Heaven is where we belong. We’re just passing through
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Part 1 of 2 We don’t belong here
This isn’t our home.
It’s something important to understand each time we lose someone we know or love in this world, we’re reminded that as believers in the gospel—that our sin separates us from God and must be punished, that Jesus as the Son of God, died on the cross to take that punishment for our sins, that by believing in him, confessing that we know we’re sinners and asking to be forgiven of those sins, we can be made right with God and be welcomed to Heaven—this isn’t our home.
1 Peter 2:11-12 11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
Peter calls us sojourners and exiles, meaning we’re just traveling through here in a place we don’t belong. An exile is someone kept from their real home. The Israelites were exiled from the chosen land and forced to live in Babylon for a time as punishment for not following God and as a way to get them back on track. Adam and Eve’s original sin in the garden of Eden forced them to be separated from God and, because of them, we come into this world separated from Him also, by our own sin.
But through Jesus, we can be reconciled with God and welcomed home when we pass from this life.
When we’re part of larger communities like those that form in the sports of rodeo and bull riding or other equine sports and competitions, we actually see more loss than the average families. We have extended families that give us more opportunity to grieve but also more opportunity to remember, this isn’t our home.
As believers, we’re part of an even larger community of travelers who are just passing through this life and Peter doesn’t just ask, but urges us live in a way that those who encounter us in our journey here, could come to know Jesus by seeing that we’re set apart from the rest of the world. When they see that we don’t fit in, it’s because it’s strange to them that we take joy in our struggles, that we help others without personal gain or that we’re always encouraging someone else. In a culture that can often be selfish, it shows how much we don’t fit in and that we really don’t belong here.
It can be hard as we go through the struggles we face here to understand just how temporary this place is for us and that wherever we try to put down roots or however long we travel from place to place, rodeo to rodeo, all those places will never last. Eventually, sooner than we think, as believers we’ll find ourselves where we’re meant to be—where we’re wanted so badly that God sent Jesus to die for us to make a way that we could be there with him.
Hebrews 13:14For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.
The author of this book is reminding us the same thing. Our place here isn’t going to last and that we’re not just waiting,but wanting to reach the place we’ll spend eternity.
It can be hard as we go through the struggles we face here to understand just how temporary this place is for us and that wherever we try to put down roots or however long we travel from place to place, rodeo to rodeo, all those places will never last. Eventually, sooner than we think, as believers we’ll find ourselves where we’re meant to be—where we’re wanted so badly that God sent Jesus to suffer and die for us to make a way that we could be there with him forever.
A bad day with cattle can be turned around by an encouraging prayer
By Scott Hilgendorff/ Cowboys of the Cross
Two of three heifers delivered dead calves, the transmission just went out on the truck and it’s only two years old and now the weather has turned worse and three days of rain is turning into six with pastures looking like swamps. You haven’t prayed in weeks, it’s just been so busy and now, when you go to talk to God, you just feel angry and decide not to pray at all.
That’s when a friend sends you a text that says, “Hey man, I just want you to know my wife and I prayed for you this morning.”
They may or may not have known everything that was going on or what you needed but at a minimum, it feels pretty good knowing others are even thinking about you and, even better, you feel like you have something you can thank God about and it opens the door to pray again.
The encouragement
Part of Matthew 6:6 says, But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.
We’re cautioned not to be like the Pharisees whose actions were often about calling attention to themselves as the religious elite that tried to control much of the behavior of the people of that time when it came to their relationship with God.
But we’re also called to encourage one another.
1 Thessalonians 5:11Therefore encourage one another and build eachotherup, just as in fact you are doing.
The church was doing a good job of this but in his letter to them, Paul was encouraging them to keep it up.
Sometimes we don’t know how to help someone but praying for them can be the encouragement that gets a person through a day. Sometimes, it can be a moment where someone who isn’t a believer sees Christians in a positive light instead of the negative perceptions they had. Even asking someone how you can pray for them can be a non-intrusive way to open the door to talking about your faith. But I know at least one instance where telling someone they had been prayed for was the between life and death. It was answered prayer for them when they were asking God to show them that someone cared.
We have to trust the Holy Spirit to lead us to when it’s good to share that we’ve prayed or when we need to keep it behind a closed door. When we know it will encourage someone and it isn’t about seeking attention or appreciation, that’s usually a good time to tell the person it was done.
The bang! The traumatic moment of losing someone under his command that brought a lot of other experiences together into a turning point that left Virginia Bull Rider Austin Beaty clinging to his faith. He wants his honest story to bring encouragement to you about the importance of a saving faith in Jesus, especially when you reach a breaking point.
Spiritual warfare is real and can throw all kinds of sin in your path
The Battle Against Sin Part 2
By Josh McCarthy / Cowboys of the Cross
I mentioned earlier that it’s a good idea to know who you are up against in any fight, this week we are going to dive into detail on what has been identified as the three main sources of sin.
The Flesh
This describes us, our self-centeredness, our thoughts and motivations. One of the old timers of the faith once said, “We aren’t sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners.”
My heeler isn’t a cow dog because he bites cows; he’s a cow dog, and therefore he bites cows. It’s in his nature. But unlike my heeler biting cows, sin is never a good or right thing for us as Christians. Sadly, it is our nature (Romans 3:23: …for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.) I think one of the most important things for us to see is the sin in ourselves. Jesus tells us in Matthew 15:18-19, “But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.” He points to the heart of the issue, and it’s our hearts.
