by admin | Oct 29, 2025 | James
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Who knows that rodeo competitor who talks and acts like he wants to be a cowboy and a winner but also chases trouble. It’s often relationship after relationship that totally screws with his head. He draws out because the girl is angry he’s entered or he bucks off or misses his catch because his head is either on the fight they had or what Disney referred to as twitterpated in Bambi—caught up in the idea of being in love with the girl that he’s lost focus on everything else.
That’s a milder example of what can happen when we try to chase two different and opposite pursuits.
Now imagine if that cowboy had been seeking godly wisdom like James instructs us in Chapter 3 and, out of that wisdom, he knows he was called to compete as a Christian, setting an example for Christ. Becoming a top hand on either end of the arena was how God was going to use him to build relationships with others, first as a cowboy but then as a Christian, that would lead others to a saving faith in Jesus.
Being drawn into a bad relationship with a girl who isn’t a believer to begin with is a common mistake guys make and in this situation, could destroy everything God called that cowboy to do.
James 4: 1-10 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
James shows us just how important it is to put God first.
When we find ourselves chasing our own passions, we can find our prayers coming up empty because we’re asking God for materialistic wants versus needs that line up with a life spent following God’s direction. It’s when our desires come from pursuing God that we see our prayers answered because our prayers will look very different when we’re not seeking our wants from Him.
James’ examples are much more extreme than our illustration and yet we can see them played out every day just by putting the news on television or reading through the headlines—we can see endless examples of conflicts leading to murder. James wants us to see that by pursuing our own desires and caring deeply about them can lead to chaos. At the least, our jealousy can lead us into conflict.
When we pursue our own desires, James says it’s like we commit adultery against God by putting our relationship with our desires ahead of God’s call on our life. By doing this, we make ourselves an enemy of God and it should give us pause to ask ourselves if we have a genuine saving faith in Jesus. Without that saving faith, we are all enemies of God because our sin separates us from Him and will fall under His judgment and condemnation when we die.
by admin | Oct 14, 2025 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Be the reason someone asks you why.
Not, why would you get on the back of a bull or why you’d risk your thumb roping.
But… Why did you pay that guy’s fees when you know you aren’t going to see the money again?
Why did you help that guy change a tire when you were already late for the rodeo? Why did quit drinking? Why did you just now decide to apologize for your part in that fight we got into last year?
Let your faith in Jesus change you so much that people start noticing it and asking why. And then, most importantly, be ready to explain it with your own clear understanding of the gospel: God’s plan for salvation that changed you.
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
We know we aren’t going to be perfect the moment we have a saving faith in Jesus but God sees us as perfect anyway. When we have a saving faith in Jesus, that means the Holy Spirit is now at home in us and through that, we are now something new. Through the Holy Spirit, or sometimes we refer to Christ being in us as Paul says here, we begin a process known as sanctification; becoming more like Jesus every day. Whether we experience big changes all at once or little ones along the way, it can be different for each but proof to ourselves of our salvation is that we are different than we were before. When our saving faith is real, we are not left the same as we were.
Those changes are what people begin to notice and they may start asking different questions like why don’t we go to the bar with them anymore.
Sometimes our friends might feel like the changes we make mean we suddenly think we’re better than them or that we’re judging them when we start living differently from them. Sometimes they might see such a positive shift in our attitude that they want to know why or what happened.
Whether they approach us out of a negative or positive reaction, we need to be ready to explain it to them.
1 Peter 3:15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,
The hope Peter is referring to is our understanding that a perfect eternity is waiting for us in Heaven no matter how hard life here can get. He wants us to be ready to explain it to others who see we look at life differently now as Christians. This is a major way that others can come to a saving faith in Jesus through us.
If you identify yourself as a Christian but nothing about how your life is changing, let me ask you the hard question: why isn’t it?
Then let us offer to help you dig deeper into your faith and find a closer, changing relationship with Jesus.
by admin | Oct 1, 2025 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. Social media gives everyone of us the ability to share our opinions. But does that mean we should? We are out there every chance we get expounding on what we think about issues. I mean, it’s our right after all, even when we don’t even know for sure if we’re right.
Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,
but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
To fear the Lord doesn’t mean to be afraid of God but to approach Him with deep respect for who He is. Part of that is the source of all knowledge we should follow. A fool would ignore godly advice and instruction that they know comes either from their own reading of scripture or someone they know and trust is careful in how they teach it.
