Be Jesus

It is Thursday morning. I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is the 29th of December, 2022, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. 

“rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer;…”
Romans 12:12

The Lord is speaking to us today about Christian character. We shall be known by our fruit, the fruit we produce. Now, I want you to do something for me today that I have never asked you to do for me before. I want you to get a cup of coffee or cup of tea, and I want you to listen to a story. Yes, I am going to go a little bit over time because it is holiday time and I really believe that you need to hear this story. 

So we shall be known by our fruit. In Matthew 7:16, Jesus says: 

“You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?” 

Definitely not.

We need to be happy because the Lord tells us very clearly in Romans 12:12 to be joyful in hope, we need to be patient when going through hard times, and we need to be steadfast in prayer. You see, it is not so much what you say that counts, but rather how you live that really matters. Now, I want to tell you about an old couple, but before I tell you about them, I want to say to you that I have had the privilege, because of the nature of my work, to have met some amazing celebrities right around the world. Some of them you see on television, some of them are household names, and I am talking about sportsmen, I am talking mainly about preachers, I am talking about politicians, but I want to tell you about an old couple that has impacted my life more than any of those celebrities. 

When I was a young man I was pulling stumps out of fields, trying to develop more maize fields. One day I was working hard and I probably wasn’t in a very good mood, and this old motorcar drove up alongside our farm road. It stopped and an old gentleman got out and his dear wife was sitting in the passenger side. There was steam coming out from underneath the bonnet of the motorcar, and this did not seem to deter him at all. He introduced himself and said, “My name is Jimmy and that is Moira sitting in the car.” Uncle Jimmy and Aunty Moira arrived on our farm. He said, “The Lord has told me I have to come here and help you.” I said, “Well, the Lord didn’t tell me anything.” "No, but he told us and that is good enough.” I said, “Fine, so where are all your furniture and worldly possessions?” He said, “In the back of the car.” Anyway, we gave them a little house to stay in, and Uncle Jimmy and Aunty Moira stayed with us until the day Jesus took them home. What characters they were! Uncle Jimmy’s job was to take the children to school every day and he would pile them into the back of his little pick-up with the canopy on. They were all squashed in the back. They were always late for school. They would say, “Please Uncle Jimmy, could you go a bit faster?”, he would say, “Yes, I will put the wings out today,” but he never broke the speed limit and he never got them there on time. 

He had a wicked sense of humour. He would pull up to a stop street and the children would be dawdling across the road, going to school. He would stick his head out the window, and he had a full set of false teeth. He would drop his false teeth and go screaming across the road like some kind of a demon. He was joyful in hope but he also had a lot of tribulation in his life. He only had one son and his son was a traffic officer, just newly appointed. He was so proud of him and one day his son was gunned down in cold blood at a roadblock. Jimmy battled to get passed that one. He never ever spoke about it. It took a terrible toll on him. He never complained.

When he was about 16 years old, Uncle Jimmy forged his mother’s signature so that he could become a sailor in the Royal Navy but while he was in the Royal Navy he contracted TB, and it weakened his chest and he never really came right from that. Uncle Jimmy was a great prayer warrior. Moira would often say to me, “He never slept again last night. He couldn’t breathe properly. He spent the night on his knees, in the sitting room, praying.”

Uncle Jimmy was a big influence in my life. I was with him when he died. The last thing he said to me was, “Jock,” (that is what he used to call me, probably because of my Scottish roots), “Jock, I love you. Please take care of Moira.” I said, “I will, Uncle Jimmy”, and I did until she went home to be with Jesus as well.

I am so looking forward to seeing him, both of them, in Heaven one day. 

Go out today and be Jesus to a hurting world. 
God bless you and goodbye.