by admin | Oct 10, 2024 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
How much do we really think about just how deep God’s love for us is?
Those aren’t the thoughts of a typical cowboy.
At the rodeo, we face pressure to win or we don’t have entry fees for the next few weeks, we get our thumb taken off and miss the calf roping win, our truck breaks down, we get discouraged
At the ranch, political issues crop up that affect how we use our land, prices sometimes dive before our cattle get to market, a storm blows through and an extra week of work piles up making repairs to broken fences and barns. It gets discouraging.
Don’t worry, God’s in control.
I’ve heard that so many times and yet, I still worry. There are times it makes me think I haven’t matured as a Christian nearly as much as I had hoped when I can’t seem to give my stress and worry over to God.
First, we have to remember as Christians, we have a perfect eternity waiting. As bad as our situation is right now, it actually can be worse. It is hard for us to grasp just how short our time here is and when we are struggling and even suffering, it gets even harder to see that.
But we are loved by God so much that He sent Jesus to die a painful death to take all punishment meant for our sin that if we believe in him, repent of our sin and ask to be forgiven, we are given a perfect eternity it Heaven.
Romans 5:8 But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us
The troubles we face are because this is a sinful broken world. We are born into this world as sinners separated from God because He won’t allow sin in His presence and will judge and condemn it. But despite deserving God’s punishment as we live sinfully, He still sent Jesus to die and take the punishment in our place.
When we receive that gift of salvation through our saving faith in Jesus, it doesn’t mean our struggles end but there are two things it does mean: a perfect eternity awaits us free of struggle and whatever we are going through, God will use it for good.
Romans 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Sometimes with hindsight, we can see how God used a struggle to build us up or even to save us from an even bigger struggle. But sometimes, we don’t always get to see the direct outcome of God’s plan. It’s one of those places where we need faith when that happens and hope in our perfect eternity, free from struggles. It doesn’t mean it isn’t hard but our strength to endure comes from God and the hope He gave us through Jesus is what can get us through anything.
by admin | May 11, 2023 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
When we don’t understand what hope is, we set ourselves up to lose it.
“If this situation doesn’t turn around soon, I’m going to lose my truck. I hope I find work soon.”
“That’s two dead calves this spring already, I hope there aren’t any issues with the rest.”
That’s the most common way we’re used to hearing the word, “hope” get used but it sets us up for discouragement when the job doesn’t come and the truck gets repossessed or you lose two more calves in a ridiculously bad calving season.
We put our hope in relationships or friends and family but people are going to fail and we’re going to get let down. As Christians, if we don’t understand what hope is according to scripture, we can get discouraged with God too.
It isn’t easy to change our perspectives but for Christians, our hope is placed in Jesus. That isn’t the same as hoping for a good outcome. “I hope you understand what I’m saying” means I desire a positive outcome that this is helpful. “I hope this job interview goes well” but it still could be a total disaster. With that use of the word hope, there are no guarantees and we can end up feeling defeated.
Hope in Jesus is different. That is something we can be confident in. When we have a saving faith in him, there are no guarantees that life here won’t be hard at times but we are guaranteed a perfect eternity in Heaven. What it means to put our hope in Jesus is that we can face this world’s struggles with the confidence that something amazing is waiting for us in an perfect eternity in Heaven.
1 Peter 3-8 gives some of the explanation.
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
Peter is showing us that we are going to face struggles here but that when we persevere with our thoughts focused on Jesus, he is glorified through our struggles while God preserves our salvation so that when we leave this world, we move on to that perfect eternity.
We place our hope in Jesus, using the word, “hope” in a completely different context—that we know our salvation is secured no matter what happens to us here.
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