grow the crop and to bring in the bumper harvest.Jesus Christ bless you as you rest in Him today, knowing that it is mission accomplished.Goodbye

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Wednesday morning, the 12th of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the Book of Joel 2:32: “And it shall come to passThat whoever calls on the name of the LordShall be saved.”And then we go straight to the Book of Romans 10:13: For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” The last one is Romans 10:9: “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”What a beautiful start to the day! When the Lord Jesus says, “whoever”, He means whoever. He means the good, the bad and the ugly. (I am definitely in the category of the ugly)! He says, the Jew, the Gentile, the black, the white, the coloured, the old, the young, the blue-collar worker, the white-collar worker, the students, the old-age person - whoever calls upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved. Folks, that is huge. I don't feel worthy to be saved. I really don't and I am sure you don't either. Yes, I am a born-again, baptised in water, baptised in the Holy Spirit Christian. I have been walking with Jesus for close to 50 years, and yet I still feel totally unworthy. It's only by His grace alone that we are saved. Even Paul, the great apostle, said, “Wretched soul that I am. I do what I shouldn't do and I don't do what I should do. What will become of me?” And then he says, “But by the name of Jesus Christ…”So today, if you are maybe feeling unworthy, maybe you have done something which you know is wrong. Maybe you are involved in something which you know does not bring glory to Jesus' name. Simply ask for forgiveness. Simply ask Jesus to forgive you and stop it, repent of it, and carry on, because Peter, the great apostle, knew what forgiveness was, after he had denied his beloved Saviour no less than 3 times and yet the Lord forgave him and used him to head up the early church. So there is hope in Christ.Have a glorious day today in Jesus' mighty name,Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Tuesday morning, the 11th of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We go to the Book of Joshua 5:13. Now Joshua is asking the Man that he finds in the road, who He is. Of course, He is the Commander of the Lord's army, but Joshua didn't know that, so he says:“Are You for us or for our adversaries?” (our enemies)Then we go straight to the Gospel of Matthew 12:30: Jesus says:”He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.” Now I took the liberty of looking at the Message Translation. This is what it says: “This is war, and there is no neutral ground. If you're not on my side, you're the enemy; if you are not helping, you are making things worse.” A very, very serious scripture! Are you for Him or are you against Him? Are you sitting on the fence or are you getting involved? There is no neutral ground. I hope you and I can both say, ”We're with You Lord, all the way.” I think of that wonderful man of God, Gideon. He started with 32,000 soldiers, and he ended up with 300 soldiers to go against the enemy, and he allowed the balance of those men to go back home because he saw that they were fearful.I really want to pray for you this morning because I think many of us are maybe sitting on the fence. We are not totally committed. We are not against the Lord, we love Him, but we don't want to overdo it, we don't want to get too involved. We don't want to stand up and say, ”As for me and my family, we will serve the Lord,” because it might get us into trouble. We might even lose our job. We might lose our friends. We might be branded as one of them, but I want to say to you today, you need to make up your mind. When Jesus comes back to take us home, which is very soon, will He recognise you as one of His soldiers?Father God, in Jesus' name I pray today for my friends. I pray for myself. Lord, please let us not become lukewarm because You have told us You will spew us out of Your mouth if we do. Let us get involved. Let us stand up for You. Let us be proud to be known as a follower of Jesus Christ.Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day. Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Monday morning, the 10th of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.We start in the Book of Joshua 5:12:”Then the manna ceased on the day after they had eaten the produce of the land; and the children of Israel no longer had manna, but they ate the food of the land of Canaan that year.”Then we go straight to the Gospel of Luke 10:1: ”After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go” He sent them out. What had happened was Jesus called the disciples. They walked with Jesus, and then afterwards Jesus walked with them to see if they were able, and then thirdly, He sent them out to do the work of the Lord, two by two. The manna from Heaven stopped the very day the children of Israel started to eat food in the promised land. Isn't that amazing? The next morning there was no manna. It's incredible.There comes a time in your life and my life when we have to be weaned from mother's milk. I'm a farmer - when a young ox or a young heifer comes of age, six months old, we wean the calf from its mother. It performs, but it's time because mother is now pregnant with another baby.You must understand something, the most we can do for our children is to do our best. What is our best? Well, if you can give them an education and if you can grow them up to age, then they must go out and find work for themselves, just like Jesus sent out the disciples.I had a cup of tea the other day with an old gentleman. He's lost his wife, she's already gone home to be with the Lord, and he has beautiful children. I know all his children. He got very tearful and I said, ”What is wrong?” He said, ”You know, I haven't left anything, no legacy, no inheritance for my children.” I corrected him very abruptly. I said, ”Of course you have. You brought them up, you gave them a good education, you gave them every opportunity you could afford, and then they must go out.” And I saw a peace come over his heart.Do not spoil your children. We have an obligation to people, not to make them dependant on us but to make them hearers from Heaven, is what C H Spurgeon said. Today, if you have to, wean your children, they need to stand on their own two feet and glorify God.Jesus bless you.Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Sunday morning, the 9th of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the Book of Colossians 4:2, in the New Testament, (Amplified Version): “Be persistent and devoted to prayer, being alert and focused in your prayer life with an attitude of thanksgiving.” The second scripture is found in 1 Thessalonians 5:17: “pray without ceasing,…” We pray in the morning, we pray in the evening, we pray during the day, we pray at work, we pray during our social lives. We need to pray more, my dear friends. Many of us are struggling at the moment with our faith because we do not pray to Jesus. We do not pray to our Heavenly Father. We do not pray in the Holy Spirit. I can hear somebody saying, “Aah, but I don't have the time. You know time is money.” Oh folks, the very best investment you and I will ever make when we come back to the Lord at the end of our lives is prayer. That is all we can offer Him, nothing else. Often they couldn't find the Master. Why? Because He was up in the mountain praying to His Father. “Lord, where have You been? The people are waiting for You.” “I have been getting a message from My God.” We need to pray without ceasing. There is no time to waste. Pray for your children, pray for your parents, pray for your loved ones, pray for your country, pray for your people. There is power in prayer. Smith Wigglesworth said, “I never pray for longer than half an hour”, and he said, “I never let half an hour go by without praying!” Oh folks, we need to pray. I was asked a year ago to go to one of the most dangerous places in the continent of Africa. Yes, I am talking about the Cape Flats, a place where there were gang wars taking place, and men were being slaughtered. When I arrived in the stadium, the first thing I asked them was, “Where are the prayer warriors? Where are the intercessors?” “Oh no, they are in a room over there.” I said, “I want to go and see them.”You know, people told me before I left, “Don't go there!” Folks, I want to tell you something now, my life was transformed. When I walked into that room and these intercessors were praying, they were weeping, they were travailing like a woman giving birth to a child. There was such a warmth, such an intensity, such a vibe, such an excitement. They laid hands on me, they started to pray over me. I tell you what - my life was transformed in that moment. I went out and I preached my heart out. I got off that platform. They said to me, “Don't go down to the men.” I went down there. They loved me with such an intensity (one man nearly broke my neck!) Hanging on, the power of prayer! I want you to start to pray more and talk less. Jesus bless you. Have a wonderful day.Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Friday morning, the 7th of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the Book of Joshua 1:11. This is Joshua speaking: “Pass through the camp and command the people, saying, ‘Prepare provisions for yourselves, for within three days you will cross over this Jordan, to go in to possess the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess.' ” It is time to cross over, my dear friend. You're getting comfortable. Don't get comfortable. We are passing through. This is not our home, our home is in heaven! Remember the Israelites lived in tents. They never built any houses. They lived in tents until they crossed over the Jordan River. Then we go to the Gospel of Luke 4:43. This is Jesus speaking: ”…but He said to them, “I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent.” Remember, they wanted Jesus to stay with them. They didn't want Him to go, ”Lord, stay, please.” ”No! I have got an obligation to My Father. I have to go out and preach the gospel to the ends of the world.” We need to take new ground for Jesus. It's time for you and me to walk on the water, but the good news is, we do not go alone. He is going with us, and He is leading the way. All we have to do is follow. Remember, if we are not going forward, we are actually going backward. In the Kingdom of God, there is no such thing as standing still, either we are going up the ladder or we are going down the ladder. Now, I'm speaking figuratively because for some of us maybe God wants us to write that book. Some of you must open that new business. “But we don't have enough money. Times are hard.” Sometimes that's the best time to do it. You look at many men and women who have succeeded in life, they do not wait for the right opportunity. They wait for a word from God. Many times, the Lord has told me, “step out”, and that is the time that He does great and mighty things. You know, a ship tied up in harbour is going nowhere. When that ship sets out to sea, even if the wind is contrary, even if the wind is blowing the wrong way, a good captain knows how to work that ship with the sails, and he tacks against the wind and still gets to his destination. Today, let's cross over. Jesus bless you and have an exciting, wonderful dayGoodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Thursday morning, the 6th of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the Book of Job 38:4-5. The Lord said to Job: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?” Then we go to the Book of Romans 9:20: ”But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” It's absurd, isn't it, to think that we can question the Creator of Heaven and Earth? I really want to share my heart with you this morning. We need to show God some respect. I have a real problem when I hear a man saying, talking about the Lord, says, “the man upstairs” or “my china”, “my mate”. Folks, you clearly do not know Who you are talking to. We need to be very careful how we answer God, how we speak to God. Remember, He is in Heaven, and we are on Earth. The Orthodox Jews, when they want to write the Torah, they literally wash, they change their clothes before they start writing. There have been Orthodox Jews who have written to me, and when they end their letter, they say God bless you. They spell God, G-D. They will not even spell the name of God on a piece of paper. We need to really be careful how we speak to the Lord.It's so ridiculous. It's like a little ant on a path, looking up at a huge elephant with his tusks touching the ground, and arguing with him. That's how ridiculous it is. Oh folks, let's get back to reality! Stop questioning God. Stop thumping the table. I've heard men say to me, ”When I get to Heaven, God's going to have to answer some of my questions.” Folks, when you get to Heaven, you will be totally silent when you see the majesty of the Creator of Heaven and Earth!Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day.Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Wednesday morning, the 5th of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in Luke 1:22: ”But when he came out, he could not speak to them; and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple, for he beckoned to them and remained speechless.” Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist, lost his voice until John the Baptist, the baby, was born. Why? Because the Lord said it was because of his unbelief. He was a very old man when the Lord told him that he was going to have a son through Elizabeth, his wife, which he did have, and this was not just any son. If you look at Matthew 11:11, Jesus said: ”Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist;“ Incredible! Zachariah was chosen by God to be the father of the greatest man who ever lived who was born from the womb of a woman, according to Jesus. I'm a preacher, if I lose my voice, then I've lost everything, and I want to tell you about a man who shook South Africa. Yes, I'm talking about Andrew Murray, born a preacher, he had shaken the whole of South Africa. He had been preaching for twenty years non-stop and we could see the results in every small town in South Africa. There is a church that was built through that revival, but he lost his voice, just like Zachariah, and for two years Andrew Murray could not speak.He even went to Europe to see if they could sort out his vocal chords. They said he must rest. So for two years, a man who had been used by God could not speak. So what did he do? He sat down, there were no crowds, no following, and he started to write and folks, I want to tell you that man wrote some of the greatest theological books ever written on subjects of holiness, on prayer life, of surrendering everything to Jesus, and if there's a young person listening to this podcast and you want to get a book that will draw you closer to Jesus, get Andrew Murray's, “Absolute Surrender.” He got his voice back, but his writing superseded anything he's ever done. That's how Jesus works. Sometimes He takes something away because He wants to get our attention. Today, listen to what God is telling you to do and then do it with all your heart.Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day. Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Tuesday morning, the 4th of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the Book of Numbers 32:23: “…and be sure your sin will find you out.” I want to speak today about secret faults, secret sins that no one knows about, so you think, so I think, but I want to tell you something now. Be sure your sins will be exposed. We go to Psalm 19:12, and the writer says: “Cleanse me from secret faults.”You know, it is a heavy one, but it is one we need to deal with because if we don't, it is going to expose us. Yes, I am talking about things like pornography. Yes, you cannot continue to live like that and expect no one to find out. They will find out. I want to talk to that young man who is doing so well in business, but you are not honest. Your employer will catch you out. Stop doing it! I want to speak to that young man who is having an affair with a woman in his office, and he thinks his wife will not find out. She will find out and it will ruin your marriage and your family. Stop it today! There are no secret faults for a believer. We need to confess them and deal with them. I have spoken at many prisons all over the world, and there is something that breaks my heart every time. When I am allowed to speak to a gathering of prisoners, I will see a young man standing there, and I can see that he is totally out of his depth. There are gangsters there who have been to jail many times, you can see it, but that young man has been caught and sent to prison because of fraud. Now, the young person listening to this message, do you know what fraud is? Well, I want to tell you my interpretation of fraud is when you take something that doesn't belong to you, like money from the company, and you promise yourself you will pay it by Monday morning. But what you don't realise is the auditors come in before Monday morning, they look at the books and they see there is a discrepancy and it comes back to you. And you tell them, “Yes, but I meant to repay it.” It is too late. You have to go to jail for your sins.Today, remember the secret is - you say to me, “Angus, what can we do?” Well, 1 John 1:9 says: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Just say sorry. Send a text to that woman today and say, “It is over”. Pay that money back. Go and see that employer of yours and say, “Look, I am very sorry, but I will never do it again.” And God will redeem you.Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day.Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Monday morning, the 3rd of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We go to the Book of Romans 8:31:”What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” Oh folks, do you realise Who is on your side? I think some of us forget, and that's why we're taking so much strain. Then we go on to verse 37: ”Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” Beautiful - game, set and match! Isn't that wonderful? That's why you find men like Djokovic, Nadal and Federer, when they win a major tournament, they literally collapse onto the grass or onto the clay, and they start weeping. I used to play rugby many years ago, and I loved the game. Can you imagine running onto that rugby field with a huge stadium of people watching, and you look up at the scoreboard and already the score is 50 points to your team and no points to the opposition? It's a win-win situation. So before we even start today, I want to remind you that Jesus Christ has paid the full price for all of our sins. He has made a way for us where there seems to be no way, and most of all He's promised us He'll never leave us nor forsake us. (Hebrews 13:5)2 Corinthians 5:7: ”For we walk by faith, not by sight.” Oh my dear friend, today lift up your head, lift up your eyes, you are looking too low. Jesus is not coming soon, I'm telling you He's on His way and I cannot wait for that day. Have a blessed day as you realise what the Master has done for you and me. He has given us eternal life! Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day. Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Sunday morning, the 2nd of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the Book of Joshua 3:13:“And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above; and they shall stand upon an heap.” Do you know, I have been to the Jordan River many, many times. I have had the privilege of baptising hundreds of people in that Jordan River. I want to assure you, the Jordan River is not a stream. It is the life spring of the country of Israel. Without the Jordan River there would be no Israel. Then we go to Luke 8:25: “But He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and marveled, saying to one another, “Who can this be? For He commands even the winds and water, and they obey Him!”What we see here is that there are always signs and wonders. Every time the Lord performs a miracle, like stopping the Jordan River so that the people of Israel can cross over, just like calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee by speaking, the disciples were absolutely amazed. It reminds me of the story and I have told it to you a few times, I will probably tell you a few more times because it is a miracle that touched my life. We had a fire that was getting away from us on the farm. It was heading towards the forest on our neighbour's farm and there were no clouds in the sky, there was no rain predicted. I got on my knees in front of all my workers and some of my neighbours, and they were helping me to put the fire out, and I prayed, “Jesus, please help us!” And the wind turned around, and it came up from the south, and a most beautiful, gentle storm of rain fell over Shalom Farm and put the fire out - a sign, a miracle and a wonder when we trust the word of God.Today, Trust the Lord. He won't fail you. Jesus bless you and goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Saturday morning, the 1st of August, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in that very well-known psalm, Psalm 23:1-2: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters.”That is where our strength is. It is in the promise of God. Then we go straight to the Book of Hebrews 13:6:“So we may boldly say: “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?”The other night I was listening to a wonderful documentary about those famous singers, Bill and Gloria Gaither. He wrote the music, and she does the lyrics, and I want to say to you, they have touched the whole world and have been voted as the best gospel group of the century. But what really touched me is, they are just ordinary people. She says sometimes she will be cooking in the kitchen, and the Lord would give her a word, and she would sit down at the dining room table, and take a pencil and an A4 pad, and write out the words God has given. She said to us that they were about to have their little baby son and he was about to be born, and they were concerned about bringing him into a world that is so full of turmoil and so destructive, then she realised that God is in control, and she sat down and she wrote the words of one of the most beautiful well-known Gospel songs, “Because He Lives, I Can Face Tomorrow.” Isn't that good news? She went on to say that this world has never been a safe place unless you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. Her little son grew up. He got married, and he had a little girl, and when she was about 13, he wrote to his mom, and he said, “Mom, what a world we are bringing these children into!” Then Gloria could remind him that she wrote that song with Bill when he was born. He must remember that God is completely in control. I want to leave this thought particularly for young mothers with little babies, some who are pregnant, some who have a little baby who has just been born and you fear for the future of this little one. Don't be afraid because the Lord is our helper. He will be with us to the end.Jesus bless you and goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Friday morning, the 31st 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 John 13:7:“What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.”I want to speak to you this morning about disappointment. Maybe your job has come to an end, maybe you are just not cutting it at university, maybe that proposal to that young girl has not worked out, maybe that business deal has fallen through and you are disappointed. The Lord will use that disappointment often to teach us lessons, and you say, “But it is too painful, I can't take it anymore.” You can and you must because that teacher called “disappointment” is going to do a mighty work in your life. Now I want to use an example. When I was a young man, I had just come back from Australia. I was a cowboy in Australia. I got a position in Zambia at a very big farm, but the two owners of the farm, were quite rough-handed guys, and they wanted their pound of flesh, probably like I was after that! I had to be standing on the parade ground - that's what it seemed like - every morning at quarter to six. I had 150 staff that had to be organised to the different parts of the farm. We were doing vegetables, we were doing beef cattle, we were doing seed maize, we were doing commercial maize, and this gentleman used to walk around in gumboots, and he was a very articulate man. He said to me, “Angus, at 6 o'clock, I don't want to see one person standing in the yard. Everybody must be at work.”We had 8 tractors in those days. Now that was a big outfit, and I want to tell you, he really tested me. I handed my resignation in no less than 3 times, and he just tore them up and carried on, but you know, when I look back, that gentleman and his partner, the two of them, taught me more valuable things about life than anybody else. A writer once said, “Dear old rough-handed teacher, we will build you a monument and crown it with flowers and inscribe on it, “Blessed be the memory of disappointment.”Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day. Don't be afraid of disappointment. It will bring lots of benefits afterwards.Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Thursday morning, the 30th of July, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We go to the Book of Deuteronomy 28:13: “And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail…” Isn't that a lovely blessing? The Lord will make you, Sir, the head and not the tail, young lady, the head and not the tail. Why? Because if you love Him with all your heart and you obey the statutes that He has put before you, these are the consequences.Many things you can read right from verse 1: He will give you the fruit of your body, He will bless you to have many children, He will make you a name in the marketplace, He will increase your livestock, He will increase your ability to bless others by your lifestyle. We need to understand that the Lord loves us unconditionally. However, there are consequences for those who refuse to obey His commandments and then expect Him to bless them. That will not happen and cannot happen. I have seen it happen too many times in my own life, especially as a farmer, sometimes catastrophically. We have almost been wiped out by hail and I have said, “Lord, where is the blessing in all this?” And yet He has turned it around for good.I remember one year, maybe I have told you this story before, where I got my planting machine all mixed up and the seed came out and the maize germinated. There were huge gaps in the crop and I thought, “Lord, I asked you please to help me.” The stand, the population of the maize crop was so poor, I thought that I had just about declared myself bankrupt and yet that particular year we had one of the worst droughts in our area that we have ever had, and what happened? The maize crop spread out and there was plenty of room for the plants to grow. Instead of having normal cobs, they were gigantic, and as the farmers know, you don't get paid on volume, you get paid on weight! When I took that crop to the silos and they put it on the weigh-bridge, they couldn't believe the weight of the maize. That year I made more money than in years when I had everything in order. Why? Because God takes the tail and He makes it into the head if you are doing things His way!Just remain faithful, just remain steadfast. I am saying to that young girl who is desperately trying to have a baby - her and her husband just cannot fall pregnant, continue to obey God, love Him, trust Him, and your baby will come. I have got testimonies from all over the world of women who just could not conceive and yet with perseverance, the love of God, and the desire to do things right, Jesus blessed them eventually. God bless you and have a wonderful day and remember, you are the head and not the tail!Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Wednesday morning, the 29th of July, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. Isaiah 40:31: “Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength,They shall mount up with wings like eagles,They shall run and not be weary,They shall walk and not faint.”I think, like never before, we need to start waiting more upon the Lord before we do anything. As an old farmer myself, I can tell you something right now. Sometimes a young farmer will become impatient. I was one of them. The cow is trying to deliver its baby, and instead of leaving her and waiting for her to do it on her own, we start to interfere, and eventually we mess it up completely. Let the Lord do the work. Even relationships, don't force them. If you have an altercation with somebody and you don't know what to do about it, wait first, pray, pray for them. Pick the correct time, don't run ahead of yourself. The Lord will give you the strength and the love and the ability to rectify the situation, but if you charge into it like a bull in a china shop, you will make it even worse. Those who wait upon the Lord...have you ever seen an eagle in full flight, to see him effortlessly catching the wind thermals, and moving gracefully, not flapping his wings? That lammergeier that we have in South Africa, those huge, bearded vultures with wingspans of over two metres- he doesn't flap around. He just glides, catches the wind thermals, and the wind does the work for him. He just waits upon the right time to do whatever he needs to do. You and I need to do that as well. It's so graceful to see someone who is patient and waiting, and when he makes his decision, it is definite. No “maybe”, or “hope so”, or “let's give it a go”. No, let's wait upon the Lord. If He tells you to buy that business, buy it. If He tells you to sell that business, sell it. If He tells you to propose to that girl, do it, and if He tells you to go and encourage someone, please do it, but wait first, make sure the timing is right, absolutely vital! Don't spoil it by running ahead of yourself.Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day.Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Tuesday morning, the 28th of July, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the Book of Deuteronomy 27:2-3: ”…that you shall set up for yourselves large stones, and whitewash them with lime. You shall write on them all the words of this law,…” Then we go to 1 Samuel 7:12: “Ebenezer” Ebenezer, what does that mean? “Thus far the Lord has helped us.” Remember, that is what Samuel did, and put those rocks there as a reminder. At Shalom Farm, after we had been here for 10 years (we have been here almost 50 years), we got together as a family and a community, and we got large rocks, and we placed them outside our little thatched chapel as a reminder that the Lord has been with us thus far.I want to encourage you to do that. You don't even have to do it physically. You can make a note in your diary, a reminder that the Lord has never forsaken us. My wife, Jill, has got green fingers. She can plant anything, and it seems to grow. When we arrived, she planted some beautiful plane trees and when I walk out the door of my little prayer chapel, at my house, I look up and I see a tree that has a circumference of about 3 metres and it stretches up to the heavens. She planted that tree as a little sapling which was smaller than my little finger, and often when I walk out I say, “Thank You, Lord, that You have been with us through thick and thin, through fire, through drought. You have been with us through economic disasters, You are still with