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 | May 2, 2024 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
For Christians in the cowboy crowd, or those who at least believe in God, one of two things seems to happen when a cowboy hits rock bottom.
The first: he shares publicly with everyone who will listen how bad things are, how bad he feels about it and how much he wants to change. It often includes social media posts and that generate lots of encouragement, especially when he says he wants to get things right with God and is going to make some serious life changes.
The second: he shares with a couple people close to him the struggle and asks for help coming to Jesus as he experiences a deep feeling of repentance and a desire to understand what it really means to be a Christian; a follower of Christ.
The first has good intentions but is likely dealing with guilt or self-pity over whatever circumstances have led to him finding himself at rock bottom which can be any number or combination of these examples or plenty of others that aren’t mentioned here: lost marriage or girl friend, lost job, impending jail time, loss of visitation rights with children.
But when feeling guilty over what has happened is the dominant reason for professing to want to change, it’s far less likely that any lasting change will take place.
The first happens far more often than the second and that’s just how it is supposed to be because scripture tells us that the number of people who make it to Heaven is going to be a small percentage of the population.
I’ve shared with the first person free access to an otherwise paid Christian teaching service with all kinds of videos and lessons, many of them short and simple, to help a person grown and “get right with God” as they have said they want to do. The Cowboys of the Cross website and YouTube channel have more than 300 videos and written devotions and sermons to help and usually when I send that to the first person, he tells us he’s going to take a look at the site but never does.
When rock bottom brings about real repentance, you have the second person and God begins to do a work in him to bring about real change and transformation.
Ephesians 4:20-24 17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
In this letter from Paul, he is describing both types of people: the ones whose hearts are not ready for change and the ones who are and have become new ‘selves’ transformed by their faith in Jesus and becoming more like him; more righteous and holy. By that, we understand we aren’t perfect and if we’ve hit rock bottom, we may have a long way to go to ever become like Jesus but like all Christians, day by day we begin to grow and change more into his likeness.
Without a saving faith in Jesus, we can climb back up from the bottom but nothing about our nature is truly changed.
by admin | Mar 21, 2024 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Do you ever get frustrated that someone you know rejects God and the Bible but always seems to come out on top?
Maybe it’s a team roper or bull rider who lives how he wants, parties hard, treats others badly but just won that year- end buckle while you’ve tried to live right by God’s word and always come up short in the money. Maybe you’ve been tithing faithfully
You aren’t alone. Asaph expresses those frustrations in Psalm 73, 3,000 years ago.
In this Psalm, he describes the wicked as seeming to gain more and more. He openly shares his own envies as their status increases while he is left to feel like God is punishing him.
Through it all, he describes how faithful he has been to what God commands, doing what is right while others continue to flourish.
He realizes his negative thoughts toward God are causing him to stumble and he reminds himself of who he is to God and that the wicked are going to perish while he will be with God for eternity.
He shares frustrations many of us have experienced. We do everything we can to follow God’s word and somehow, those who live how they want to live in sin, seem to be the ones getting ahead and we feel like we’re getting further behind.
As he shares your frustrations, he still comes back to the reality that God is still everything to him.
Psalm 73:26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Life may not always go as we want it to, but we have to remind ourselves that when we have repented of our sin and asked to be forgiven through a saving faith in Jesus and what he did for us on the cross by taking time punishment meant for our sins, we have a perfect forever waiting for us in Heaven.
We are sometimes mislead by the idea that becoming a Christian means life will keep getting better and better. We forget this is a fallen world and that because Adam and Eve chose sin, we live in a world where bad things really do happen to good people. It isn’t God that does it to us, it’s God that has offered us an eternity free of this sinful world when we pass away while those who do not have a saving faith suffer an eternity in hell.
That doesn’t mean we should take joy in knowing what waits for those who reject God and the way to salvation through Jesus; it means we should take comfort in knowing our hope is in eternity.
“God of the is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
It’s hard for us to understand how short our time here is and even if nothing ever goes the way we want it to, we have a perfect eternity waiting for us. We have a time fast approaching where everything is made right and it will last forever.
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 | Apr 13, 2023 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Josh McCarthy / Cowboys of the Cross
I heard a good example that explains Christianity but I’m going to put my own spin on it.
Christianity is like a saddle; it’s as simple as leather, rawhide and wood but as complex as all the work that goes into carving the tree, tooling the leather, engraving the silver on the conchos and everything else in between to make a good, custom saddle. When it comes to things like Christ dying on the cross, taking the wrath for all the sins of everyone who would believe in Him on Good Friday or God raising Christ from the dead, which is what we just celebrated on Easter Sunday, it is as simple as the statements I just made and also way more complex than we could understand.
But the good news of the gospel is as simple as these passages in Romans that show us who we are, who Jesus is and why it matters that we celebrate His resurrection on Easter Sunday.
Romans 3:23
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
We are all sinners. We have violated God’s law and because of that we are separated from God and apart from God’s grace, we are God’s enemies.
Romans 5:8
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
While we were still haters of God, He sent Christ to take the punishment for our sins.
Romans 6:23
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We all deserve death for even the smallest sin we’ve committed but through faith in Christ, He takes that sin and suffered the punishment for it on the cross. Through His grace, He gives us the gift of being adopted sons and daughters of God instead of His enemies.
Romans 8:1
8 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Jesus took the punishment of all past, present and future sin for all who believe in Him. If you believe in Jesus, God has given you freedom from the punishment of your sins. This should lead us to live a life of gratitude and a desire to follow His commands.
Romans 10:9
9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
This is why we celebrate Easter because if we are Christians we do believe that God raised Jesus from the dead to prove that Jesus is who He said He was i.e. the Son of God, the second person of the trinity that came to take away the sins of all those that would believe and save sinners like you and me from an eternity suffering in Hell and by His grace giving us the gift of Easter.
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