Sometimes the cheater still comes out ahead

Sometimes the cheater still comes out ahead

by | Apr 4, 2024 | Behind the Bucking Chutes

By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross

Sometimes the bad guy wins. There really is a rodeo judge out there that has it in for someone and successfully screws the cowboy over every chance he gets. There really is someone lying and cheating their way to get ahead of you at work. Some of you are victims of crimes in which the person got away with it or the punishment just didn’t seem like enough.

When I get to teach something and it’s one of the ‘difficult’ Bible verses like the one that you’re about to read, I get it. I know it’s easy for me to teach it but it doesn’t mean it’s always any easier for me to live it out when I’m standing there asking you to try.

Romans 12: 19-21 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

This is honestly harder for me to say than you might think because I don’t want to share the bad thoughts as someone who is in a position to teach and minister to you but this is my reality right now: there is someone out there that a small part of me would take satisfaction in taking a swing at with my baseball bat. I’m not joking. And it troubles me that as mature as I would like to be in my faith, that I’m still capable of a thought like this, though I’m grateful and want to be clear it is a small part of me and I would never take that action.

But what it shows about me is that I do get it when I teach verses like this. I’m not asking you guys to do things I either presently find hard or have had a chance to work through myself as I’ve learned more about what’s in the Bible.

It’s hard to see someone get away with evil and be satisfied that God will take care of it when the systems in place fail. But here’s the deal. Adam and Eve decided in the garden they wanted the same knowledge as God and allowed sin to be a part of our world. They wanted to be able to judge for themselves what is right and wrong, rather than leave it to God. It’s a natural part of being human but as Christians, we’re made new and meant to be becoming more like Jesus and less like our old selves.

When we’re dealing with Christians who do wrong to others, there are several Biblical responses to that including church discipline e and a process to make the situation right. A Christian who is truly saved would want to follow these steps, particularly ones laid out in Matthew 18:15-20.

For non-believers, there are two outcomes for someone who has done evil to you, they will repent through God’s grace and mercy

or they will face God’s judgement and spend eternity in hell.

I have a hard time taking comfort or being at peace with someone who has wronged me enough to want to hit them with a bat, suffering for eternity in hell when I know I’ve been forgiven of my wrongs and received God’s grace and mercy through Jesus’s death and resurrection and my own repentance and saving faith in him.

Right now, I’m also having a hard time with the idea of showing kindness to the people who have done evil but they deserve the shot at salvation I received and while they haven’t received the justice that I would hope for them, they don’t find Jesus the lord of their life, hell is the reality they face.

While those verses in Romans are not teaching this, while I continue to wrestle with God’s direction for me to repay evil with kindness, what I can do in the meantime is follow other Biblical teaching that directs us to treat others with kindness so that they could come to saving faith in Jesus.

It doesn’t take away my responsibility to work through these verses and adopt them into how I approach the evil that we do in this world, but it does provide a positive outcome that can impact the world around us for Jesus.

We all want to be treated fairly. God does that

We all want to be treated fairly. God does that

by | Dec 10, 2020 | Behind the Bucking Chutes

By Scott Hilgendorff/Cowboys of the Cross

We all want to be treated fairly. In rodeo and bull riding, we want a judge that doesn’t give a thumbs-up to a 7.8 second ride to the number two cowboy while the guy just breaking in gets a zero for a 7.9 on the stop watch. We want to believe that a draw never gets rigged in favor of someone or against someone a stock contractor hates.

As much as people in our society are against Christianity because all they hear us say is that our beliefs are right above others, there is no one more fair than God.

All sin is punished equally. God won’t allow any of it in His presence in Heaven and the judgment against sin is eternity separated from God in Hell. Any and all sin is punished equally.

But God wants us with Him in Heaven so He made a way that we all could be redeemed of our sin through Jesus Christ.

John 3:16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

That is one of the most well-known Bible verses but how to be made right before God only starts there.

Jesus was and is the Son of God sent here to die and take the punishment meant for our sins. What he endured for us is horrific but when you take the time to think and understand it, that’s how much he loves us that 2,000 years before any of us were born, he took on all of God’s judgment and wrath against our sin.

Romans 5:10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

All that is required of us is to believe who Jesus was and is, to recognize that however big or small, we all sin and to confess and repent of that sin, asking to be forgiven. That’s what it means to have a saving faith in Jesus and that’s what gives us the assurance we have a permanent home in Heaven.

When we hear the saying in rodeo that he paid your fees, THAT’S the seriousness of what that nice-sounding statement meant. He didn’t just do us a favor, he suffered horribly on our behalf so the we could have eternal life with him next to our Father, God, in Heaven.

That’s a pretty even pen of bulls, everyone has the same chance and none of us can do more than another to earn our place there. Believe in Jesus, confess your sin, repent of it and ask to be forgiven. That’s it. No more, no less.

None of us can do more than another to improve that score. No matter how much good or bad we think we’ve done, it all comes down to what we believe and our willingness to ask for and receive forgiveness from God, through Jesus. 

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