I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Saturday morning, the 31st of August, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We start in the 2 Samuel 19:6:

”…you love your enemies and hate your friends.”

That was a word that Joab, the general of the armies of Israel, told King David. Then we go straight to the Gospel of Matthew 13:27:

”So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?” (or weeds).

The Lord is speaking to us this morning very clearly because the farmer said to his servants, “Leave the weeds and concentrate on the wheat. Let them both grow out together and then at harvest time, we take the weeds out first, burn them, and then we’ll reap the rich crop of wheat.” We need to be very careful that we are not spending our valuable time in the wrong place. We need to start to spend more time with those who want to spend time with us.

You say to me, ”but what about those who hate us? What about those who are constantly putting us down, bad mouthing us? What do we do in that case?” I will tell you what you do - you commit them into the Lord’s hands, you pray for them and then you move on, and you spend time with those who want to spend time with you, and you do not allow those negative things, those weeds, those tares, to influence your life to such a degree that the people that love you are neglected.

C. H. Spurgeon, the prince of preachers, was walking down the high street one day and a man came up to him and said,

”You! You are the chief of all fools”, or words to that effect, and he turned around and said, ”Well, at least I’m the chief of something!” Don’t let those negative words, those negative influences, put you down.

Today, let us walk with those who love the Lord and those who want to walk with us. Let the Lord take care of the weeds and the tares, and let’s start to be grateful for the friends that the Lord has given us.

Jesus bless you and goodbye.