Month: November 2016

Genesis 14 – Give Credit Where Credit is Due

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I didn’t like group projects in school, because one person would do most of the work while those who did little took the credit. When a group of people work on something it’s hard to give credit where credit is due.
In Genesis chapter 14, you find Abram making sure to give credit where credit is due.
In this chapter, a band of marauders has swept through the land taking anything they can get their hands on…including people. When Abram finds out these marauders have kidnapped his nephew and family, he mobilizes his men and they pursue the marauders; defeating them and reclaiming all they had taken.
On his return, Abram is met by the King of Sodom and the King/Priest of Salem. Abram shows his gratitude to God by giving the priest one-tenth of all he had reclaimed.
Then, the King of Sodom tells Abram he can keep the rest of the bounty for himself. But Abram refuses to take anything except what his men had already eaten because Abram didn’t want people to see how blessed he was and give the King of Sodom credit for it. Abram wanted to make sure God got the credit for all He had done for Abram.
Giving God the credit He’s due is a good practice. James 1:17 tells us that every good gift ultimately comes from God. Yes, we may work hard for what we have, but even then it is God who gives us the ability to earn what we earn. Deut. 8:18.
Think about it. When people look at your life, do they assume the good things in your life are the result of your hard work or do you make it clear those good things come from God? Are you giving credit where credit is due?
Bret Legg is the Teaching and Counseling Pastor at Warren Baptist Church in Augusta, GA.

Genesis 13 – The Gift That Gives Back

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One holiday season, my family and I passed a man collecting donations for a charity. He was using an up-turned tambourine to collect the money, so I gave my preschooler a handful of change and told her to put it in. Before I could stop her, raised that fistful of change into the air and forcefully threw it into the tambourine. The next thing I knew, that gift was flying back in our faces like shrapnel from a grenade. It was the gift that gave back.
You see the same thing in Genesis chapter 13. Abram and his nephew Lot had become quite successful. Their herds had grown to the point that the land can no longer sustain both of them. They had to separate.
Abram, being the elder, had the freedom to choose the choice real estate, but instead, he generously gave his nephew first choice. The youthful Lot chose the prime land and Abram was left with the not-so-prime land. But as soon as Lot left, God promised to give Abram all the land he could see.
Too often, we hold onto things out of a fear of scarcity. We’re afraid that if we give it away, we won’t have it when we need it. Slowly, our self-protection crowds out our generosity.
Abram discovered that generosity is the gift that gives back. Jesus confirmed this when he said, “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” – Luke 6:38.
Where do you need to let go and be more generous? What’s holding you back? Imagine what God might do if you were more generous. Look for a place to be generous today.
Bret Legg is the Teaching and Counseling Pastor at Warren Baptist Church in Augusta, GA.

Change Your Gratitude

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Have you ever wished you could change your marriage? Maybe you were at odds with your spouse or maybe your marriage had just become mundane and predictable. Whatever it was, you didn’t like the way things were and you wished you could change things.

In a TED Talk entitled “The 3 A’s of Awesome,” Neil Pasricha tells of a time when his life needed a change. A difficult economy had cost him his job, his best friend had committed suicide and his marriage was falling apart.

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Genesis 12 – Chosen

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I was the kid who was always the last one to be picked when choosing up sides for basketball, baseball or any sport. I didn’t know much about sports and was not very athletic. I was more of a detriment to a team than an asset. So I was only chosen when there were no other choices left.
In Genesis Chapter 12, God chooses Abram as His first pick. It is an odd pick, in that Abram was a worshipper of false gods and knew nothing about God. It was also an odd pick because God knew that despite a great start, Abram would let Him down by the end of the chapter. Yet God chose Abram and made him the captain of the team!
It gives me hope to know that despite my lack of knowledge and despite my failures, God is willing to choose me. There are certainly others more qualified, more faithful, more courageous and more obedient, but he still chooses me.
Maybe you know what it feels like to not be chosen, to be passed over, to be rejected. You may not feel like God would ever choose you, but guess what…you’re chosen. All you have to do is step out and follow the Chooser.
Bret Legg is the Teaching and Counseling Pastor at Warren Baptist Church in Augusta, GA.

How to Move From a Marriage That’s Stuck to a Marriage That Sticks

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Ok, confession time. When I was a teenager, I got stuck parking. I’m not talking about parking your car in a parking spot at Walmart. I’m talking about getting stuck on some deserted back road because I wanted to “spend some time” with a girl.

I will avoid the details to spare myself the painful self-disclosure, but I remember that feeling of being stuck. My first thought was, “This is no big deal. I’ll just get out and rock the car a little.” When that didn’t work, I thought, “Ok. I just need a little traction.” So I put rocks, limbs, and anything I could find under the rear wheels to give me some traction. Then I got behind the car to push, telling my girlfriend to give it some gas. Those of you who are smarter than me can guess what happened next. I was bathed in a hail of mud, rocks, and sticks…but the car remained stuck.

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Genesis 11 – One Tower, Two Sins

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The other day I watched my granddaughter building a tower out of blocks. As the tower grew higher, so did her pride. But the tower would eventually come crashing down, either because her pride would cause her to exceed her limits or her younger brother would maliciously bring the tower crashing to the ground.
In Genesis chapter eleven, the people of earth come together to build a great tower as a monument to their acclaim and accomplishment. This doesn’t sound like such a bad thing, but God doesn’t like it. He confuses their language and causes them to scatter…leaving the tower unfinished.
Was God like my grandson, maliciously waiting to tear down what they had built? Or did God just have something against building towers?
The problem had nothing to do with the tower. The problem was the two big sins driving the people to build the tower.
First was the sin of self-elevation. The people were building the tower as a monument to their greatness. Their pride had caused them to elevate their desires and importance above God.
Second was the sin of self-preservation. Self-preservation sounds like a good thing, but not when it’s in direct opposition to God’s desire. In Genesis 9:1, God had told Noah and his sons to multiply and fill the earth. Now in Genesis 11, mankind was huddled up in one spot to protect their fame and power, rather then doing what God had commanded.
You might not be building a tower, but could God be using disruption and confusion to address sins of self-elevation or self-preservation in your life?
Bret Legg is the Teaching and Counseling Pastor at Warren Baptist Church in Augusta, GA.

Genesis 9-10 – Fresh Start, Same Heart

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“If I could just start fresh, things would be different!”
We think a fresh start will change things, so we change houses, jobs, locations and even spouses trying to get that fresh start. But we don’t need a fresh start that changes where we are and what we have. We need a fresh start that changes who we are and what has us.
Genesis chapters nine and ten are about a failed fresh start. In these chapters, we find the great flood has receded, Noah and his family have come out of the ark, and God has given them a fresh start in a brand new world.
But that fresh start doesn’t last. Noah winds up in a drunken, naked stupor. We don’t know the details, but we do know that one of Noah’s sons (Ham) walks in on Noah inappropriately. As a result, Noah proclaims that Ham’s descendants will serve the descendants of his siblings. So much for a fresh start!
Their fresh start went south because new surroundings will not override old hearts. Since the Garden of Eden, man’s heart has pulled away from God like a car that needs a front end alignment. And left unchecked, our sin will pull us off into a very bad ditch.
What we need is not new surroundings but a new heart, and a new heart is not something we can create. According to Ezekiel 36:26, God must give us a new heart.
Where in your life do you wish you had a fresh start? Could it be that instead of a fresh start, you need a fresh heart?
Bret Legg is the Teaching and Counseling Pastor at Warren Baptist Church in Augusta, GA.