by admin | Jan 18, 2024 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Auctioneers, book keepers, back pen workers, truck drivers. Those are just a few of the people needed to get the cattle onto the sales arena floor and back out the door in someone’s stock trailer for a sales barn to be successful.
Judges, secretaries, back pen workers and truck drivers. Those are just a few of the people needed to get the stock loaded in the chutes and the rodeo off the ground for a successful event to be held.
To larger or smaller degrees, each person already has specialized skills or has to be trained to fill each roll but together, they all play a part in the event being able to come together.
We may not see how it all fits together, but for Christians, we all have a role to play in what we know as The Great Commission, where Jesus commanded us to tell others about him and to teach those who choose to believe and follow him.
1 Corinthians 12:12-20 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, …18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
This is just one of several sets of verses that show how we have different strengths and gifts. Those gifts together still make up the body of Christ, who we all are as believers, and how we all work together for God’s purpose.
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.
With a saving faith in Jesus through his death on the cross for us, we are then given work to do that God has prepared for us. We know the biggest part of that is to tell others about Jesus while also helping other believers to grow in our faith. Each of us has been given different strengths that God will then use as we go into the world to serve and minister to others in the places God places us.
Together, all our strengths and gifts work to accomplish the ‘good works’ that God has prepared for us to do as Paul mentions in Ephesians. Just like it takes a team to run a successful day at the sales barn, God uses us all together for His purpose.
by admin | Dec 7, 2023 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott HIlgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Without a Christian worldview, we’re going to struggle with how to glorify God in everything we do.
In a rodeo arena, you occasionally see a roughstock rider take a knee and point to God. Sometimes it’s only if he wins, sometimes it’s every situation that lets him get back on his feet. On the roping end, the cowboy will point to the sky after a good catch.
On the surface, these are ways the rodeo cowboy is giving glory to God but for many of us, aside from using “glory to God” as a hashtag on a social media post when something great has happened, those are the very few ways we openly give God glory.
Romans 11:36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
This is just one of several verses that point us toward the importance of glorifying God through everything we do. In this instance, we are being reminded that nothing we do is accomplished without God.
A worldview comes from our background and the influences we have in our life that shape how we look at the world around us. A parent of young children might be influenced to look for danger all the time that could impact the children. A soldier looks at the world through his training. A horse trainer can find himself making decisions influenced by the cowboy and horse culture and the conservative politics that come with that.
For Christians, the first way we would should filter how we think about what is happening around us and the decisions that we make should be from our understanding of the Bible.
When we spend time learning what’s in the Bible, verses like this will begin to affect our worldview: Colossians 3:23-24 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
This verse shows what a Christian worldview toward work looks like. We’re supposed to think about God and work in a way that would be pleasing to Him. That in turn will most often be pleasing to our employers, but it’s God who we are thinking of ahead of our employers.
And this view then applies to other parts of our life like how we compete while we’re at a rodeo or a horse show. We put everything into it but we do it in ways we know will please God.
The more we understand what is in the Bible and the more we make an effort to apply it, the more natural it becomes to honor God in everything we do.
Suddenly, that finger point to the sky is just a natural reaction. We begin to look for ways to show others how Jesus has impacted us by how we live our lives in the hopes it creates opportunities to tell others about a saving faith in him.
by admin | Nov 16, 2023 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
If we leave for the rodeo without our cell phone, we’ll run back into the house to get it. If we’re 10 minutes down the road, we’ll turn around. Chances are, we’ll notice we don’t have it before we leave the driveway because we’re going to plug directions into the fairgrounds or arena and use the GPS to either help us find the way or get around any obstacles in our path by letting it route us around a traffic wreck. It alerts us to speed traps while other apps play music or help us keep in touch with our buddies who are on their way to a different event.
It isn’t a cell phone anymore. It’s a smart phone and we’ve come to depend on them to literally help us get through the day.
But how many of us leave the house without our Bible? When we’re 10 minutes down the road and realize it’s still at home, would we turn around to get it?
How about this? Do we even know where our Bible is?
And what about that smart phone in our pocket? There’s an app for almost every version and translation of the Bible out there.
We live in a time when we have more access to God’s word than in any other time of our lives but it’s possible we live in a time when turn to God’s word less than ever.
Matthew 4:4 But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Before Jesus began to preach and before he called his first disciples, he spent time alone in the wilderness facing temptations from Satan including what he is responding to in this verse. The devil wants him to turn stones into bread but Jesus says he needs more than physical nourishment; he needs God’s word.
We now have an entire Bible that we understand is God’s word to us.
We struggle to get through a day without the apps on our smart phones to help us, but we are starving for God’s word and most of us don’t even know it.
