Gentle Jesus

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name. It is Tuesday morning, the 20th of August, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We go to the Book of Isaiah 42:3:

”A bruised reed He will not break, And smoking flax He will not quench;…”

We’re talking about gentle Jesus. He is so gentle that He will not even break a bent reed or extinguish a smouldering reed.

We go to Matthew 19:14:

”But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

You see, the disciples were trying to protect the Lord. He had been preaching all day long, and He was exhausted. He was sitting underneath a tree, probably trying to have a rest, and the parents were bringing their children to the Master because they wanted Him to bless their children. The disciples rebuked the parents and said, “Don’t bring your children here, the Lord is tired. He needs to have a rest.” What did He do? He said to the disciples,” Don’t do that, bring them to me.” And He laid his hands upon them and He blessed them. I want to say to you today, we need to be gentle, our Master is gentle. We need to have patience with children and with the old people, and with those who are not prominent, and not just chase after people that can help us. Our Lord is very gentle and He is very kind. The Bible says He won’t break a bent reed or extinguish a smouldering reed.

When I was a young man farming, I would often come in and have a cup of tea with Jill. I would be sitting in the kitchen and a visiting fertiliser representative or herbicide representative would come to visit to get some business. I would be sitting, having my cup of tea, looking through the kitchen door, and I would see him get out of the car, and I watched the way he treated my little children who were playing in the garden. Some of them would come in and not even see the children, they were so busy trying to get business. They would walk right past them and ignore them, and then my dog would come up, and he would push the dog away, not interested, and then he would come and knock on the door and with a big smile, he would say, “Good morning Mr Buchan, can we have a chat?” The answer was normally, “No, not today. I am too busy.”

Then another representative would arrive on the farm, much later, and he would get out of the pick-up and he would walk in through the back gate, and I would be sitting there having my tea, and he would see the children in the garden and he would stop and walk over and get on his knees and have a little chat to them, find out what their name was, and “How are you? Is your dad here?” And the little one would take him by the hand and bring him to me, but as he was walking past, he would stop and pat the dog and say, “That’s a nice dog you have got!” And then knock on the door and say, “Mr Buchan, I would like to speak to you about some business,” and I would probably say, “Come in and have a cup of tea and let’s do the deal.”

Folks, we need to be so careful how we live. We need to be like Jesus, gentle and loving.

God bless you and have a wonderful day,
Goodbye.