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 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.
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.
by admin | Jun 30, 2022 | Behind the Bucking Chutes, The Company You Keep
Part 6 of 7 The Company You Keep
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Just like bull riders will tell you that to get better, you want to be surrounded by better bull riders, we know that the Bible teaches us there are times we have to be careful who we tie ourselves to. If we spend all our time with unbelievers, we can see our own faith suffer. At the same time, we have to spend time with unbelievers in order to share the gospel with them—how to be saved from the punishment meant for our sin by a belief in Jesus Christ, repenting of our sin and asking to be forgiven.
But before we can worry about finding the balances there, we first need to become disciples.
John 8:31-32 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in Him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Jesus tells us that when we have truly become a Christian—a follower of Jesus—then we will ‘abide’ in his word. That means that we will live it out. Our desire to do that is the proof of our salvation.
While there is a lot to being a disciple that the average Christian seems to ignore throughout the New Testament, we know that in its simple form, a disciple is someone who follows Jesus.
In rodeo, most of us have successful cowboys and bull riders who we follow to learn their style, techniques and how they became successful.
Jesus tells us that we will live out his word but he knows we don’t immediately know or understand everything there is in the Bible.
That’s why, even though Jesus calls us disciples, we still need to be discipled.
The Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20 tells his disciples to go into the world and make make more disciples with clear instructions to teach others about what Jesus taught them. That means right now, there are people out there with knowledge and wisdom we haven’t achieved yet who are following, or should be following, the command to make disciples. There are people we need to have teaching us what they know from the Bible.
At the same time, we read our Bibles on our own, attend church services, learn where we can and pray in order to learn and put to practice what it means to live out our faith.
And Jesus tells us it isn’t going to be easy.
Luke 9:23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
There can be a cost to following Jesus and while there is much we can study on being disciples and what it means to follow Jesus, we’re focused right now on making sure we have the right people in our lives to be successful followers of Christ.
By linking with other believers who are more mature and experienced in their faith than we are, we can be discipled by them while we also begin the process of teaching others about Jesus. As we learn, we teach, regardless of how experienced we are. If I’ve just started learning how to throw a rope and you teach me a better way to guide my loop to the roping dummy’s head, it doesn’t matter whether I’ve won a rodeo or even entered one; once you’ve taught me how to do that much, I can teach someone else that much too.
(Supporting photo of the Bible provided by John-Mark Smith of Lviv, Ukraine)
by admin | May 4, 2022 | The Company You Keep
Part 2 of 7 The Company You Keep
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
“If you want to be successful, surround yourself with successful people.”
Quotes like this are common among the rodeo crowd and they are embraced by competitors because of that desire to succeed and get ahead.
It makes sense.
If you spend more time with competitors who are better than you, you might learn something from their attitude, skills or way of living that helps you to also succeed or become a better bull rider, barrel racer, roper or horseman.
It’s like this in Proverbs 27:17 Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.
This is a common verse many people can quote and often not realize that it even comes from Scripture. It’s point is simple: we can help make each other more effective.
But when it’s coming from the Bible we understand it’s referring to Christians. Another Christian friend can help me be more effective in my faith and I can help him to be more effective tool.
Conversations about the Bible and living out our faith with each other help us to be ‘sharper’ believers.
And we’re encouraged throughout Scripture to spend time together as believers from when the church first started in the historical account we seen in Acts to to the letters Paul writes to different churches as he tries to encourage them or confront conflicts he has learned about within their communities.
Hebrews 10 24-25 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Paul is telling church they need to encourage one another to show love and do good and to encourage one another as if we are near the very end. If we knew for sure these were the last days before Jesus came back, we would be rushing to make sure others knew who Jesus was. Paul is telling the people in the church to encourage each other and live as if that day was almost here.
Again, what we’re seeing is a push toward working together to do a better at living our our faith.
He tells the church at Colossae that we are to work together as well.
Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
We’re to teach and correct each other while worshiping God together so that the teachings of Jesus would become a big part of who we are.
Just like the Bible warns us not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers who will wear us down and weaken our faith, we see that by being connected together with believers, our faith will be strengthened and better equipped to share that faith with others.
We seem to understand this idea outside of the Bible when it comes to wanting to be better competitors and seeking personal success. We don’t realize or overlook how much a similar teaching is is commanded through Scripture to be connected to other believers with the focus being on our becoming stronger in our faith and able to lead others to Jesus.
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