I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Monday morning, the 27th of January, 2025, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We go to the Gospel of Mark 9:5:

”Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”

That was the Mount of Transfiguration when the Lord spoke to His Heavenly Father and also to Moses and Elijah. Peter, James and John must have stood there with their mouths wide open, not believing what they were seeing. It was so amazing that they did not want to go back down into the valley, where all the trouble is, and the pain and all the suffering and the misunderstanding. Have you ever had a mountain-top experience? Oh yes, I have as well, and you just don’t want to come back down, do you? You just want to stay up there. You know, I am a mountain man, I love the mountains. My dear wife, Jill, loves the sea, and often we have a little giggle together. I say, “Jill, I love the mountains”, and she says, “Oh, but I love the sea.” And then I say, “Jill, Jesus never went down to the sea to pray!” But we cannot live on top of the mountain. We have got to go back down to the valley. We have got to roll up our sleeves. We have got to deal with things in our home, in our workplace. We have got to get involved.

Moses went up the mountain, that’s right, he went to Mount Sinai and he got orders from the Lord. He got the Ten Commandments and then he came back down again into the valley to deliver Jesus’ message to the people. That mountain doesn’t literally have to be a physical mountain. It’s your closet, it is your quiet time place, it is where you spend time with Jesus every day.

There is a thing called “extempore preaching”. I looked up the Oxford Dictionary. The word “extempore” means done without preparation, and to extemporise means to make something up as you go along. Now I am not arguing with the Oxford Dictionary but the great preachers would preach extempore preaching. In other words, they would take one verse out of the Bible, like Romans 1:17: “The just shall live by faith” - and they would preach on that for up to an hour and even longer. The young people would admire them and think they could do the same but what they didn’t realise was that these great preachers had spent hours in their quiet time room getting the message into their spirit man and then simply go out into the open and deliver it to the people.

Today, spend time up the mountain and then you will not make so many mistakes when you have to buy that new motorcar, or you have to sell that house, or you have to go to university, or go to trade school, or get married. Spend time on the mountain first.

Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day,
Goodbye.