How often they provoked Him in the wilderness, and grieved Him in the desert! Yes, again and again they tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel. Psalm 78:40–41 (NKJV) If you focus on your own lack and on the size of your problems, you will lose hope. Instead, think big! When the Israelites left Egypt and made their way toward their Promised Land, they grieved and limited God because they expected too little. God had miraculously delivered the Israelites from slavery and He wasn’t about to stop helping them. He had a country prepared for them—a land with herds of cows, flocks of sheep, honey farms, houses and cities already built that the Israelites could fight for and win. This land was God’s …

The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows). John 10:10 (AMP) Jesus came to give us an overflowing kind of life. Every area of our lives can be abundant. We can have wonderful marriages, health, happiness, energy and joy. Every area of our lives can be so full that it spills over. When something overflows, the overflow is typically unusable. For example, if someone pours you a glass of water and they overfill it, that overflow is wasted. But the kind of overflow Jesus was talking about is different. When your life overflows with God’s blessings, it’s never wasted. The overflow …

Throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy. Ephesians 4:22–24 (NLT) We often make excuses for why we can’t change or why things aren’t happening for us. But, to a great degree, we live within the limitations we’ve set for ourselves. We all have what I call an “internal thermostat”—a set point that represents what is normal to us. As an example, you have a level of closeness that you feel is normal in each of your relationships. If things start to feel distant, you’ll work to bring that close feeling back …

You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. Psalm 139:16 (NLT) The world is full of small thinkers. My Australian friends call this tendency the “tall poppy syndrome,” which is slang for the tendency to criticize highly successful people and cut them down to size. Others call it the “crab bucket mentality.” As one crab tries to crawl up the side of the bucket, the others claw him right back down. These small thinkers will tell you to be realistic. If you have a dream, they’ll poke holes in it or they’ll say, “Oh, I tried that and it doesn’t work.” They’ll try to discourage …

Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this? Esther 4:14 (NKJV) I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again–if you want to go places you’ve never gone, you have to do things you’ve never done. And to do things you’ve never done, you’ll need to think things you’ve never thought. All throughout the Bible we find examples of people who needed to learn to think differently before they could be used by God. Esther is a great example. One new thought started a chain of events that changed the fate of the Jewish people. Esther was a Jewish girl who had become one of the king’s concubines in Persia. After gaining favour with the king, she …