10/01/2022

Angus Buchan

10/01/2022

A Cheerful Giver

January 10, 2022 • Angus Buchan • Malachi 3:8, John 15:13, 2 Corinthians 9:7, Matthew 6:33

It is Monday morning, 10th January, the year 2022, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

If we go to Malachi the last Book in the Old Testament:

“Will a man rob God?
Yet you have robbed Me!
But you say,
‘In what way have we robbed You?’
In tithes and offerings.”
Malachi 3:8

Remember, the tithe belongs to the Lord, the full 10%, offerings and gifts come after that. We will never be able to 'out-bless' the Lord. He is a giver by nature - He gave His very life for us.

“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” John 15:13

Now I can hear you saying, “But where do we tithe?” Well, you tithe to the place where you receive your spiritual food and remember, God loves a cheerful giver. We must never give anything to God reluctantly. You will find that in 2 Corinthians 9:7. We are not just speaking here about finances only, not at all but also time given to God each day.

How much time are we giving to the Lord each morning? How much time are we giving to our family? Yesterday, I went with my son and my grandson to look at some horses we were thinking of purchasing. We spent a full day together and enjoyed it immensely. We didn’t even buy the horses in the end but we spent time together.

What about time given to helping widows and the orphans, they need us to help them. And what about time given to yourself, do you spend a bit of time on your own? What am I talking about - I am talking about sport, about exercise, I am talking about maybe gardening.

William Carey, the founder of the Baptist Outreach Union to India, loved gardening - He had a rose garden. He said that is where he found a lot of peace and tranquillity every day - The man who translated the Bible into all the Indian languages. I love to ride my horse, Snowy. I discipline myself and I ride that horse, I have to. If I don’t ride him regularly, he gets out of hand. We need to spend time. Give God the first fruits of everything that you have, let us not give it to Jesus as our leftovers. Put Jesus first and then everything else will fall into line.

“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these (other) things shall be added to you.” Matthew 6:33.

Have a wonderful day as you continue to give to the Lord and to your fellow man.

Jesus bless you,
Goodbye.

18/09/2024

September 18, 2024 • Angus Buchan • Hebrews 13:8, Matthew 15:31

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Wednesday morning, the 18th of September, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the Gospel of Matthew 15:31: “So the multitude marveled when they saw the mute speaking, the maimed made whole, the lame walking, and the blind seeing; and they glorified the God of Israel.” Oh folks, it is amazing when you see a miracle take place! It really does something to your faith, doesn’t it? It lifts it right up. I remember many years ago, holding a huge campaign on the north coast of Kwa-Zulu Natal at a place called Salt Rock. We were bringing in crowds of people every single night in buses. The one night, the tent was packed full, there was a presence of the Holy Spirit, there was an expectation of miracles, signs and wonders, and a man came up onto the platform. He was actually one of the bus drivers, he had a turban on his head, he was of the Sikh faith and he came up with his father, and his father said, “My son is mute, he cannot speak.” Well, we anointed him with oil, we prayed the prayer of faith, I took the mic, I put it to his mouth and I said, “Say “Jesus,” and he opened his mouth wide and he said, “Jesus!” Well, the tent went wild. It was an incredible night! Jesus Christ is the Miracle-worker! He is the same yesterday, and today and forevermore. I want to say to you that there is nothing that is too hard for the Lord. The Lord is the same yesterday, He is the same today and He is the same forever. (Hebrews 13:8). I really want to say to you today, trust the Lord because He is alive and because He is alive, we can face tomorrow. Do you remember that old song, “Because He lives I can face tomorrow”? Let’s sing it together: God sent His son, they called Him Jesus He came to love, heal, and forgive. He lived and died to buy my pardon, An empty grave is there to prove my Saviour lives. And because He lives, I can face tomorrow. Because He lives, All fear is gone. Because I know He holds the future, And life is worth the living just because He lives. So go out today and trust the Lord for your miracle. That is all we have to do, we have to believe, and then let the Lord work through our lives. Receive your healing today in Jesus name. God bless you and goodbye.

