Bible

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…

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Holiness. It sounds so unattainable…kind of like perfection. Perhaps I would prefer to think of holiness as unattainable perfection. That way, I can say, “no one’s perfect,” and I can skim over the word when I read it in the Bible.

But Leviticus chapters 20-22 will not let you skim over the word “holy” or the concept of “holiness.” Holiness is at every turn throughout these chapters, so let’s deal with it.

As I said, we often see holiness as synonymous with perfection. It’s true, when speaking of God, that perfection is part of His holiness. But holiness is not perfection. If it were, God could not have commanded us to be holy (Lev. 20:26), because He knows we are going to sin (1 John 1:8). God would not call us to be something He knows we can’t be.

So what is Holiness?

Holiness carries the idea of being different…set apart from the common… set aside for special use. (Think of the good china that is set aside for special occasions.)

God is holy. He is different from all other so-called gods. He is different than humans or anything else in creation. God is holy different and beyond our comprehension.

And God makes us holy. (Lev. 21:8,15,23.) He has chosen us (John 15:16) and called us to be different from that which is common around us (Lev. 20:24), so that others may see His holiness and be drawn to Him. (Phil. 2:15)

Because God is holy, and because He has made us holy, He calls us to be holy. (Lev. 20:7) The word “be” in that verse refers to and ongoing action or way of life. We’re not to be perfect. We’re to be different, in a way that reflects our God. We are to be God’s calling card, and this is accomplished through our call to holiness.

Holiness is something we just can’t skim over!

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

When the children of Israel moved into the Land of Canaan, they had left behind an old way of life in Egypt, and had been brought to another godless land. This was intentional on God’s part, because He had plans to use them in Canaan.

God wanted His children to be different (holy) from the people around them. The Children of Israel were to be a living, breathing advertisement (testimony) for God. And in doing so, they would also avoid the downfall of those around them who were losing the blessing of the land God had given them.

God gave His people a different standard of living than those around them. He raised the bar for His children. In Leviticus chapters 18-19, God set standards for every area of their life; from their sexual practices, to how they treated their elders.

This is still true today. God wants to permeate our lives. He wants to change every area of our life and lead us to think and live differently than the world around us. When we allow Him that kind of access and control in our lives, He will use the influence of our lives to permeate the culture with His presence and blessing. God wants to infiltrate our culture, and we are His agents through which He wants to bring about change. The rules God gives us are not for our restriction. They are for the purpose of making us salt and lights in a bland and dark world. (Matt. 5:13-16)

As believers, our moving van has pulled into the Canaan of our culture. The question is…are we getting the attention of our neighbors in such a way that points them to God?

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

It can be challenging to consistently pull applicable truths from the chapters of Leviticus. I’m sure this is more of a reflection on me than on Leviticus, because as Jesus said, “seek and you will find.” (Matt. 7:7)

So, I’ve been seeking in Leviticus chapters 15-17, and it’s been tough. (Leviticus chapter 15 seems more suited for a health and hygiene book than for sacred text!) But, I’ve found these chapters address three major needs in my life…and yours.

My need to separate from sin, deal with my sin, and live differently are all supplied by one (and only one) source…the shedding of Jesus’ blood for me.

Leviticus continues to surprise me, and Christ continues to amaze me.

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

When you think of the Bible, you typically think of things like: Adam and Eve; Mose and the Read Sea; the walls of Jericho; the life, death and resurrection of Jesus; the Revelation and the end times; etc.

But, when you think of the Bible, you don’t typically think about stopping the spread of mildew and infectious disease. This is the kind of thing you would expect to see on Epocrates.com or the Discovery Health channel, not the Bible.

But there it is in Leviticus chapters 13 and 14.

How is this ancient talk of mildew and infectious disease suppose to enrich me spiritually? What is the application from these chapters that will help me grow closer to God and others?

Maybe the lesson is as simple as this…little things, left unattended, can grow into bigger things and ultimately become destructive. This can happen in your personal life, in your relationships, in your business, in church…anywhere. Little things can accumulate and become destructive.

I’ve seen this happen in marriage when a small thing, (a cross word, a negative remark, a little need disregarded, etc.) goes unaddressed and grows, spreading throughout the marriage. If enough small things are allowed to grow, they can eventually overwhelm a marriage to the point that a couple feels they can’t recover.

Little sins are just as destructive as big sins…even more so, because they can be easily overlooked until they have so entrenched themselves in our life they become fatal.

These two chapters from Leviticus teach us to identify and deal with the small sins quickly and definitively…while they are still manageable.

What is a small spot in your life that needs to be isolated and addressed?

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