Several horse trailers drove up, and cowboys were all around each one as they brought out rearing, bucking wild horses. They were getting ready for a contest in which three-man teams would try to saddle wild horses and ride them around a one-half-mile track. They were beautiful horses, but untamed and dangerous.
The people watching cringed and caught their breath as the teams of men struggled to master the horses and saddle them, and then mount them. The horses were rearing into the air and neighing in fear and anger. Men moved cautiously, jumping out of the way of sharp hooves.
And then the accident happened. A cowboy got into the saddle of one of the horses, only to be thrown to the ground as the horse reared and took off running. The cowboy lay perfectly still.
The other men gathered around him while the wild horses took off around the track. The contest was forgotten as men looked anxiously toward the announcer for help. Finally an ambulance drove up, put the young man on a stretcher and took him away.
It makes us compare this untamed wild horse to the story in the Bible in Mark 11 about the colt “whereon never man sat.” Normally an untamed colt would be fearful and resist having someone sit on its back. But the Lord Jesus needed this colt, and it became gentle and obedient for Him. People laid their clothes on the colt’s back for Jesus to sit on. As He rode the now-tamed colt, other people spread their clothes and branches of the trees in the road. The Lord Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the gentle colt with the people crying, “Hosanna; Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.” They were honoring Jesus, and yet they didn’t fully realize who He was.
Are you “tamed” in God’s eyes, or “untamed”? We all need “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). If you do not believe God but resist Him and disobey Him, you are like those wild horses, bucking and rearing and doing all you can to keep from being mastered by the Lord. First Corinthians 2:14 says, “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” You must be “born again” by receiving Christ as your Saviour before you will be “tamed” and happy to have God in control of your life.
God loves us so much He sent His only Son, Jesus, to bear the punishment for our sins. Will you let Him “tame” you by admitting honestly that you are a sinner and accept Jesus’ work on the cross for your sins?
“All we like sheep [or wild colts] have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity [sins] of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).
ML-03/26/1995