December 10, 2024
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I love to drive through Custer State Park in South Dakota. This time, we were driving through on our way to an outreach for the Lakota young people on a nearby reservation. I love the drive because, if I'm lucky, I'll get to see a lot of buffalo. I know you'll find this surprising, but seeing buffalo is one thing; riding them is another. Not that I ever have!
We were with our Lakota Christian brother, and we saw some buffalo! And he said, "Ron, I know someone who rides buffalo in parades, and on holidays." And I said, "Wait a minute! Rides a buffalo?" I can't imagine boarding one of these wonderful wild animals. Somebody asked this buffalo rider, "What's it take?" Here's what he said: "Patience. If you neglect them one or two days, he won't be tamed any more."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Buffalo Riding."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Romans 7, beginning at verse 19. It actually talks about the buffalo - the wild animal inside you and me; a wild beast that does not want to be tamed. Verse 19, "For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it." Verse 24 Paul says, "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" You get almost a hopeless feeling up to this point.
And then suddenly, "Bam! The sun comes out." Here's the good news. "Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!" See, there's an animal inside of us that wants us to go against God. It's like the hymn writer says, "Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love." We know what God wants, and we want it too. But we keep choosing to let that part of us that is out-of-control run us. We just can't seem to tame it!
But we're not without hope. There's a Savior, not only from the penalty of sin, which is huge, but from the power of sin. Romans 6:14 says, "Sin will no longer be your master." When we surrender that wild part to Jesus, He begins to tame what has always ruled us; what has always beaten us. But you don't tame it once and for all. It takes patience like the buffalo rider said.
Luke 9:23 says, "Take up your cross daily and follow Me." If you neglect that buffalo - that animal inside you - one or two days, he won't be tamed any more. That sin that has beaten you, it's got to be beaten now on a 24-hour basis, 24-hour victories. I won it today. Some of us have made the mistake of thinking that big, great, one-time spiritual experience would tame the buffalo once and for all. But he keeps getting away from us; keeps riding over us. It's because we missed the daily part.
If you conquer sin one day at a time, and if Jesus is the only one who can conquer it, doesn't it stand to reason you have to be with Jesus each new day. Now, you notice something that happens consistently when you miss a day or two of your time with Jesus. At least it happens to me. The dark side of me starts to surface again, re-strengthened. I start to see traits that I was seeing less of, and suddenly I start seeing more of. And so does everyone close to me.
It's as if that daily surrender time with Jesus is the only dam that's holding back the parts of me I hate. You miss being with the Savior because of sin, and the sin starts to leak back in. You need a constant get-together. You need a consistent, non-negotiable time together with Jesus, where you again make Him the Lord of your stubborn sin. That's literally the margin between victory and defeat.
We've all got a buffalo to tame. Let him go unattended for a couple of days, and sin will stampede right over you again. But you can ride the buffalo that has ridden you by daily turning over the reigns to the One who died to tame the animal inside you. He is the Savior. He is Jesus.