by admin | Sep 5, 2024 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
You have the ability to change the course of someone’s day or even life.
Men especially, think how often you’ve heard a compliment outside of a dating scenario (or even in a relationship). Sometimes criticism is necessary and we need to know how to receive it without getting upset, angry or defensive. But we take criticism so often at work, in relationships and from family. Sometimes it gets back to us from our extended social circles where someone out there has been criticizing or complaining about us. Sometimes it gets back to us that it was someone close to us.
It isn’t weak to admit that sometimes it’s hurtful or at the very best, discouraging. It certainly makes most of us angry and puts us in a defensive position. And the more we hear, the more it piles up and the more discouraged we can become.
More importantly, it also isn’t weak to admit that it actually feels good to hear something nice once in awhile.
It can mean even more when it comes from people out of our extended connections who we know aren’t just saying something because they’re a close friend that sees we’re frustrated or who suspect might have an agenda behind the compliment. When it comes from someone who really did observe an action we took, a way we spoke to someone or a situation we handled, it can carry more weight because we know it was sincere.
Think of someone in your extended circles and something you’ve seen them do or a way they handle themselves and text or message them right now: “hey man, I just want you to know I’ve noticed how great you are with –your daughter–how you handled that bad call by that rodeo judge–how you never seem to let that supervisor get to you– the way you always lend someone a hand.”
Look for the good in the people in your close circles and in your more distant ones.
Do not underestimate how much God can use you to lift that person out of a very bad head space you didn’t even know they were in. And don’t rob yourself of such an easy way to glorify God by following what this verse teaches us.
Ephesians 4:29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.
Paul is telling us to first make sure we aren’t speaking any junk to begin with whether it’s gossiping or running someone down behind their back or even two their face or just speaking with foul language. We should only be using words and language that would be God-honoring. We forget, He is listening.
Paul then reminds us that anything we say should be for the benefit of others and that when we do this, it can point people to God’s saving grace.
by admin | Aug 15, 2024 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Of course we should care about our rights and freedoms. But what good does it do when we have the freedom to tell people about Jesus and never exercise it?
Many announcers will say a version of this in their openings: “In our great country, we have the freedom of religion and we’re going to exercise that right by going to the Lord right now in prayer.”
That’s fantastic that prayer is an important part of most rodeo events in the country, but for a lot of Christians, that’s the beginning and the end of where we exercise that freedom.
We’ll be loud and proud oi we think someone is threatening our freedom of religion and sit silent or motionless when God gives us the opportunity to tell someone why we believe what we believe—something Jesus calls everyone to do in Matthew through what’s known as the Great Commission.
Rodeo creates a comfortable setting to practice praying in public or talking openly about God but we’ve got to get out of our comfort zone and take our faith everywhere we go. If we’re truly saved and Christ is in us, we can’t help but be driven to do that.
Matthew 5:14-16 You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
Here in Matthew, Jesus is making it clear that we represent him to everyone and when our faith is real and we are living it out, people are going to see it the same way they can’t help but see a city that was built on a hill while traveling.
Even more though, Jesus is encouraging us to live out our lives as authentic believers so that others will see us living out those lives and point others toward God. While he doesn’t specifically say it points them to their need for a savior, that remains an important truth about living out our lives in a way that others see us different form them—they see our ‘light.’
We don’t live a Christ-like life to call attention to ourselves but to honor God.
Using the prayer example at a rodeo, an easy way for someone to get started and used to being out of their comfort zone is to pray before a meal when in a restaurant. It’s not that we never see that happen, but it can stretch some of us. If we’re comfortable with that part, before we pray, how about asking the server at your table how you can pray for them? That’s a real way to show Jesus to someone. Be open for ways we can be intentional about our faith when we’re our and our light will shine.
by admin | Aug 1, 2024 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
The more we believe false information, especially across social media, the more we miss what is really going on and the more we miss a chance to reach others for Jesus.
This most often applies to major news-making issues like the election, or a mass shooting or other issues that we become divided on. It’s an actual fact that foreign governments have even employed people knowledgeable of our language and culture whose job it is to make fake memes and posts to fuel our conflicts with each other. Division makes us weaker. Other people fan the flames simply for the sport of it it, sitting back and watching controversial made up stories go viral and people freaking out about it or celebrating it if they think it represents a victory for them. Some of these posts come straight from satire sites that don’t even hide that what they wrote was only made to sound believable and yet we share it as truth anyway.
But Christians, this is where I need you to hear me. In the rodeo and western industries, the public sees us as standing up for “God and country.” People see us representing truth and freedom but they watch us and they see us post content they, themselves know not to be true and we lose all our credibility with them.