us and we are still going strong.” Today, take time out to plant a tree, that you will remember how far the Lord has brought you, to maybe set up a little cairn of stones as a reminder that the Lord has been with us. I used to climb up the mighty Drakensberg Mountains as a younger man, and when you get right to the top, there are not many paths because not too many people walk there, but good faithful climbers have put up little cairns of stones to show you the way to your destination. Remember, if Jesus is for you, you have nothing to worry about. Have a wonderful day, till next time, God bless you, goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Monday morning, the 27th of July, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the second book in the Bible, Exodus 3:8: “…to a land flowing with milk and honey,…” Then we go to Deuteronomy 26:15, the very same one, “…a land flowing with milk and honey.” One more scripture, Matthew 6:33: “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”Where are you at this morning? Are you in the land of milk and honey? You are laughing, you are saying, “No, not like it at all! Things are coming to a head here. I can't go on much longer, my business is really stretched out. I am not making it with my degree, I don't even know if I will get that degree!” I want to tell you that the Lord's word is “Yea” and “amen”. If He has promised it, He will do it. I am talking to you about things that have happened in my own life. I remember a story I read a long time ago, I'll try and get it right. I think it was a gold prospector, and he was looking for gold in some valley. He was panning gold in this little river and everything was going wrong. He couldn't find any gold. His food was running out. He was all by himself, and he was totally desperate, crying out to the Lord to please help him. That night a terrible storm came down, and the river started roaring past his little campsite, washed away everything that he had, and he stood up, and he said, Lord, I asked You to please help me. Lord, I'm trying my best to follow You with everything I'm doing and nothing has happened.” And then as he stood out in his little shack, that was half pulled down, he looked and saw the sun shining on something down by the riverbed. When he walked down, what did he find? He found gold nuggets all over the side bank. Yes, that storm had brought the rain, and the rain had washed away everything, and he had found himself literally a gold mine! You don't know what God has in store for you. It might appear that it's a disaster. I want to pray for you and I want to pray a prayer of faith that the Lord will keep you and keep your eyes fixed on Him, the One who is going to take you right through to the land flowing with milk and honey!Father God, I pray for my dear friends today. Yes, indeed Lord, we acknowledge we are living in perilous times, but You said in Your word, ”Call unto me.” Lord, we are calling unto You this morning, and Lord, we are praying that You will hear our prayers and that You will answer them and that You will direct our paths. In Jesus name, Amen.God bless you and have a wonderful day.Goodbye.

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.

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.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Sunday morning, the 19th of July, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the Book of Zechariah 4:10: “For who has despised the day of small things?” I read a beautiful reading by an anonymous writer that goes like this: “It is the little words you speak, the little thoughts you think, the little things you do or leave undone, the little moments you waste or use wisely, the little temptations which you yield to or overcome, the little things of everyday that are making or messing up your future life.”Don't forget the little things. They mean so much, don't they? When somebody brings you a nice little bunch of flowers, especially if it is a little child, I tell you that it touches my wife's heart and my heart as well, or something small.I had an old gentleman who used to live on the farm with us with his dear wife. His name was Jimmy. We called him Uncle Jimmy. Uncle Jimmy had a very bad chest, he didn't sleep a lot at night. He contracted some sickness when he was in the Royal Navy in the Second World War, and he came and retired on our farm and stayed in a little cottage, and do you know something? Every single day, Uncle Jimmy would come down to see me and he would bring me a little scripture verse, carefully written out on a piece of paper, and everyday that scripture would mean something so special to me, more than if I had got a letter from an international speaker or some well-known person - but Jimmy, every single day, that impacted my life, especially as a young preacher. We need to be careful not to overlook the small things in life because they are the things that will determine our future. So maybe today God is impressing upon your heart to phone somebody or write a little letter. Do you know how nice it is to get a handwritten note? It means that somebody took time out to get a piece of paper and a pen and write it out and then send it to you. It means the world to me, I can tell you right now because it took effort. Today, let us take time out to concentrate not just on the big things in life but the small things too. Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day, goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Saturday morning, the 18th of July, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We go to the Book of Acts 28:30-31: “Then Paul dwelt two whole years in his own rented house, and received all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no one forbidding him.I want to talk to you about commitment. In the Kingdom of God, there is no such word as “retirement.” I can't find it. I have looked from Genesis to Revelation. Promotion - yes, retirement - nothing. God needs you and me to preach the Gospel until the very end. That is what Paul did to the end. He had to rent his own house. The people just came to him and he taught them about salvation and the Lord Jesus Christ.I remember a story told about the great evangelist, Billy Sunday. Billy Sunday was a professional baseball player. He would slide in to the platform like a baseball player slides into base, and