by admin | Apr 24, 2025 | James
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
There’s an expression about taking a good look at yourself in the mirror. It’s usually said angrily and means the person being yelled at has done something wrong, often hypocritically, but doesn’t seem to get it.
James tells us something just as direct about looking at ourselves in the mirror but with a different point about our faith.
James 1: 22-25 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.
James wants us to take God’s word seriously and uses the example of us looking at our own reflection and then forgetting what we look to tell us how foolish it is to learn from God’s word and then do nothing about it.
In rodeo, this would be like a judge reading the rule book and then ignoring everything in it as he worked the rodeo.
Or a bronc rider being shown how to set his saddle but forgetting he needed a screwdriver and not being able to figure out how to adjust the stirrups after getting his new saddle.
James is stressing the importance of not just reading and learning about what’s in the Bible but acting on it.
What good does it do to know what Jesus wants of us if we don’t act on it? Most importantly, we can’t benefit from the Gospel if we don’t take action on it. Jesus and Paul, through scripture, tell us how to have eternal life, but it takes believing in who Jesus was and is, repenting and asking to be forgiven of our sin. All of these things are actions in response to what we learn from scripture.
But once we’ve embraced a saving faith in Jesus, when our salvation is real, we have a desire to follow Jesus and live out what the Bible teaches us.
James uses an exaggerated example of forgetting what we look like immediately after walking away from our reflection in a mirror as an example of how foolish it is for us to believe the Bible is real and do nothing with it.
When Jesus commands us in Matthew to love others, he wants us to do that. When Jesus shows us how to pray to God through what we know as “The Lord’s Prayer,” he expects us to pray to God. James is stressing to us the need to actively pursue following what God’s word tells us in the Bible.
He also reminds us how perfect that word is, another reason that it would be crazy not to follow it and do it what it instructs.
It certainly isn’t easy to live it all out perfectly but whether you’re a rodeo cowboy or a traditional cowboy on a ranch, who better to take action on the hard stuff than you?
by admin | Apr 9, 2025 | James
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
The best sermons are lived, not preached.” That’s a phrase that people have shared in faith-based conversations and it’s often been in some form of a viral meme the cowboy crowd has shared numerous times over the years across social media.
It sounds good and I don’t disagree with it entirely, but it’s more complicated than that. Both are not just important, but essential. The gospel, how someone comes to a saving faith in Jesus, needs to be preached clearly and we should be looking for opportunities to share it. Our words and actions, how we live our lives, how we treat others and what we say to people can show others that we believe differently from them because most of how the Bible teaches us to live goes against human nature and the culture we live in.
James 1: 19-21 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
In rodeo, everyone knows who the hothead is, especially the judges. Same with your crew at work or on the ranch. While there’s a difference between getting cheated by a judge on a score or just thinking we were cheated from disagreeing with the call, you know the hothead is going to going to nose to nose with the judge either in the arena or at intermission.
James wants us to listen, hold our tongues and hold back our anger. Literally taking a breath and counting to 10 before we speak or act can give us that moment to cool down and not act out of anger. And being quick to hear gives us a chance both to listen to someone’s perspective whether we agree with them or not and more importantly, give us a chance to hear from God through the Holy Spirit. If we pause and let God direct our steps, He’s going to direct us away from an angry response. If we buck up right away, it only escalates into something that isn’t God-honoring and makes it nearly impossible for us to ever share the gospel.
Acting on anger comes from within ourselves and it comes out of sinful nature. It doesn’t produce anything good. James wants us to produce the “the righteousness of God.” Those are actions that come out of response to what God asks us, primarily through His word in the Bible.
He instructs us to set aside sin and seek God’s word and instruction and to receive it with meekness. Remember, meekness is strength under control. It is anything but weak. We control our anger and humble ourselves to accept God’s word and instruction and something far more important than the sinful way we might want to respond to a situation by getting angry and acting on that anger.
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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