by admin | Oct 26, 2022 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
There was a weekly bull riding that used be held on Tuesday nights that I would get to go and lead cowboy church at. A young man there knew everyone, never entered but always talked about the other events he had been at and won.
It was explained to me pretty quickly that he had some kind of social disorder and was making it up. The details he gave and his knowledge was incredible as he would describe being right at one of the entry-level PBR events with JB Mauney and others who, at the time, were working their way up.
Most people just went along with it and would let him tell his stories and occasionally someone knew would come along. It became a problem when he was giving advice to one of the new guys on how to take a bull that he really didn’t know anything about. That guy was pretty upset that no one had warned him not to listen.
It can be easy to be fooled but even easier when we’re being told ideas we want to hear. For example, who wants to hear Bible verses that tell us to expect hardship to go along with being a Christian? We especially don’t want to hear that when we’re struggling and want encouragement.
In what was just that, an encouraging part of Paul’s second letter to Timothy, he warns that as Timothy is out there trying to teach communities about Jesus, others are out there delivering messages that sound good but cause people to miss the important truths—truths like how to come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ. Worse, Paul points out people will put effort into seeking out what they want to hear.
2 Timothy 4:3-4 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
This warning came to Timothy almost 2,000 years ago yet in our culture today, there is all kinds of false and bad teaching to be found. It’s profitable to only give people what they want to hear and avoid teaching verses, for example, about sacrifice and denying ourselves.
We have to take time to discern what’s right or wrong and real but when something sounds so close to the truth or has elements of the truth in it, how can you tell when it’s coming from a church or ministry?
Well, we have our Bibles for that and can test anything we’re being taught against Scripture. If you’re still not sure, you can ask others that you know and trust.
And the more time we spend learning real Biblical truths, we can still find all kinds of hope and encouragement in the God’s promises to us in the Old Testament or the messages of a perfect eternity found in Jesus Christ.
by admin | Oct 12, 2022 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
If you’ve never been involved in the industries before, then you decide to ‘get into’ horses or ‘get into’ rodeo, it changes you.
You suddenly start wearing different clothes, you learn new terms and expressions that go with what you’re learning about the horse, I mean, not everyone knows what withers are or what a honda is on a rope. The people you spend time with change as you surround yourself with others who share your interest that you want to learn from or ride or rodeo with.
Friends and family will notice the changes when horses or rodeo become important to you and begin making it more a part of your every day life.
When we become Christians, it’s the same thing, only more.
It isn’t an interest we’re engaged in, it’s a complete transformation. Once we have a saving faith in Jesus, God no longer sees us for our sins that He must judge. Instead, He sees us through the sacrifice Jesus made, as perfect, extended grace for the mistakes He knows we will continue to make.
Ephesians 4:22-24 To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
There’s lots that can be unpacked in these two verses but we’re going to just focus on what Paul is saying in his letter about being the new self.
God no longer sees the old self that Paul refers to. The old self is corrupt and condemned. The new self is seen as righteous and holy. Really simplified, it means we’re now seen as perfect. This is one of the verses where we come to understand this is how God sees us once we are saved.
Again, it doesn’t mean we are perfect, it means God sees us that way despite mistakes we might continue to make. We start a process of becoming ‘sanctified’ which means being made more like Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 1:2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure.
We understand that it’s through the Holy Spirit that we begin to change by what’s described as ‘the sanctifying work of the Spirit.”
Our friends and family might start seeing changes in us over night or gradually. For the person who decides to take up horsemanship or team roping, they choose to pursue those interests but as a Christian, the Spirit begins to work out those changes in us. We start to study our Bibles to learn more about how to be more like Jesus and to understand everything God has for us in His word. We connect with other believers we find at work or in rodeo or the sales barn and we find ourselves learning and spending time with them.
by admin | Sep 29, 2022 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
In the sport of rodeo, the term gunsel gets used to describe that person who wants everyone to know hes’ a cowboy by walking around the arena an hour before the show with his chaps and spurs on or he still has his spurs on at McDonald’s after the show. But he also gets one or two-jumped when his bull or bronc leaves the chute or hold on to the gate and lets go on his way out.
For a Christian, while it still can be about calling attention to himself, it can be a little less about that and more about doing the things he thinks makes him a Christian without ever understanding what it means to have a real, life-changing relationship with Jesus.
We see him praying before the rodeo, he has a cross around his neck and a tattoo of a Bible verse on his forearm.
These things aren’t wrong when they are just part of a person who is genuinely living out his faith but there’s a problem when that’s the beginning and the end of the cowboy’s faith. He never opens his Bible to learn from it and never applies a lesson he hears at cowboy church. Nothing in his life shows that he is becoming more like Jesus, which is evidence that our salvation is real, when our life is being transformed.
James 1:22-25 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
James is teaching us how foolish it is to know what scripture teaches us and then to do nothing about it. He is stressing how important it is to actually live out what the Bible teaches.
It’s important to understand this doesn’t earn us anything from God. To be saved, we have to recognize who Jesus was as the Son of God and that he died on the cross to take the punishment that is meant for our sin. When we understand we’re all sinners and that God cannot allow us into his presence as sinners, we can be made right with him by confessing we know we have sin in our lives, believing what Jesus did on the cross for us to take the punishment meant for us, and asking to be forgiven.
It’s out of understanding and thankfulness for what Jesus did for us that we want to become more like Jesus and to do that, we do what James is saying and become doers of the word, living out what the Bible teaches.
Jesus called out the religious leaders at the time, known as Pharisees, who were making a show of their faith by carrying out actions that called attention to themselves while ignoring acting in important ways towards others that for us, become ways of showing Jesus to an unbelieving world.
