by admin | Mar 24, 2025 | James
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
When we imagine the Old West, it’s often pictures of whiskey drinking, gambling, saloon brawls, gunfights in the streets and brothels. In rodeo, you don’t have to look too far to find some of the same. Buckle bunnies abound, usually in the form of young women roaming the rodeo and bar scene in search of a cowboy to take home or go home with. Drugs and alcohol can be found in the parking lot and while I’ve never seen a full-on brawl, there are times, I’ve certainly seen guys bust each other up.
That isn’t all there is to rodeo and while stereotypes exist for a reason, there are strong family values and a real community that looks out for one another.
Yet the sinful side is there and it doesn’t take much to find it.
James 1:12-15 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
Sin often comes in the form of pleasure. Sins can feel good physically and emotionally. Heck, sometimes it does feel good, at least in the moment, to tell someone the hurtful thoughts you have toward them or to haul off and deck the guy who just ticked you off for the last time. That’s what makes so many sins tempting.
James is reminding us of something important here though. Temptation is on us. Adam and Eve chose for there to be sin in the world by defying God that very first time. We live with the consequences of that sin and can only be free of God’s judgment of it through a saving faith in Jesus. From other parts of scripture, we know that God, being perfect, will not tolerate sin in His presence and will judge it. The consequences of being tempted and then acting on our sin is, as James puts it, is death. Without a saving faith in Jesus, we are eternally separated from God in hell as God’s punishment for our unforgiven sin. But it remains our choice to put our hope in Jesus’s death on the cross, where he took the full punishment meant for our sins so that by believing in him, repenting of our sin and asking to be forgiven, we can be saved from that punishment.
James makes us aware that God, who is perfect, will never sin or be tempted by it but that we, as sinful people, will be drawn to it. It is entirely up to us to resist temptation and fight against sin. Paul teaches us in Philippians that we can accomplish anything through Jesus and that includes resisting sin.
God wants us to find that saving faith in Jesus and isn’t going to tempt us away from that. It’s up to us to choose. We can live in the wild west or we can live in the Christian community. Both can literally be found in the rodeo industry and figuratively, they can be found anywhere we live. The temptations of sin will always be there, but there will also be a community ready to help us avoid temptation and seek Jesus.
by admin | Mar 12, 2025 | James
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Has someone ever made you feel worthless? It could have been a bad relationship, it could have been a teacher or family member but many of us have experienced this feeling and for some, it can bad enough to have a negative impact on their whole life.
If we’re lucky, it’s a temporary feeling and can even be brought on by ourselves during a very bad week. Maybe we’re trying to train a dog or fighting to get a horse to stop being afraid of a plastic bag and we’ve just gotten nowhere this week in the time we have. Then one of our kids gets angry with us because we disciplined them, our wife misunderstands something and went to bed angry and we just stripped a bolt trying to fix an oil leak. It’s pretty easy to feel worthless after all those events pile up.
God doesn’t want us to feel that way and uses James to help teach that.
James 1:9-11 Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. 10 But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower. 11 For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business.
James is first speaking to those believers who have very little but calls attention to the understanding that as believers, they do in fact have a high position—they are saved through faith in Jesus and are assured eternity in Heaven.
Now, imagine you’re a wealthy Christian and that wealth is important to you. You’re proud that you worked hard for it, saved where you could and made good financial decisions and investments that have left you able to support missions while living in a great house. In verse 10, imagine taking that wealth and offering it to God in front of everyone you know, but God turns it away saying it means nothing to Him. That would be a truly humiliating experience.
But that’s not the point. God doesn’t want to humiliate us. He loves us more than anything. What James is telling us God wants to see is simply us, loving Him. He needs nothing from us and in eternity, anything we’ve worked for or gained here, doesn’t go with us to Heaven. Material possessions eventually break down and decay and wealth just transfers to someone else.
James 1:18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
Through our understanding of the Gospel, how we are saved from God’s wrath through Jesus’s death on the cross and resurrection, we are made worthy to be in God’s presence. In the Old Testament, before any of a harvest could be consumed by us, an offering from it had to be made to God first. He was given the first fruits of the harvest. Here, James is showing us that at that time, they were considered the first fruits of God’s harvest—those who were coming to a saving faith in him through what Jesus did. The expectation is that there would be a bigger harvest that we are a part of now.
Cowboys of the Cross is a rodeo/bull riding ministry that leads cowboy church services at events and maintains an online presence to share the gospel and make disciples among the ranch and rodeo community. They can be found at CowboysOfTheCross.com
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