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 | 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.
by admin | Jun 13, 2024 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
When we face a struggle, it can feel like we’re alone. We can vent or unload to a friend about what is going on but often be left feeling they just don’t understand.
Sure, a rodeo or ranch friend can understand and sympathize with having to sit out events or work because of a bust femur, but it’s harder for them to appreciate the struggle when the steel rod that was needed isn’t set right, there’s an infection and the down time has now increased because of a second surgery. Meanwhile, the bills are piling up and the friends that helped with some meals have got busy with their own lives. Far more than anyone can understand, the struggle you’re facing is very real and very difficult.
The same can be said when, as believers, we’re fighting to overcome a sin in our lives but we keep falling back into it. The rodeo lifestyle in particular floods us with opportunity to party hard and make the terrible choices that go along with that from cheating on a wife or girlfriend to finding ourselves in need of rehab while rodeo fines have piled up and there’s no way to pay entry fees anymore.
First, when it comes to what are referred to as trials in the Book of James, we see from James himself both an understanding of the struggles a person can face whether in his time period or ours and he offers and encouragement.
James 1:2-4 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
This can be really hard for a person to accept and a difficult attitude to adopt when you’re in the thick of trial or struggle but James is offering us an assurance that we can try to see it as a good thing and take joy in it because that struggle will be used to help build us to be more like Jesus. When we have a saving faith in Jesus, we begin a process called sanctification which means that our lives become about making us more like him. While we will never become fully perfect before we get to Heaven, we will become more and more like Jesus as we learn from the Bible, live out what we’re taught and grow in our faith.
In that process to become more like Jesus we find there are sins in our lives we want to rid ourselves from and Hebrews offers a great encouragement for those particular struggles.
Hebrews 4: 15-16 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Jesus is the high priest being referred to here and what we see is just how great a company we keep as Christians—followers of Christ. Jesus himself, even though he was perfect, still faced temptations and God loves us so much and understands the struggle, that through our saving faith in Jesus, we have God’s grace and mercy for when we fail and to give us the confidence and encouragement to get up again and press onward each time we feel like we’ve fallen.
Count it all joy, my brothers,[a] when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
by admin | May 29, 2024 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
There is a lot of teaching out there that focuses on God making life great for us here. Yet the reality is that sometimes the people we perceive to be the worst unbelieving sinners, seem to have all the money and success while we try to live by God’s word and feel like we’re always struggling against defeat.
The idea that with more faith comes more gifts from God is really misleading and if you work with horses or cattle or compete in rodeo, this is something you should be able to understand. If you work with them long enough or compete in enough events, you are going to get hurt, no matter how much faith you have. It’s just how this world works. It’s broken. Adam and Eve actually broke it by choosing to commit the first sin. Because of that, they choose for there to be people capable of causing harm in the world and for earthquakes, disease and even rodeo accidents to be something that could happen. We live with the consequences of that including God’s punishment of sin without a saving faith in Jesus.
Jesus was sent here to die on the cross while taking on all of God’s wrath meant for our sins so that with belief, repentance and asking to be forgiven, we would no longer face that wrath but instead be welcomed into Heaven as if we were without sin. Even though it was meant to be, Jesus going to the cross was a tremendous trail, one so intense that there was blood in his sweat as he prayed and asked God to not have him go through with the intense suffering he knew he was about to face.
Luke 22:39-43 Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. 40 On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” 41 He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, 42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” 43 An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.
Of course God could not remove this trail from Jesus’s life but in verse 43, we see God sent an angel to give Jesus the strength he needed to endure what was to come.
We can ask God to deliver us or others from a trial and know that He might, but we should also ask for strength to endure it.
When our focus is on Jesus and as we become more like him, we find that even when we face trials and struggles, our attitude has also changed and go through those challenges stronger and less negatively impacted by them than before we knew Jesus. That doesn’t mean we don’t sometimes struggle or cry out to God for deliverance or relief like Jesus did on the Mountain of Olives. What we have that others don’t, is the strength to get through it when we ask God for help and trust in His perfect plan.
by admin | May 15, 2024 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Fly high cowboy, your fees are paid.
Using some form of that phrase when someone in the rodeo cowboy crowd has died is fairly common.
The problem is, most people don’t really understand what they’re saying and it creates the false impression that we call go to Heaven when we die. I see it used by people I thought knew differently but they continually place a cowboy in Heaven who almost certainly didn’t enter that rodeo.
How can you say that? How can you know for sure? That’s judgmental.
Well, the reason I can say it with almost certainty is because I’d had an open and frank conversation with that person in question and he made it clear to me he didn’t believe in Jesus and wasn’t interested in it. He was someone I got along with and was explaining why he didn’t come to cowboy church at the rodeos we were often at together because he didn’t want me thinking it was personal. He made a lot of sinful or what I would consider “dumb” choices at best, but he was a nice guy who was well-loved by all those he partied with every weekend.
Here’s the kicker: most of the time when we share a social media post about a cowboy riding a rank one in Heaven or getting his wings (we don’t become angels), we don’t actually even know what the person believed before they died and we never ask. Most of us pray. Most of us believe in God, but that doesn’t get us to Heaven. James reminds us that even the demons believe in God. A lot of us don’t really know ourselves how to be certain we’re going to Heaven, never mind how to tell someone else.
And sure, one never knows what happens privately between a person and God but we’re also told in scripture that when someone has a genuine, saving faith in Jesus, there will be fruit. Fruit are changes in a person’s life that show Christ and the Holy Spirit in them is moving them away from sin and into a life that’s more holy. By holy, we mean more Christ-like by how we see Jesus in the Bible
John 15:8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.
That made it that much harder personally when he died. It’s important to understand God can draw someone to Him at any time and there’s no telling what happened in his last moments, but the reality is, not only did he not believe, but he openly rejected Christianity.
So how can so many people put him in Heaven?
I think when we love someone, it’s hard to think of them suffering for eternity in Hell. I think we also just don’t think seriously enough about how real both places are. It’s also largely because we don’t really understand what is called the gospel—how through Jesus, a person is saved from God’s wrath against sin and made right before God to be given an eternity in Heaven.
We can’t ‘love them’ into Heaven. Only the love of Jesus gets them there through their faith in his birth, death and resurrection and belief that he took the punishment meant for our sins so that by repenting of those sins and asking to be forgiven, we can be given eternal life in Heaven.
This is where the expression in rodeo that “he paid your fees” comes from. It’s taken from a genuine understanding of the gospel that tells us that Jesus paid the price meant for our sins.
Being liked and loved by others, being popular, being good by how we might measure goodness; none of these ideas gets us into Heaven. Even the kindest most generous person is separated from God by just the smallest sin and none of us are able to get through life without some kind of sin like a moment of anger or a lustful thought.
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.
Grace and mercy are what God has given us through Jesus’s death on the cross. We deserve God’s wrath for our sin, any sin, but we’re given a way through a saving faith in Jesus, to be made right with God. The ‘works’ being referred to is what makes it clear that just being a good person doesn’t earn a place in Heaven. Works are the good actions we do and way of living we might lead. Through an understanding that any sin deserves punishment and no amount of good can earn us Heaven, every single person has the same chance to have Jesus pay his fees.
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