Matthew 23:23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.
Instead of showing God’s love to others, they were becoming a road block getting in the way of people who were discovering Jesus was teaching a new way of living out their faith in God that allowed everyone to become closer to Him.
To just walk around wearing crosses and Bible verse tattoos and nothing more doesn’t help anyone come to a saving faith in Jesus. It just makes us Christian gunsels.
by admin | Sep 15, 2022 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
With the recent passing of the Queen of England, a lot of strong feelings were expressed from both liberal and conservative views, either attacking abuses of colonialism or stirring the patriotic feelings of American independence and a desire to have nothing to do with the monarchy.
There’s a reason though for Christians to think bigger than those thoughts and to be reminded that while we have to fight to preserve our beliefs here, there’s more to our faith than that. The United States isn’t the only country where Christians exist and where non-believers need to hear the gospel, who Jesus was and is and how his death on the cross gives us a way, through belief and repentance, to be saved from our sin and given eternal life in Heaven.
The Constitution gives us the freedom to practice Christianity but it also gives people the freedom to celebrate other religions as well. That’s why it’s important that we share our faith with others both here and abroad.
And it’s the Constitution that gives us the freedom to carry out the Great Commission, which was Jesus’s call to all believers to tell others about him in the hope they would find a saving faith in Jesus and the salvation from eternal punishment meant for our sins that only he can give.
So why should we care about the death of a queen through all of this?
It can serve as a reminder of a couple important things about our faith.
Romans 13:1 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
Whether we liked her or not, the Queen of England was placed there by God. The worst of the world’s leaders and the best of them are all authorities that have been placed there by God.
And whether they know it or not, they are to submit to His authority as well. That means, yes, we do respect their authority and even though we might not like all the rules and laws, we respect the ones that don’t contradict God’s commands for us and cause us to go against the Bible. That’s uncomfortable for a lot of us but again, in the United States, it means we have a Constitution that gives us the freedom to practice our beliefs and the right to tell others about Jesus. But it also means that our leaders, no matter what their beliefs, are still subject to God and face the eternal consequences of the choices they make in how they lead their people and whether they ever believe in salvation through Jesus Christ.
Philippians 2:10-11 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
We like to see immediate consequences. It’s hard for us to grasp how short our time is here and what eternal suffering will be like for those who reject Jesus Christ.
Whether a king or queen, a wealthy oil baron or a person struggling to buy their first horse in southwestern Texas, we all have the same opportunity to believe in Jesus and in the end, when it’s too late for salvation, even those who didn’t believe will realize Jesus is Lord.
by admin | Aug 31, 2022 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Foreign exchange students are getting the chance to hear the gospel and Cowboys of the Cross is getting to play a small part in that—and you can too.
One of the great cultural changes of the times we’re in; that we’re all connected more easily wherever we are in the world. at Commission in unique way.
When the disciples were first given the what we know as the Great Commission, they were tasked with sharing the gospel everywhere from the people around them to “the ends of the earth.”
Matthew 28:19-20 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
This was a command from Jesus to his disciples but it extends to you and me.
Then, travel to communicate or send a letter, it was primarily by foot. Today, there are still isolated parts of the world in which missionaries work to earn the trust of a community in order to minister to them and preach the gospel but at the same time, we can get a coded message to a missionary in China with a few taps on an app on our phone.
Technology makes it easy for Cowboys of the Cross to be partnered with cowboys from the ranch to the rodeo sides of the cowboy culture across the United States and Canada.
Jesse Horton was a North Carolina bull rider that has gone on to become the pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Pink Hill, NC. He continues to work with Cowboys of the Cross contributing to The Short Go and other teaching series we put together. He is a valued ministry partner and part of what has shaped into a leadership team that works at helping each of us grow and stay accountable to God’s different callings in our lives.
The common ground our little group shares is our strong response to God’s call on all of us to share the gospel from the people around us to the ends of the Earth.
Jesse is currently getting a chance to do that as he, his wife Sarah and their children host two foreign exchange students for the next ten months.
One arrived last week from France and the other, a Buddhist from Vietnam, arrived this week.
But here’s the extra cool thing: while the program is not Christian-based, the woman seeking host families in this region of the United States, Meegan, is a Christian. Because of her belief in sharing the gospel with others, she tries to find as many Christian host families as she can.
Finding Jesse, his family and his church, was a windfall for Meegan and she expressed her excitement for it recently when she spoke with Cowboys of the Cross as a reference for Jesse. The two students will attend church with the Hortons and get to experience Christian living with a pastor. Having known Jesse for more than 15 years now, these students are going to not just be presented with the gospel in words, but they will see Jesse’s passionate desire to see others grow and be discipled in their faith, especially the extended church family God has given him to shepherd.
And not only has their first of the two students had a chance to attend a Bethel Baptist Church service, he’s also been with the Horton’s to a rodeo and seen Jesse lead cowboy church behind the chutes. It’s hard to find a better American experience than the pride-filled experience of a rodeo Saturday night and a worship service on Sunday in a 106-year-old church.
That’s where you come in.
These exchange programs are desinged to provide students from other cultures with an American experience but Education Travel & Culture (ETC) is looking for more Christian families as hosts so that they can also be presented with the gospel.
Imagine what God might do if a Buddhist student found a saving faith in Jesus and returned to Vietnam to share the gospel with family and friends there. The Great Commission was given to us by Jesus about two thousand years ago yet here it is being lived out across multiple countries through the intentional use of an exchange student program.
That’s something we can pray for together to help Jesse and Bethel Baptist Church in this mission and if you would like to learn how easy it is to host a foreign exchange student, just get in touch with us and we will share your contact information with someone at ETC who will contact you.
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