It’s a very popular theme on Facebook and everywhere else nowadays to follow our hearts. In a way, I can see how that sounds good. Some might mean it as, “God has given you certain passions in life that aren’t sinful and you should pursue those for His glory, not your own,” and yeah, that’s okay. Unfortunately, most (if not all) people mean it as, “do whatever you want to make you happy and don’t let anyone tell you no.” In response to that, let me just bring up Jeremiah 17:9:“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”
Or as one wise pard of faith put it, “The heart is an idol factory”.
The World
“When we are told to not love the world, the Bible is referring to the world’s corrupt value system,” says GotQuestions.org. There are a lot of things that fit into the category of the world’s corrupt value systems: basically take anything except God and put it as the ultimate “thing” in this life. The world tells us that having that gold buckle is all that matters, or that shiny new stock trailer, or that nice, fully-tooled saddle with all that silver on it, or even the family ranch (yeah, listing some of these things hurts me a little also). But Matthew 16:26 asks, “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” Jesus is talking about the cost of following Him.
The promises of this world don’t last. “The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:17). Does this mean we just throw everything away and become a hermit with a Bible? As Paul would say, by no means! (Or by a looser translation, heck no!) We are called to be in the world but not of it (John 17:15-19). There are a lot of good gifts God has made – horses, cattle, and blue heeler dogs being some of my favorites, and the occasional shiny silver bit or two – but I need to be watching to make sure I don’t make those things the ultimate part of my life where only God should be.
The Devil
Depending on who you talk to, the Devil either doesn’t exist or is responsible for everything including that last cold, your recent buck off, and those yearlings breaking out (and now you have to sort out three different feed lot pens this morning!). I’m here to tell you, neither one of the above views is accurate.
As Christians, we know that there is a spiritual realm. God Himself is a spiritual being (John 4:24). We also know that God created spiritual beings that we call angels and demons (including the Devil). While it’s a good idea not to obsess about these created spiritual beings, the Bible teaches about them and about spiritual warfare so it is something we should have a grasp on. Jesus also had many encounters with demons during His earthly ministry which looked more like them begging to not be destroyed compared to a fair fight.
So who is the Devil? He is a demonic spiritual being. He is the serpent in Genesis 3, and in John 8:44 he is called the father of lies. 2 Corinthians 4:4 calls him the god of this world and his purpose is stated there: to blind the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the good news of the Gospel. The Devil and his demons do this blinding in a number of ways. Two examples would be getting people to believe God doesn’t exist or getting people to believe in a false god or spiritual force. Even things we might think are harmless, like yoga, visualization or meditation can be used to blind us. Before I go further I want to note that I’m not talking about stretching and exercise, picturing something in your head like the right moves to ride a bull and how to swing that perfect heel shot, or filling your mind with Scripture; I’m talking about the “New Age” practices that are far from harmless with their emphasis on going around God to attempt to influence our life and the world around it.
If you say, “If I visualize it in my mind I will achieve it” (visualization), you have basically made yourself God, which God calls idolatry (Exodus 20:3). If you get into the idea of meditation to “empty your mind” or to get to a sub conscious or unconscious part of your mind to be on the same brain wave as that bronc or bull, or ask for a spiritual guide, you just might get one in the demonic sense. If you get into yoga and start believing you need to find your “center” and that everything has a good or bad “aura” – or, heck, we’ve all heard someone mention the idea of karma – you’re embracing pagan ideas that come to us from Eastern mysticism. All of these and more are wrapped up in the New Age movement, what God would call witchcraft. Deuteronomy 18 :10-12 tells us: Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord…”
Now these three enemies in the fight against sin might have you thinking, “How am I going to do this, even if I think I’m John Wayne?” The answer is found in Ephesians 2:4-10: “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”
We have been saved from these enemies and we are empowered by God himself to wage this daily fight. Verse 4 shows us the answer to our next question, the “why” in the battle against sin – which we’ll answer in a couple of weeks. #keepupthefight
Feel free to comment below how we can be praying for you in your fight.
Once you’ve chased down that dream and that gold buckle is on your belt or in a case with some others, you now have a perfect, modern day example of what Jesus was telling us in Matthew.
Matthew 6:19-21“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
A buckle understandably becomes something we treasure. You worked hard to earn it. You had adventures along the way with stories to tell your grandchildren when they ask about that buckle on the shelf. All those are good things but we have to look at what we value more.
The Bible has much to say about idols. Many of the descriptions involve protecting the Israelites from following the false gods of the cultures all around them but an idol is anything we put before God. If we’re chasing that buckle, chasing that relationship or chasing that bigger truck, harder than we are chasing our relationship with Jesus, then we likely are dealing with idolatry.
John 5:21 Dear children,keep yourselves from idols.
In this verse, John has just finished explaining who we are in Christ and how important it is to know we’re separate from the rest of the world; that we are following something that is good and true, moving away from our sinful natures.
He then kindly warns us to stay away from idols that could take our focus away from God.
That doesn’t mean we don’t pursue our gold buckle dreams. What Jesus is telling us in Matthew is that everything we can earn here or gain here is temporary and can be taken away. Our time here is short and our eternity in Heaven, where we truly belong, is where our focus should be.
If our hearts are on God and not what we’re trying to accomplish, what we work toward can easily become something that honors Him instead of an idol or something that will only give us temporary comfort or pleasure in this life.
By focusing our attention on God and looking for ways to glorify Him in our pursuits, our hearts on Him and what is yet to come in heaven and in that way, we’re storing up treasures in heaven. When we’re seeking God, everything else falls in line behind that. Nothing can become an idol and everything we do becomes about God.
Sometimes that might mean what we pursue changes. If something is becoming an idol in our life, if we can’t find a way to turn it toward God, then it becomes something we might need to let go. However our dreams might change or our paths might be altered, when our focus is on God and our treasure in heaven, then we will be at peace, even joyful, with the changes in our lives.
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