17/09/2024

September 17, 2024 • Angus Buchan • Deuteronomy 16:13

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Tuesday morning, the 17th of September, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start off in the Book of Deuteronomy 16:13: “You shall observe the Feast of Tabernacles seven days, when you have gathered from your threshing floor and from your winepress.” The Feast of Tabernacles (it is also called Sukkot), is the time when the Israeli people celebrate what God has done in their lives. They build a little booth, which they call a sukkot, and that is where they spend time talking about the goodness of God. They decorate it with grapes, figs, olives and dates. They hang them in bunches all around this little building, and then for seven days, they go during the day and they sit in that little place, and they remember how God delivered them from Pharaoh, from Egypt, took them through the wilderness for forty years, and brought them into the Land of Milk and Honey, when they crossed the Jordan River. They sit and they tell their children, and they tell their grandchildren those stories, how God has protected them. They build up their faith. I believe that the strength of the Israeli nation is found in the fact that they continue to remember their past. If you have written a book, I have written a few, and you have no before-time and you just start writing, it doesn’t make sense. You have got to tell the people where you are coming from. The dictionary says that the word, “prologue” means “introductory scene to a play” or in my case, to a story - what happened before. And that is the strength of the Israeli nation. They continue to tell their children and their children’s children how God has undertaken for them. I want to tell you, I have got a story, and it started on the 18th of February, 1979 at about 10 a.m., in a little Methodist church in the Main Street of Greytown, our little town that is 15 kilometres away. That day, I met Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Saviour, and as they say, the rest after that is history, but it started many, many years before, and we have been through many hardships since. Yes, we have experienced droughts, fires, floods, disease, hardship, and personal tragedy, but Jesus Christ has been the Golden Thread that has held us together for 45 years on this farm, Shalom. You need to tell your story to your children. You need to tell them how you met Christ. You need to tell your friends at school how you have come into a relationship with God. That is what it is all about. Don’t forget the Feast of Tabernacles, seven days when the whole of Israel comes to a standstill and they remember where God has brought them from. You do the same! Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day, Goodbye.

16/09/2024

September 16, 2024 • Angus Buchan • Mark 8:36

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Monday morning, the 16th of September, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. I am reading out of the Amplified Version this morning. “For what does it benefit a man to gain the whole world [with all its pleasures], and forfeit his soul?“ Mark 8:36 Folks, this morning I want to speak to you about family. We can add to that scripture, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his family?” - because your soul is tied up with your family. The first family ever on earth was the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Remember, charity - love, begins at home. It is so precious to the Lord Jesus Christ, the family unit, and the devil knows that, and he knows the only way he can hurt the Lord is to hurt the family. We must never forget, the devil hates God and that is why the devil hates you, because he sees God in you. We need to protect our families with our very lives. Some of us are locking up the front door to make sure the devil doesn’t come in and the devil is walking straight in through the back door. We need to be so protective over our loved ones. Our priorities must remain in order: First, God, then your wife or your husband, then your children, and then everything else. Be sure that things are okay back at the ranch. It’s no good if the wheels are coming off at the ranch and you are out there, preaching the Gospel to the whole world. We need to start at home base. Let’s be honest with each other, sometimes the hardest place to be a Christian is in your own home. Isn’t that right? You can ask mom. She knows exactly what dad is really like when he is at home. I will never forget, one of the saddest things for me. When I was a young farmer up in Central Africa, we used to have a mixed farm. We had watermelons, pigs and cattle, and at that time, they were building a railroad from Dar-Es-Salaam on the Indian Ocean, right into the centre of Africa, where we were farming in Zambia. The Chinese would come in with their trucks, convoys of them, to buy all our watermelons, one time, all our pigs - and these men would come in and they all had the same grey uniforms on, and they would stop often and just sit and watch our little children (our children were very young at that stage), playing together in the garden, and then they would come to me, very, very sad and with sign language, they would tell me that back home in China, they would also have wives and children. I have never forgotten that. We need to spend more time together and we need to appreciate each other much more. Jesus bless you and goodbye.