6 - 2018 | Bret Legg

Numbers 1-4 – God is in the Details

August 25, 2020June 24, 2018 by Bret Legg

Detail people. We all know them. They are the people who think in terms of who, what, when, and how. They need to dot every I and cross every T. They are all about the nuts and bolts, and the plans and procedures. These are the people who wouldn’t dream of putting something together without first reading the instructions.

I am not a detail person. I think in big pictures and broad brush strokes. I process things in terms of concepts, principles, and rules of thumb. I can easily get bogged down and bored with details.

When you’re not a detail person, Numbers chapters 1-4 can leave you feeling flat and unfulfilled. These chapters are full of…

How many?
Where do they go?
What is the procedure?
Who does what?

As I read these first four chapters of Numbers, I tried to stay open to what God might be trying to say to this big-picture person. Through all these recorded details, I began to see my need to be more balanced. Yes, I’m a big picture person, but I need to pay more attention to details. After all, the big picture is made up of the little details.

God is perfect, complete, and balanced. He is a God of the structure, as well as a God of the spectacular. As I grow more into His likeness, I need to pay more attention to the structure of things…in both my personal and professional life. The idea of structuring for success began with God, not some business management guru.

If you’re a detail person, use that God-given tendency to manage things for God’s glory. And if you’re not a detail person, lean into the details more and learn to see God there.

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Bret Legg is the Teaching and Counseling Pastor at Warren Baptist Church in Augusta, GA.

How To Be A Better Person

August 14, 2018June 21, 2018 by Bret Legg

If you want to know how to be a better spouse and have a better marriage, it starts with learning how to be a better person.

Right now, my spouse is probably laughing her head off at the idea that I can tell you how to be a better person. She would be the first to tell you I have a long way to go in that department. And the idea that I could give you all the answers you need on how to be a better person in one short blog post is pretty laughable also.

But I can give you the basic building block for how to be a better person. Then, you can take those basic building blocks and build on them in a way that best suits you, your situation, and your need.

Here are the basic building block for how to be a better person:

Leviticus 27 – A Final Word from Leviticus

August 25, 2020June 19, 2018 by Bret Legg

Ever had a question you wanted to ask, but didn’t think it would be appropriate? “When is your baby due?” “Are you ill, because you don’t look so good?” These questions could be politically incorrect in certain circumstances and could backfire on you.

From time to time, I’ve had questions about God that could have been deemed “religiously incorrect” if I had asked them out loud.

Here’s one such question: “Why do we need to give to God? He doesn’t need anything. And if He did, He could make it out of nothing whenever He wanted!”

There. I said it! But now that it’s out there, what’s the answer? Since God doesn’t need our stuff, what’s the purpose of giving it?

Leviticus chapter 27 is all about giving to God, but it can also teach us a lot about ourselves.

We’re a very tangible people, living in a very tangible world. Gathering our tangibles around us and keeping them close makes us feel secure. But the more we give our tangible things to God, the more we must find our security in the great intangible…God!

A person can’t surrender the ownership of their stuff to God without first surrendering ownership of themselves to God. We’re very connected to our stuff, so the more God has our stuff, the more God has us.

Another way to look at it is that our level of giving things to God is an indication of our level of keeping things from God. The less of our stuff we give to Him, the more of our self we keep from Him.

How much of yourself are you giving to God? All you need to do is look at how much of your stuff you’re keeping for yourself.

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Bret Legg is the Teaching and Counseling Pastor at Warren Baptist Church in Augusta, GA.

Leviticus 26 – The American Dream vs God’s Dream

August 25, 2020June 19, 2018 by Bret Legg

The American Dream…peace, prosperity, protection, and prominence. These are the things we long and strive for. We’re told that, because we live in America, these things are ours for the taking, if we are willing to work hard enough to make them happen. There may be a measure of truth in that, but God’s take on this is a little different.

In Leviticus chapter 26, the Israelites were preparing to enter into the promised land of Canaan, and they were dreaming their own version of the American dream. But God wanted to make it clear that the things they longed for would not be realized and retained by their own ingenuity and hard work.

They would only realize their dreams when they honored God and submitted to Him as their source and satisfaction for life. God is the best of what life has to offer, because He is life itself. (John 14:6) (Acts 17:28) (Gen. 2:7). God loves us too much to allow us to short-change ourselves by self-sufficently scrambling for things we can’t produce, can’t sustain, and won’t completely satisfy.

When we start sliding into the pit of doing things our way to get what we think will bring us happiness, God will increasingly turn up the heat of consequences to get us back on the path of blessing as soon as possible. He wants to reveal the weakness of our pride and self-direction, and He wants to do this to bless us, not to break us. Even in our waywardness, His goal is to redeem us and restore us.

We must ask ourselves, “Am I trying to achieve security and satisfaction through scrambling for what I want or submitting to what God wants?” Am I more interested in the American dream, or God’s dream?