That smart phone now is a way we can ensure we never leave home without our Bible again by making use of the Bible apps that are there. Since we know we won’t forget our phone or will go back for it, then by having an app on the phone, we can know we will always have it with us.
The next step is to make sure we open it up, whether it is opening the app or opening a physical Bible that we keep in our rigging bag.
It can feel overwhelming at first to understand it all, but just reading a small book of the Bible or just reading a few verses is a step toward it getting easier. CowboysOfTheCross.come has tons of Biblical teaching and just like we live in an age where we have access to more Bibles than any other time, we have access to countless sermons and podcasts that can help us to digest God’s word and make sure we are well-fed.
by admin | Nov 2, 2023 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
What is your motivation when you pray?
In church culture, it’s normal for us to ask how to pray for one another, especially if we’re part of a Bible study or small group. And it’s biblical to do that. The book of Acts is just one place that makes it clear we’re supposed to pray for each other.
But we train ourselves to ask God for our needs without checking our motives and those motives can sometimes get in the way.
James 4:3 “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”
We forget that God wants us to give Him glory. We forget that the Bible is full of instructions about putting others first over our own needs. We forget that as Christians, we’re in a process of becoming more like Jesus and less like our selfish selves.
When we pray to win a rodeo, why are we wanting that win? Are we chasing a buckle that we can be proud of or to bring ourselves the glory of the win?
It is totally okay to want these things but a more Biblical perspective is to use our victories to bring attention to God. Talking about our win opens the door to tell others about how we know we couldn’t have done it without God, for example.
And a loss? Same opportunity. Someone will likely come up to you to tell you it was a good effort or to offer some advice on what to do. Any conversation can open the door to turn it to God.
“Man, I just keep asking God to help me get better at keeping my chin tucked and if nothing else, I got that right tonight, so praise Him for even the small things.”
That’s just one way it can look to give God glory.
We can’t know what God’s plan is and praying for that win may not bring it about. If it doesn’t, our motivation still needs to line up with what’s in scripture.
Are my needs for myself because I want that year-end buckle before I retire or do I need this check to help my mom with a medical bill or to put food on the table for my family?
This isn’t to say we shouldn’t tell God what we feel we need.
Philippians 4:6-7 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
We’re told not to worry because God is going to take care of us but being thankful for our current circumstances, good or bad, we’re also supposed to tell God what we feel we need.
Then we have to trust that God is going to meet our needs but sometimes it’s the struggle that we need to help us grow and learn to rely on Him.
by admin | Oct 12, 2023 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Waiting to do cowboy church at a rodeo recently and just wandering around behind the chutes at a rodeo, I saw a young bull rider with a Bible in his hand. It’s not a common sight anymore so that in itself was encouraging. Was he giving it to someone? Did he want to share something from it with one of the other guys that might have asked him a faith-based question?
Nope, it was with him to read it.
In all the noise and commotion around him with music blasting, rodeo cowboys getting their gear ready and countless other distractions, he stepped off to the side and leaned on a low section of wall around the arena to open his Bible up and read from it.
He spent about 10 minutes with headphones in, ignoring everything around him, reading from his Bible. Afterward, I asked him what he had been reading and it was a chapter in Isaiah.
Even at a rodeo you can find a little of what is referred to as quiet time. ‘Quiet time’ is kind of a church-speak phrase but it takes its example from the Bible. In church terms, quiet time is usually time spent alone studying the Bible and in prayer, obviously with the idea that you’re doing it somewhere without distractions.
Many Christians strive to make this a part of their daily routines to grow closer to God as they talk to Him and learn from His word to us in the books of the Bible.
People didn’t have a Bible to carry around then, all of what we know as the New Testament, hadn’t even been started, so there are no specific verses directing us to make this quiet time with our Bibles. However, there are plenty of scriptures that give us an example of Jesus taking time away from the crowds to spend with God.
Several times, Jesus would go off by himself to spend time with God.
Mark 1:35 And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.
The verse in Mark was between an intense period of time Jesus spent teaching and working miracles. He broke away from the crowds to be alone to pray. Then in Luke, early is his time teaching, he had just healed a man with leprosy and word was spreading of the miracles he was working. It was causing crowds to gather and follow him. The work he was doing was essential to God’s plan for salvation, but he still broke away to spend time alone with God.
Luke 5:15-16 But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. 16 But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.
The clearest example is for us to make time to pray but as Christians, now armed with Bibles we understand is the main way God speaks to us, it only makes sense that we follow Jesus’s example and take time to not just pray but also read what we know to be God’s word to us.
And while the example Jesus gave us was to go away in isolation, even in a crowded place, this cowboy still managed to make a quiet place for himself to spend a few minutes in the Bible to put God first before getting his mind on the business of competing.
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