Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day ( Thursday 10/30/08)

If You Are Doing The Same Thing, You Can't Expect anything Different...

Genesis 12:1-3 (Amplified Bible)
1) NOW [in Haran] the Lord said to Abram, Go for yourself [for your own advantage] away from your country, from your relatives and your father's house, to the land that I will show you.
2) And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you [with abundant increase of favors] and make your name famous and distinguished, and you will be a blessing [dispensing good to others].
3) And I will bless those who bless you [who confer prosperity or happiness upon you] and [curse him who curses or uses insolent language toward you; in you will all the families and kindred of the earth be blessed [and by you they will bless themselves].

I grew up hearing sayings like "there is more than one way to skin a cat or more than one way to bake a cake." In turn my grandmother and my mother have taught me there is more than one way to get things done. If you learn to do thing one way then you are stuck or enslaved to that one way, that one thought. That is why at my grandmother and my mother's side, I learned to cook by sight and taste instead of measurement and definitive recipes. Learning to cook this way, in many cases we learn to take several dishes and make them into some of the best results that have been stumbled upon. Because the expectation was always to create something better, something that was extraordinary, instead of ordinary.

We often miss opportunities to have something different in our lives because we refuse to move past what we have always done. We want to hold on to how we have always acted, how we have always dealt with things and how we have always talked to people, and yet we wonder why nothing is changing, why nothing has got better, or why things are continuing to decline. Remember Jabez, he one day decided to do something different, He prayed a pray that set him apart from the rest of his family and placed him in the Lamb's Book of Life. The prayer he prayed took him out of the ordinary and catapulted him into the ranks of the extraordinary. The same applies to Ruth, and Esther. They could have been just another name, but instead they challenged themselves out of their comfort zone, to do something that may have been uncomfortable, but it was something that lined them with the will of God for their lives and the lives of others.

We have no idea what is awaiting us, but if we keep on keeping on the way we have been keeping on, we are going to keep on getting what we have always gotten! It is those moments of extraordinary movement to trust God and move into an area that is not familiar and challenges us to rely on God and risk it all to move out of our flesh zone and move into the area of knowing that God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we can think or ask, that we are ripe to receive the extraordinary! Do it differently, stop serving God on your terms and move to serve Him whole heartedly, and on His terms, so that we can reap God's benefits and God's blessings!