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Bret Legg is the Teaching and Counseling Pastor at Warren Baptist Church in Augusta, GA.

I Learned 3 Simple Marriage Rules From a Preschooler

August 14, 2018June 14, 2018 by Bret Legg

Last weekend, I learned three simple marriage rules from a preschooler when I picked up my four-year-old granddaughter for a much needed date. It was a standard date for us: getting some much-needed essentials from the toy store, catching up on the latest children’s literature at the bookstore, and topping it all off with some elegant dining at the local Chick-fil-A.

Among all the things she talked about (and she had a lot to talk about,) she filled me in on the latest news from her pre-K class. As she was catching me up on all the juicy Pre-K news, she told me her teacher expected everyone in her class to follow three rules:

How Parenting Can Improve Partnering

June 14, 2022June 7, 2018 by Bret Legg

In my last post (How Partnering Can Improve Parenting,) we looked at how improving your marriage could improve your parenting. It stressed the importance of making sure your partnering takes precedence over your parenting. (If you’ve not read that post, I encourage you to go back and read it.)

Now, we need to answer how parenting can improve partnering, and the answer is simply this…

“Your parenting should instruct your partnering.”

Yes, your partnering should take priority over your parenting, but your parenting can teach you to be a better partner. Here’s what I mean by this. If you listed the things you do for your kids, your list would look something like this…

Leviticus 25 – Rest and Freedom

August 25, 2020June 3, 2018 by Bret Legg

We live in a society that moves at a frantic pace. We seek to get as much as we can, as quickly as we can. We use every minute of every day, feeling like we can’t afford to slow down and take a break. We fear falling behind others…or maybe others getting ahead of us.

But in Leviticus chapter 25, God gives two mandates: the year of sabbath and the year of Jubilee.

The year of sabbath required that every seventh year, God’s people were to let the land rest. They were not to plant crops, till the soil, or harvest anything from the land.
The year of Jubilee required that every 50th year, anyone who had been forced into slavery due to economic hardship was released, and any property that had been forced into sale because of economic hardship was returned to the original owner.

The year of sabbath speaks of rest and the year of Jubilee speaks of freedom. Rest and freedom are critical to understanding God’s nature, because they are at the core of who He is and what He does.

God desires to lead us into rest and freedom in Christ. Jesus is the source of our rest (Matthew 11:28) and the catalyst for our freedom. (Luke 4:18) Our lives should be characterized by rest and freedom, so that a fatigued and frantic world may see Him and be drawn to Him.

So why do rest and freedom so often eludes us? The reason is that we misplace our reliance. Rest and freedom come from reliance on God…not on ourselves!

Is your life characterized by rest and freedom, or are you as frazzled and frayed as the rest of the world? On whom are you relying…really?

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Bret Legg is the Teaching and Counseling Pastor at Warren Baptist Church in Augusta, GA.

Leviticus 23-24 – Familiarity and Reverence

August 25, 2020June 3, 2018 by Bret Legg

There’s an old saying… “Familiarity breeds contempt.”

This can be true in our relationship with God, but the contempt looks more like casualness. Our familiarity with God can lead us to casually take Him for granted…which is a subtle form of contempt.

As we grow closer to God, our responses to Him should be like the response of the twenty-four elders in Revelation 4:9-11. There they fell down before God, casting anything they had of worth before Him, and confessing His majesty and greatness.

Now, we don’t live in the throne room of Heaven, so how can we keep our familiarity with God from turning to casualness and contempt? How can we give God the honor He deserves in the midst of our get-out-of-bed-and-pay-your-bills world?

In Leviticus chapters 23 and 24 we find two major elements of honoring God that can be applied to our everyday lives.

Leviticus chapter 23 calls God’s people to regularly REMEMBER His goodness and activity in their lives, and Leviticus chapter 24 calls God’s people to unquestionably OBEY His commands.

Remembering God’s goodness and obeying His commands should be a regular part of our everyday life. These two things should be as signature to us as our fingerprints. They should identify us as followers of Christ and citizens of Heaven.

So, don’t let your knowledge of God cause you to be casual in relating to Him. Daily remember His goodness, His power, and His deeds. Honor Him by quickly responding in obedience when He speaks to you.

Let your familiarity with God breed and increasing awe and reverence of Him.

SUBSCRIBE HERE.

Bret Legg is the Teaching and Counseling Pastor at Warren Baptist Church in Augusta, GA.

Numbers 1-4 – God is in the Details

How To Be A Better Person

Leviticus 27 – A Final Word from Leviticus

Leviticus 26 – The American Dream vs God’s Dream

I Learned 3 Simple Marriage Rules From a Preschooler

How Parenting Can Improve Partnering

Leviticus 25 – Rest and Freedom

Leviticus 23-24 – Familiarity and Reverence

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