by admin | Sep 28, 2026 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
When you become a Christian, you don’t give up being a cowboy; you become something more as a Christian cowboy.
You don’t give your strength as a man to become a Christian but the need to let go of pride and humble ourselves can be one of the biggest stumbling blocks to someone having a saving faith in Jesus.
Pride and the need to make ourselves humble rub against cowboy thinking when we hear God’s plan for salvation and the need to make Jesus the Lord of our lives.
Men work life out for themselves. Even if we know it, we don’t want to accept or admit when we need help. We think it makes us look weak, we think it means we can’t take care of ourselves or provide for our families. We can end up missing out on God’s entire plan for salvation for us because submitting to Jesus feels like letting go of who we are.
We have this mistaken idea of Christian men being weak because they’re asked to treat others with kindness. We fail to understand just how hard it is and how much strength it takes
We see self-control as weak. Popping someone in the mouth who has offended us is seen as a show of strength, failing to understand the meekness, holding back that show of force, takes real strength.
We misunderstand what the Bible means when we hear people say, “Jesus is love.” We think that means walking around hugging everyone and smiling all the time.
What it really means is the most physically powerful man on Earth loved us so much that he suffered incredible beating and torture to die horrifically as a sacrifice in our place so we could have eternal life. And that we don’t have to do anything to earn it or deserve it.
Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
The faith being spoken about by Paul in this letter to one of the early churches is what it means to have a saving faith in Jesus. We first believe that Jesus was the Son of God, that he did in fact die on the cross to take the punishment meant for our sins and that he was resurrected to Heaven and lives there now. That’s the faith part of a saving faith. Our salvation comes from understanding God is going to punish any and all sin. It’s how He is fair to us all. But how He also loves us, Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross was meant to take God’s full judgment and wrath in our place. By first our faith and then repenting of our sin and asking to be forgiven, we don’t have to do anything else and we receive that forgiveness and the gift of eternal life in Heaven.
You don’t give up being a cowboy. God already made you one. When you become a Christian, a follower of Christ, you become so much more than you already are.
You don’t suddenly stop being a cowboy, but what does change is your desire to understand the Bible and live out the teaching found there, especially the teachings Jesus left behind for us.
God will use every strength and skill He gave you from knowing how to manage a herd of cattle to working on a car to serve Him and help others while living out what is still your normal day-to-day life. Some of us will gradually go on to bigger Christ-centered work through churches and ministries but those become welcome changes.
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.
We should be excited that God already has plans for us and the strength He has given us.
by admin | Sep 22, 2026 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Jesse McCarthy / Cowboys of the Cross
As Christian cowboys and Christian ranchers, it’s easy to have an “I can do it myself” mentality. We think it shows our strength, that we don’t need help, or that we can be the boss of our life. In reality, I think it takes more strength to go against the fleshly desires of pride and self-gratification, to do the unnatural thing of showing humility.
God speaks clearly about this in the book of James.
James 4:6-7 “ 6 …God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God.”
In a world of social media that counts “likes and shares” it’s easy to get caught up in praising ourselves, but as Christians we need to remember the words given by God through Paul, “ 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” Philippians 2:3
This isn’t something we can do on our own, we need to ask God for the strength to be humble rather than serve our own egos and desires.
When faced with our own needs for help, or the need to admit wrong, are we practicing humility? This was something I recently battled with as I had to leave town for a few days. While I was trying to complete my responsibilities on the ranch, I was put in a dilemma when I ran into a small water problem that I didn’t have time to fix. I could hold onto my pride or admit I couldn’t do it and ask for help. In this case it was an easy decision, because I knew that the cattle wouldn’t have water if I didn’t humble myself and ask for help. It was obvious, if I would have held onto my pride it would have caused suffering to others, in this case the cattle.
Thankfully, Jesus has given us the perfect example of humility through His life. Paul reminds us that Jesus, who is fully God, humbled himself, came down and took on human form to pay the ultimate price and be the perfect sacrifice for our sins.
Philippians 2:5-8. “ …Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count
equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
Could you imagine if Jesus would have left it up to us to try and earn our salvation, instead of humbling himself to take God’s wrath in our place? We could never do it and would just end up suffering. On our own we are incapable of living a life good enough to enter heaven. Paul reminds us of this in Romans.
Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
Unfortunately, there are so many still trying to hold onto their pride with the “do it myself” attitude, by trying to just be a better person, or go to church or do this or that; when the only way to heaven is through a saving faith relationship with Jesus. We need to stop trying to be strong and put our faith in our own works and show true strength by admitting we can’t do it on our own. We need help!
Praise God, He has given us help.
More than help, he has done it for us. So don’t let yourself suffer without the living water because of your pride, but humble yourself and accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
by admin | Sep 10, 2026 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
When it comes to God, many cowboys have an authority problem and it can be one of the biggest reasons a man holds back from giving in to a saving faith in Jesus.
Whether on the ranch or rodeo side of our cowboy cultures, there is a lot of reasons a cowboy needs or develops a sense of independence. It can be a ranch hand sent out to check and mend fences after a storm or a bronc rider depending on his own strength to make that eight second ride.
Physical strength and hard work generate rewards from a herd getting to market to a bulldogger making the pay window. We’re proud of our accomplishments and our independence, but when pride keeps us from recognizing it’s God who even allowed it in the first place, it becomes a sin.
Proverbs 21:4 A haughty look, a proud heart, and the plowing of the wicked are sin.
Cowboys honor strength and independence and the idea of submitting to a higher authority can be tough, yet we’re told every person will submit, one way or another.
Philippians 2: 9-11 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Paul is explaining in this letter that everyone will come to a realization that Jesus is Lord, meaning we submit to and follow him now through a saving faith in Jesus or we realize later, when it’s too late, how real God’s authority was through Jesus. We realize this as we see the truth of Heaven and Hell and face God’s judgment.
But God wants us all to be with Him and through a saving Jesus, we all can have an eternity in Heaven. James uses strong language as he urges us to submit to God.
James 4:7-10 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
James is telling us we need to resist sin and temptations that keep us from a saving faith. But that takes recognizing our pride is a sin we have to resist in order to recognize Jesus is Lord of our lives. Being humble can be hard but it’s necessary to recognize God’s authority.
When we can do this, you don’t lose the feeling of independence out there fixing fence with just you and your horse. You don’t lose the sense of success when you make your first eight second ride. You gain an understanding that it was through God’s will and authority that you are where you are and we begin to seek ways to honor and glorify Him in all we do.
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