Jesus – Cowboyology

Cowboys, farmers, oil workers or anyone who lifts heavy stuff knows what I’m talking about.

There is that guy who is always picking up the lighter end, leaving the heavier end for you.

Whether its the branding pot or the portable genset some guys always manage to get the lighter end of things.

With Easter now passed, but Jesus still risen, it is helpful to see that [Tweet “Jesus has given his followers the lighter end of things”].

Charles Spurgeon looked at the example of Simon of Cyrene who was conscripted to carry Jesus’ cross on the way to Golgotha. Spurgeon said that Simon’s example applies to us whom Jesus summoned to “take up your cross and follow me”:

Do not forget…that you bear this cross in partnership. It is the opinion of some that Simon only carried one end of the cross, and not the whole of it. That is very possible; Christ may have carried the heavier part, against the transverse beam, and Simon may have borne the lighter end. Certainly it is so with you; you do but carry the light end of the cross, Christ bore the heavier end. (Morning and Evening).

Now in Spurgeon’s example of Simon, he is applying it to Christian believers. He is talking about sanctification, not salvation. There is no sense in which a person can contribute to their salvation. There is not even a bit of ‘light lifting’ that a sinner can offer in order to partner with Jesus to save himself. As the old hymn put it:

Jesus paid it all,

All to him I owe,

Sin has left a crimson stain,

He washed it white as snow.

But for the follower, who belongs to Jesus, and who is called to suffer with Christ, their suffering is described as cross-bearing (Matt 16.24, Luke 14.27).

Sometimes we can make a really big deal of our sufferings, going on and on about how bad we have it. As Paul said, however, “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor 4.17).

Even in our ‘crosses’ Jesus is carrying the load. Even our ‘lifting’ is only possible because of his grace.

Yet his grace allows us to always be picking up the lighter end.

The author of the Hank, the Cowdog children’s stories wrote an article for American Cowboy on ‘political correctness’ and how that worldview sees the West. In our cultural moment, John Erickson’s article highlights the differences in worldview that are becoming inescapable.

Erickson writes:

It took me a while to figure out the obvious, that there are people in the entertainment business whose decisions are driven by ideology, not by experience or artistic judgment. And some of those people just don’t like the West I was describing—which I knew to the bone; which they might have seen through an airplane window at 30,000 feet.

They don’t like the history of the frontier. They don’t like cattle or beef. They don’t like people who pray before a meal. They don’t approve of anyone who might spur a horse or rope a calf, and they sure don’t approve of women who stay home to raise their children. Maybe they don’t approve of marriage either.

I think that Erickson is pretty accurate as a recent Calgary Herald column gives evidence of the ‘dislike.’

But as we consider what our greatest need is, it is not for the culture of the West, as much as I personally love it. It is rather the culture of the new city and new world order established by the King of Kings, Jesus Christ. If your world isn’t governed by this King, then who are you choosing?

“at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”. (The Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Church at Philippi, chapter 2, verses 10-11).

See the rest of John Erickson’s article at: American Cowboy

Cowboyology

By CLINT HUMFREY

Tag Archives: Jesus

Always Picking Up the Lighter End

A Worldview Against the West

The author of the Hank, the Cowdog children’s stories wrote an article for American Cowboy on ‘political correctness’ and how that worldview sees the West. In our cultural moment, John Erickson’s article highlights the differences in worldview that are becoming inescapable.