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 | Jun 22, 2023 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
PART TWO of TWO Being Canceled
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Cancel-culture wants us to be held accountable for our words and actions no matter how long ago and how much we have changed since then. Even without being a Christian, we mature and change so that sometimes views we held years ago aren’t even close to those we hold now.
Christians specifically go through a transformation we call sanctification, the process of becoming more like Jesus.
What the cancel culture around us doesn’t understand is what Jesus did for us to start the process of sanctification—he canceled our debt.
2 Colossians 2:13-14 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.
The debt referred to her means our offense or sin against God. Jesus canceled our debt by dying on the cross to take the punishment meant for our debt, our sin.
The gospel in really simple terms is built around Jesus paying the price for our debt. It’s our sins that separate us from God and are going to be judged and condemned by Him without Jesus. But Jesus was sent to live perfectly among us to serve as a sacrifice in place of our sins. His death on the cross took the punishment so that by believing Jesus was the Son of God, did in fact die for our sins and was resurrected after his death, and by acknowledging we’re sinners and asking to be forgiven, we can be forgiven of our sin—our debt is then paid for by Jesus’ death.
That’s how we have the phrase or understanding that Jesus paid the price for our sins. Where our culture holds our mistakes against us and wants to take away what we have for our past mistakes, it’s those past mistakes that God cancels through Jesus. He no long holds the past against us and even extends grace to future mistakes we might make.
It’s like having $500 in fines for a fight you got into with the arena boss that got out of hand when he pushed you to nod your head before the bull was off your leg. You weren’t going to be able to enter another rodeo until the fine was paid and knew you were in the wrong for throwing that left hook. You worked hard to set the money aside because you qualified for the finals but there was no way you could save that much on top of entry fees. You call the association office to see if you can convince them to find a way to let you enter only to find out the arena boss paid your fine and your entry fees.
Even though you sinned against him your whole life, your debt was canceled by Jesus and eternity in Heaven is waiting for you.
by admin | Jun 8, 2023 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
PART ONE of TWO Being Cancelled
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
A few years back, I watched a rodeo producer deal with the repercussions of a clown who made a joke that for several on the crowd, crossed the line over gender issues. This was before it was the current hot topic in almost daily news stories.
While it wasn’t a large group that was offended, a few of them carried some pretty big sticks and the incident escalated into media coverage and increasing angry mob that, while not even present at the event to understand the context, were demanding the producer be shut down from putting on events. It didn’t matter that he didn’t make the joke, that some of it was being taken out of context or the intent of the clown who ad-libbed the remark and was more careless than intending offense.
With the use of so many different social media platforms, even in writing, it’s easy to get carried away and say something inappropriate or offensive. But what was seen as offensive ten years ago can potentially be seen as hate speech today.
The current cultural trend to “cancel” anything we disagree with puts anything we’ve ever posted online under scrutiny if a controversial incident occurs, no matter how long ago.
As young adults, students have lost scholarships for posts they made when they were barely a teenager, with those stripping the scholarship away not caring at all that in that time period, a young person is still learning who they are and what they believe and what they think about our culture. What they would have said five years ago is different than what they would say today.
This is especially true of Christians and even more so of adults who come to a saving faith in Jesus. Ideas they were once firm about, having gone through their formative years, have been changed as they learn more about what the Bible teaches and allow themselves to become more like Jesus.
Ephesians 4:21-24 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.
Once we have a saving faith in Jesus, we are transformed. God immediately will look past our sin to see us as perfect while the Holy Spirit will begin to make us more holy, more like Jesus.
Without Jesus, I know by my 20s, my thoughts and attitudes were different from when I was a kid but once I became a Christian, they changed again. And they continue to change as I continue to learn and study more and allow the Holy Spirit to help me treat others more like Jesus would.
I can’t imagine being canceled for something I said online 10 years ago. I’m not that person anymore. I’m not even the person I was last year in Jesus, we are transformed. God immediately will look past our sin to see us as perfect while the Holy Spirit will begin to make us more holy, more like Jesus.
Without Jesus, I know by my 20s, my thoughts and attitudes were different from when I was a kid but once I became a Christian, they changed again. And they continue to change as I continue to learn and study more and allow the Holy Spirit to help me treat others more like Jesus would.
I can’t imagine being canceled for something I said online 10 years ago. I’m not that person anymore. I’m not even the person I was last year. But even when the world holds our past against us, God, through what Jesus did for us on the cross, will never hold it against us as long as we have placed our faith in Jesus.
(To understand more about a saving faith in Jesus and how to receive God’s gift of eternal life, be sure to read through the “our your entry fees paid” page).
by admin | Dec 10, 2020 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff/Cowboys of the Cross
He paid your fees. It’s an expression used to suggest that Jesus paid our fees and we’re going to enter Heaven, but we forget an important part—we have to make the call-ins.
The expression is being used more in the rodeo community when someone has passed away to declare the person is in Heaven.
It’s taken from The Cowboy Prayer that many announcers use to open a rodeo. “Help us, Lord, to live our lives in such a manner that when we make that last inevitable ride to the country up there, where the grass grows lush, green and stirrup high, and the water runs cool, clear and deep, that you, as our last Judge, will tell us that our entry fees are paid.”
When we lose someone, we often take to social media and proclaim that person’s fees have been paid.But if they never entered the rodeo, that isn’t possible.Jesus died on the cross to take the punishment and pay the price meant for our sins. That’s where the idea comes from that Jesus paid our fees for us like getting to the rodeo secretary to find out someone else paid our fees on our behalf. Instead of being entered into the rodeo, we accept the idea we’ve been given entry to Heaven. That’s where we need to understand more of what’s known as the gospel.Our sin separates us from God. He will not allow it in His presence and He will punish it. We understand that punishment to mean we go to Hell instead of Heaven when we die where we suffer for eternity.
It’s a harsh thought during the warm and fuzzy holiday season that focuses on images of a baby surrounded by angels, shepherds and farm animals.But the baby grew to be our Savior so that by believing he was the Son of God that died for us, yes our fees could be paid by that death, but only by first recognizing our sin, confessing and repenting of it and asking to be forgiven.
We’re given reference to Jesus taking our punishment but also the need to repent in Acts 3:18-19 But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Messiah would suffer. 19 Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,”
By recognizing this and asking for forgiveness, God will never look at us again as sinners destined for punishment.
Our sins can’t be forgiven and we can’t be given a perfect eternity in Heaven if we have never truly been forgiven through Jesus. Our fees can’t be paid if we never entered the rodeo. It’s our job as traveling partners in this life, to make sure they get entered up by telling them the full gospel message.
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