he would sometimes preach even on top of his pulpit. He had a passion for Christ. He met the Lord in a very special way. He spoke against alcoholism, drug addiction and all these evils. He was very, very controversial but very popular and used greatly by God. He would build a trapdoor on the edge of the platform where he was preaching, and when he would make the altar call and ask the people to come forward and give their lives to Christ, he would lift the trapdoor and go into the trapdoor and that would bring him level with the people in the crowd. Then he would shake hands with each one of them as they prayed the sinner's prayer. The one day, he had a heart attack on the platform, he never died but he was in a serious state. One of the helpers, one of his assistants, came up and took him by the hand and said, “Are you ok, Billy?” And Billy said, “Listen, just pray this prayer after me.” He thought it was one of the people coming forward to give their lives to Christ and he was totally oblivious to the fact that he was actually dying and he would lead him in the sinner's prayer. Totally committed to the very, very end.I want to say to you today, I don't care how old you are, how young you are, preach the Gospel at all costs.Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day. Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Friday morning, the 17th of July, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We go to that very well-known scripture, Philippians 3:12. Paul says: “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.”My dear wife saw a little writing on a wall in a restroom which said, “Happiness is not the destination. It is part of the journey.” So true! We are so concerned about getting to our destination that we don't enjoy the trip, and that is actually quite sad, isn't it? My late mom always used to say to me, the best part of any holiday for her was the trip, not the destination.How is it with you today? How is it with me today? We need to pace ourselves, enjoy every single moment God has given us, and stop always wishing for something we don't have while forgetting the time we have. I am thinking about with your family. Your children, spend time with them. I know what I am talking about. My family are all grown up, in fact my grandchildren are grown up, I'm a great-grand father and it's happened in the spur of a moment. Do not waste time because you keep on looking at the end of the race and not enjoying the journey. I think of the tortoise and the hare. I know it's laughable but that tortoise just keeps going. He's carrying his house on his back. The hare goes flat out and then stops. The tortoise keeps on going. You and I need to do that. It's like a little Noddy car, it just keeps going down the road and the sports cars cars scream past but they normally stop just up the road and then they go on again and that little Noddy car gets to its destination, sometimes quicker than the sports car.Let us really start to appreciate the time God has given us, and let us make a point of finishing the race. The Comrades Marathon for me, the heroes of the Comrades Marathon, are those guys right at the end just before the gun goes off and the time is up, and the race is over, and they're pulling each across over the finish line. Yes, we appreciate the gold medalists and the silver medalists but the boys and girls, that are really pushing hard, really touched me.So today, remember, it's not the destination, it's the journey with Jesus Christ that you and I have got to spend time on. Have a wonderful day, Jesus bless you and goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Thursday morning, the 16th of July, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We go to the Book of Deuteronomy 20:4: “…for the Lord your God is He who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.” We then go to Psalm 20:7: “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; But we will remember the name of the Lord our God.”Oh, I want to encourage you this morning. Maybe you are facing a giant in your life. It might be your health. Maybe you have just been told by the doctor, “There is nothing more we can do for you. Just go home and make yourself comfortable because you are not going to live.” We don't receive that because we trust in the Lord, not in our own abilities! Maybe it is a crop you planted and you are expecting a good yield, but your neighbours are telling you you are in big trouble because nothing is going to happen. El Niño, the drought is on its way. Don't accept it! Remember, the Lord says He will fight for you and He will see it come to pass. I cannot encourage you enough to trust in the Lord.We have got a saying at Shalom that goes like this: “You must attempt something that is so big that if it is not from God it is doomed to fail.” Now, you might say, “Why do that?” Because when it works, people will say, “There is no ways that that man could have achieved that. That was a miracle from God.” And if you look at the word of God, and that is why I love the Bible so much, it is one miracle after another. When people say, “It can't be done”, you say, “But God!” God can do all things. So if Christ is for you, then no man can stand against you. So I want to encourage you to keep on by faith. What is faith? Oh, faith is the substance of things hoped for. It is the evidence of things not yet seen. And that is why I love Jesus so much. When we trusted the Lord for a million people to come to the centre of our nation, South Africa, and to pray, and we gave ourselves 6 weeks, people said to me, “Angus, it is impossible.” (It took Billy Graham 2 or 3 years to organise a campaign, even when he came to South Africa), but it did happen and we had over a million people all seated in an open field to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to repent of their sins and to pray for the nation. Remember what happened after that? Change in politics, a different president came in, the drought that was predicted became a bumper crop, the many, many miracles, many miracles that we will only hear about in Heaven - people healed, marriages restored, new businesses opening, men going into full-time ministry because our trust was in the Lord.Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day, goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Wednesday morning, the 15th of July, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We go straight to the Gospel of Matthew 14:22:”Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away.” Are you on a journey today and are you feeling that something's going wrong because you firmly believed that the Lord told you what to do, start that business, finish that degree, marry that man, have children? And it's not working, and you are wondering whether, in fact, you have heard God correctly. Well, I've got a special message for you today.I read this story by a man named George Matheson. You've heard me speak about him many times before, a blind Scottish preacher, and this is what he says: Jesus urged them to go. One would think that if ever there was a certain promise of success in a mission it was here, absolutely sure that it was a directive from God, so it must work.” This is what he says ”Surely here, if anywhere, a triumphant issue might have been confidently predicted; and yet here, more than anywhere, there was seeming failure. He sent them out on a voyage, and they met with such a storm as they had never yet experienced.” Remember, these were fishermen. ”Let me think about this, for it has been so with me as well. Many times, thinking I was doing the right thing, going ahead in faith and all of a sudden, everything changed. "I have sometimes felt,” he says, ”myself impelled to act by an influence which seemed above me - urged to put out to sea. Urged to step out in faith. “ I know this so well in my own life. “The belief was that I was constrained, urged, given the confidence, and I was sure of a calm voyage but the result was outward failure. The calm became a storm, the sea raged, the winds roared, the ship was tossed, and in the midst of the waves almost sank and my whole enterprise was wrecked before it could even reach the land. Was then my Divine command a delusion? Was it a dream, a pipe dream? No. Was my mission a failure? He did send me on that voyage but He did not send me for my purpose. He had one thing in His mind and I had another thing in my mind. My end was outward calm, His was my meeting with the storm. My end was to gain the harbour of material rest; but His aim was to teach me, there is a rest even on the open sea.”Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day. Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Tuesday morning, the 14th of July, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We go straight to the Book of Deuteronomy 19:21. The Lord says to us: “… life shall be for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” Then we go straight to the Book of Matthew 5:38-39: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.Yoh! That is a challenge, is it not? Because we want justice, we want people to understand that they cannot mess with us. But then we go to Luke 23:34: “Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” We really need to exercise forgiveness, and I can imagine there are a lot of you who are saying, “No, Angus, we have got to pay back for what we get.” Well, Jesus disagrees. He says we have got to go the extra mile. He says we have got to forgive, but He says, “Forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” Sometimes people are not aware of what they have done, and those same people whom you forgive will come back later and say, “Listen, I made a terrible mistake. Please forgive me.”I am speaking particularly to husbands and wives today. There comes a time when you say, “I am not fighting anymore. I am going to turn the other cheek, you can say what you like but I am not going to retaliate. I am not going to pay back. I am going to leave it in the hands of the Lord. You know, it takes “two to tango”, as they say, and if you say, “I am not arguing, I am not fighting any more, I am making a choice, I am going to forgive you.” And that gives the person an opportunity to realise the mistake he has made. One person said one day, if we had to pay back everybody for everything they have done to us, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, nobody in this world would have any teeth, and we would all be blind. Today, I really want to encourage you to pray over this scripture. It is a tough one. Today, let's do what Jesus said and let Him undertake for the results.Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day.Goodbye.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Monday morning, the 13th of July, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the Book of Proverbs 27:17: ”As iron sharpens iron, So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.” Then we go to 1 Thessalonians 5:6: ”Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober.” We have a responsibility, don't we? Now, how do we keep awake? I heard this from C H Spurgeon, the great Baptist preacher. He said one way we keep vigilant and on our toes, as it were, is through Christian fellowship. Do not isolate yourself, my dear friend, if it is possible at all, but have fellowship with one another, not just in church on a Sunday morning, or in a fellowship group on a Wednesday night, but all the time, wherever you meet someone. I had the privilege of speaking to a young man not so long ago. I met up with him. I was on a campsite right up in the northern part of South Africa, and as we started talking, he said to me, ”You know, I remember like yesterday, the big tent on your farm. It was a turning point in my life, sitting in that tent with thirty thousand men inside and another thirty thousand men outside, and how we had fellowship together and how we spoke about the things of God.” As I spoke to him, I was encouraged myself, iron sharpening iron, sparks flying, having a laugh, and maybe even a tearful moment, thinking about how the Holy Spirit moved in our lives together! That is what keeps you on your toes. That is what keeps you from becoming slothful, becoming sleepy, and not watching and praying. So when we had finished, we greeted each other, we prayed, and he went on his way rejoicing, and I was rejoicing. Why? Because we were having fellowship. We were not sleeping as others do but we were talking about our beloved Saviour and the miracle-working power that we find when we spend time talking about Him together.Jesus bless you and remember, if Christ is for you, there is no man that will stand against you.Jesus bless you and goodbye.