Sometimes the cheater still comes out ahead

Sometimes the cheater still comes out ahead

by | Apr 4, 2024 | Behind the Bucking Chutes

By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross

Sometimes the bad guy wins. There really is a rodeo judge out there that has it in for someone and successfully screws the cowboy over every chance he gets. There really is someone lying and cheating their way to get ahead of you at work. Some of you are victims of crimes in which the person got away with it or the punishment just didn’t seem like enough.

When I get to teach something and it’s one of the ‘difficult’ Bible verses like the one that you’re about to read, I get it. I know it’s easy for me to teach it but it doesn’t mean it’s always any easier for me to live it out when I’m standing there asking you to try.

Romans 12: 19-21 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

This is honestly harder for me to say than you might think because I don’t want to share the bad thoughts as someone who is in a position to teach and minister to you but this is my reality right now: there is someone out there that a small part of me would take satisfaction in taking a swing at with my baseball bat. I’m not joking. And it troubles me that as mature as I would like to be in my faith, that I’m still capable of a thought like this, though I’m grateful and want to be clear it is a small part of me and I would never take that action.

But what it shows about me is that I do get it when I teach verses like this. I’m not asking you guys to do things I either presently find hard or have had a chance to work through myself as I’ve learned more about what’s in the Bible.

It’s hard to see someone get away with evil and be satisfied that God will take care of it when the systems in place fail. But here’s the deal. Adam and Eve decided in the garden they wanted the same knowledge as God and allowed sin to be a part of our world. They wanted to be able to judge for themselves what is right and wrong, rather than leave it to God. It’s a natural part of being human but as Christians, we’re made new and meant to be becoming more like Jesus and less like our old selves.

When we’re dealing with Christians who do wrong to others, there are several Biblical responses to that including church discipline e and a process to make the situation right. A Christian who is truly saved would want to follow these steps, particularly ones laid out in Matthew 18:15-20.

For non-believers, there are two outcomes for someone who has done evil to you, they will repent through God’s grace and mercy

or they will face God’s judgement and spend eternity in hell.

I have a hard time taking comfort or being at peace with someone who has wronged me enough to want to hit them with a bat, suffering for eternity in hell when I know I’ve been forgiven of my wrongs and received God’s grace and mercy through Jesus’s death and resurrection and my own repentance and saving faith in him.

Right now, I’m also having a hard time with the idea of showing kindness to the people who have done evil but they deserve the shot at salvation I received and while they haven’t received the justice that I would hope for them, they don’t find Jesus the lord of their life, hell is the reality they face.

While those verses in Romans are not teaching this, while I continue to wrestle with God’s direction for me to repay evil with kindness, what I can do in the meantime is follow other Biblical teaching that directs us to treat others with kindness so that they could come to saving faith in Jesus.

It doesn’t take away my responsibility to work through these verses and adopt them into how I approach the evil that we do in this world, but it does provide a positive outcome that can impact the world around us for Jesus.

Your plan might be to make the NFR, God’s might be different

Your plan might be to make the NFR, God’s might be different

by | Jul 20, 2023 | Behind the Bucking Chutes

By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross

Your plan might be to make it to the NFR or PBR finals. It might be to double the size of your herd. But God’s plan might be different. Guess which one is guaranteed to work out?

If you could do anything you wanted to do without having to worry about success or failure, how hard it will be to accomplish or what it could cost you to do it, most of us would jump at it, especially knowing the path to success was cleared ahead of us.

Sure, it could still be a lot of hard work but when it’s something we want to do, we are glad to put the work in. And while the path all the way to the end might not be clear, when we know there is a path to success already cleared ahead for us, then there’s really nothing to hold us back from getting started.

When we are doing what God wants us to do, that’s exactly what happens.

Ephesians 2:10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

God has something prepared for you to do.

We can easily forget there’s a difference between our desires and God’s desires for us. We have to learn to think differently.

Romans 12:2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Our culture, the ‘world’ the verse in Romans is referring to, tells us how to measure success. In rodeo, it can be making it to the PBR finals or NFR. Locally, it can be seeing your client base as a farrier double or enough horses sold to build that bigger barn you need. It can be raising three kids that turn out to be good citizens.

What if that isn’t God’s will for you?

Paul is telling us we need to shift our thinking toward what God’s direction would be.

When we are trying to figure out what the right thing to do is, if we are being transformed as Paul mentions in Romans, then we know it will line up with scripture and that’s a good way for us to test and know if we’re doing God’s will versus following our own desire.

It could still be winning that rodeo on the weekend or qualifying for the NFR or it could be seeing your horse farm double in size. But if it is those kinds of successes, there will most definitely be opportunities through those to glorify God and point others to Jesus. It will never be just about ourselves.

And if we struggle on whatever path God has placed us on, how we struggle will glorify God. It will glorify Him if we learn from it and grow more Christlike and it will glorify Him if others see us approaching a challenge while remaining joyful.

Jesus has some encouraging words in John.

John 15:5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

When we are following Jesus and his direction, there’s no reason we won’t find success. What we succeed at is determined by God and He we will get us there.

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