Proverbs 12:15 The way of fools seems right to them,
but the wise listen to advice.
For Christians, the first knowledge or biblical truth we should master is the gospel, God’s plan for salvation. When we have a saving faith in Jesus, a desire grows in us to become like Jesus and we do that by seeking knowledge and wisdom from scripture. As we learn, when we know it’s biblically correct, it’s ours to teach to someone else as we build relationships with other believers. We should all have people we know and trust are wise in the biblical counsel we give. As we grow, we should also become that person who others can trust.
We have to always be aware of fools in all things. There are fools sharing all sorts of ideas about every subject and issue you can imagine that can lead someone to harm and into false ideologies. There are Christians who mean well, and some who don’t, that share ideas about their faith that can actually lead us further from Jesus instead of toward him.
We have to be careful who we follow and as Christians, before we post an opinion we are burning to put out there, we should ask ourselves some questions first:
Do I know this is true?
Does it edify (lift another person up)?
If someone believes differently from me but knows I’m a Christian, does this make someone else want to pursue Christianity or does it turn someone away?
If it’s a believer seeing it, does it draw them closer to Jesus or away.
If it doesn’t help, and just adds to all the noise, maybe it’s best left unsaid so we can be thought of as wise and not a fool.
Proverbs 17:28 Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent,
and discerning if they hold their tongues.
by admin | Oct 1, 2025 | James
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Think about where there is conflict in your life. Some people certainly have more peace than others but we live in a society in which there is always conflict. It can be between two cowboys on the rodeo grounds fighting about a girl they both dated, a group of ranchers fighting the Bureau of Land Management or against a solar panel project on valuable grazing land. Global conflicts that we otherwise would know little about can impact the price of gas here at home.
There’s often someone on the rodeo grounds who always either seems to be in trouble of some kind or he’s someone who is looking to cause it. I think we even celebrate chaos. The person attracting or causing trouble has no shortage of like-minded friends.
That comes from our sin nature. Regardless of what someone believes in terms of their faith, we are all born into sin; we all have the ability from birth to feel anger or even hate. A saving faith in Jesus changes that. It doesn’t remove our ability to sin but it starts us on a path toward becoming more like Jesus. It doesn’t make us better than those living in conflict and conflict of our own is still going to happen. This world isn’t perfect and while we grow more like Jesus as we grow in our faith, sin around us is still going to bring conflict into our lives.
How we, as Christians, approach it is where it all changes.
James 3:13-18 Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. 15 This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. 18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
If we seek wisdom from God, how we approach conflict changes. Without Jesus, it’s easier to be influenced by bitter jealousy and selfish goals and those attitudes are going to lead us right into conflict. Worse, James says when we seek our own ambitions in a selfish way, our actions progress from being worldly thinking to something that’s even demonic. Just like he shares in James 2 that the words we speak have the power to unleash hell on Earth, how we work to achieve our goals can be the work of hell just as easily. He isn’t kidding around when he tells us to seek godly wisdom as we live out our lives here. Godly wisdom, he tells us, is pure, can lead to peace and giving mercy to others. When our goals line up with what God would want us to do and our actions to achieve them follow God’s instructions for us through scripture, we generate peace around us and demonstrate righteousness.
Producing righteousness means that our pursuit of godly wisdom creates signs of what is good, just and right for others to see. In that way, we can begin to show our saving faith in Jesus is real and transforming us in the hope others would desire this in their lives as well.
It’s up to us as believers to pursue biblical knowledge which is our main source of godly wisdom. If we’re unsure on our own of what God would have us do, we should seek advice from other Christians that we know and trust approach their faith the same way.
Going back to the Old Testament, Proverbs reminds us that as real as the harm that can be done by pursuing our own goals without God, pursuing wisdom leads to results that are more valuable to gems and precious metals.
Proverbs 3:13-15
Blessed are those who find wisdom,
those who gain understanding,
14 for she is more profitable than silver
and yields better returns than gold.
15 She is more precious than rubies;
nothing you desire can compare with her.
Living a life our own way can produce evil, living a life following God’s direction can lead to peace in the chaos around us.
If you’ve been surrounded by drama, gossip and the stress from a chaotic breakup that follows you to the rodeo grounds, who wouldn’t want to roll into a performance and just know peace; to be able to get your horse ready or set your bronc saddle without knowing there was going to be some kind of conflict before the show was over?
Why wouldn’t we want to have that peace around us all the time?
Recent Comments