We need to be trustworthy people. We have just a few main jobs to do when our hope is in Jesus and our salvation is secure in a saving faith in him. First and foremost is to share the gospel and make disciples. Among others is loving everyone including our enemies while living a life that honors and glorifies God who made a way for us to be free of His judgment and punishment of our sins. When instead of sharing the gospel, we share information that isn’t true, we lose our credibility among the people who don’t know Jesus. They need to be able to believe us when we tell them of the consequences they’ll face for their unrepentant, unforgiven sin. Instead, they see us at best as gullible or at worst, intentionally dishonest. It’s easy to be fooled by the false content that’s out there and it’s getting even easier; especially when it’s something we are passionate about like many of us are about the election. Let’s make sure we find even more passion for our pursuit of Jesus, allowing our saving faith in him to be what motivates and changes us.
Ephesians 4:25-27 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil.
All of Chapter 4 is worth reading a few times to see some of what the Bible tells us should be showing up in our lives as we grow in our faith.
by admin | Aug 1, 2024 | Testimonies, The Team
I am 28, married to a beautiful lady, and blessed with 5 beautiful children!
- To begin with my testimony, I would say that Jesus means everything to me! I have often been
reminded of how blessed I am, to have had a mother and father active and together — as well as
who had myself and four other siblings in a church and desired that we would have a relationship
with Jesus Christ.
- I have been blessed to be in an atmosphere and family of which I have always desired to know
Christ and have His divine presence in my life as much as possible. My desire, since a child, has
always been to serve God. Meanwhile, throughout this life, there were times I wasn’t
mastering that desire.
- I would say that from the beginning of my life, even when I was about seven years old — while
living out in Alberton Montana — I had unique spiritual encounters with good vs evil, and at
that age, tormented by the evil, but specifically prayed over and delivered from the terrors that
might bother some throughout their whole life.
- We moved to a little town called New Middletown, Indiana (right as I was turning nine) and that is
where I grew up.
- Let me back up for a moment, around the age of 11, I had a clear calling in my life — no
doubt — that God called me to preach His Gospel! I’ve always desired this calling!
- Around 16, life had some interesting moments in our world/family/church etc… and my
brother Chris got into the Rodeo world!
- At 16, I began riding novice bulls at XB Arena, in Loretto, Kentucky. Unfortunately, I finished
that journey around August of 2018 out in Oklahoma — due to my Jaw and a bulls horn meeting
up with each other, and I lost that battle.
- I have always loved the rodeo world, always desired to use my degree in ministry within the
circles of the rodeo — to which working with Cowboys of the cross is an exciting opportunity!
- I am a firm believer in Jesus Christ, I believe that our job in life is to Make Much of Jesus —
and so if I could leave you with a little tidbit of a takeaway:
JESUS CHRIST MEANS EVERYTHING TO ME, HE IS MY FRIEND, GUIDE, REDEEMER,
and HOPE! I WILL DO MY BEST TO SHARE HIM WITH OTHERS, KNOWING THAT HE IS
THE SOLUTION TO YOUR LIFE AS WELL!
by admin | Jul 9, 2024 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Right now, in at least the two counties around me, people widely believe women are being sex-trafficked out of busy parking lots in broad daylight with drugs being sprinkled on everything from $20 bills to green tomatoes lying on the ground in a parking lot median. Yet no one has been abducted.
Meanwhile, people constantly scoff at the warnings of the dangers that bears pose with populations at all-time highs. The animals are becoming fearless of people who, locals and tourists both, continue to feed them or leave insecure garbage for them to get into. While there are no reports of women actually being hauled unconscious out of their vehicles after they crash their car from the drugs they absorbed through their skin, there are 11 bears that have been euthanized this year so far because of close encounters with people the included “scratches.” If you’ve seen the size of bear claws, these scratches required emergency room care.
We pick and choose what we want to believe is true but with the amount of false information that spreads online constantly, like a new trend of posting missing children that aren’t really missing, it takes more work than people are willing to put into checking if something is real. Instead, they just share it and now people are literally afraid of green tomatoes on the ground but are not afraid to try to pet a bear.
For Christians, many of us treat the Bible the same way. We aren’t afraid of the consequences of not repenting of our sin and putting our trust in Jesus, but we’re afraid of missing out on the wealth and prosperity we falsely think is ours if we have enough ‘faith’. We aren’t willing to put the time into reading scripture for ourselves or following teachers we know we can trust to help us know what is true. Instead, far too many of us spread false ideas about we think is in the Bible. We are willing to put people’s entire eternities at risk if they should die before they’ve found a saving faith in Jesus. Around here, that could literally be from trying to pet a black bear because no one told them it was dangerous, just like no one told them the truth about Jesus or what’s really in God’s word about salvation.
James 1:23-24 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.
James takes this one step further.
He’s telling us that when we do hear the truth about God’s word, we need to take it seriously and live it out. To not do what we know God wants us to do, is as dumb as forgetting what we look like right after seeing our own reflection. But in order to do what God wants us to do, we have to know what is right and true from scripture, not just what we want to hear or what sounds good coming from others.
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