Exceptionalism the Key to Creativity

Exceptionalism the Key to Creativity. 
Is not this Joseph's son? 

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ our King.
I want you to read Luke 4: 17-24, here is the text:

17 And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,

18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

20 And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.

21 And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.

22 And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son?

23 And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.

24 And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country.

 I've gotten such huge response from this article as I shared, that I must share with my internet audience. I believe it will really speak to you and really cost you to think, perhaps differently than how you're accustomed to thinking.

To be exceptional you have to first except, will you run with the pack or be exceptional?

If you can accept being different and standing out in the crowd and dare to be your own person, than you are on the verge of really stepping into what I call here:

Exceptionalism.

Take a look at this, you are going to be blessed!

I was coming up on Sunday anna and i really didn't have a word, I start going to my Bible and I said to the lord, lord I need a word for your people, I need a word to feed your people, and I was reading through the Word of God and this text leap out of me: Is not this Joseph's son? I said, oh that's nice, what's important about that? He said, keep reading it: Is not this Joseph's son? Put the text in the context, visualize the moment, see what is being said here. Jesus has appeared in the synagogue, to the religious people, to declare: This is a time, this is a day, in this hour. He challenged the way they saw their faith. He challenged the way they view their God. He challenged their routines of their ritualism, their doctrines and their ideas. God is not challenging the world, is challenging the religious people. This is the first day out of the gate, this is the first moment and he challenges not the world, not the sinner, not the adulterers, not the whole mungus. He challenges the religious. If you are an emancipated and you're getting ready to liberate, you should start with the ones that are the most oppressed and he starts with the religious, the sanctimonious, the self-righteous, the holier-than-thou, the aristocracy of the kingdom, he challenges them. Because he has taken the religion out of its historical context or its prophetical understanding and brought it into the presence of this moment. And religious people get challenged when their faith must be proven in the moment. We'd love to talk about the history, we love to talk about the destiny, but we shy away from the now. We preach about what used to be, we shout about what's going to be and we live in hell right now. He said; this day is the scripture fulfilled in your eyes, right NOW, right here, in this moment, this is it.

What was the problem with that?

The problem was, they did not recognize what God was doing in the present moment of their lives. I want to ask you, Do you recognize what god is doing in the present moment of your life? Do you recognize who you are standing in the midst of? Do you understand what you got? Do you know what's going on? Or have you relegated your God to the corners of your life? Either what he did for you yesterday or what He is going to do for you tomorrow and not recognize what he's doing to you right now? Right now! In the midst of your normalcy, in the midst of your ordinaryness, God is doing something right now. But, do you see it? And if I will challenge you to see it, could you handle it? He says that this day is the scripture fulfilled in your eyes. He didn't get in any trouble reading the scripture, they love to have you read the scripture, as long as the historical scriptures do not inform your contemporary life, people are fine with historical context of God. Michael Angelous, great paintings on cathedrals and we love it. Handel's Messiah we love it. We love all the historical relevance of God, but when you have a God that is contemporary in the moment that your face right now, people start; no no no we either do it in heaven or we're studying what he did in the past, but we shy away from God invading this present moment.

But I need a God who can invade my present moment.

I don't need a god who invades my yesterday, and my tomorrow I need a God that can invade my right now in this moment. This day is scripture fulfilled in your eyes. So when Jesus did this,... I love how he did it. Anytime the Bible takes times to tell you something, is because is powerful. He closed the book, and said; it's over! That meaning is powerful, he said; service is over, class dismissed! And the Bible said they marveled at his words, the profundity of his words, the power of his words, the excellence of his word, they were shocked and his word, the bodacious manner in which he spoke, the articulation with which he declared the infallible, immutable, everlasting, eternal Word of God, and the church was shocked. They marveled at his words because he had done an exceptional thing, in how he declared it, and articulated it, and defined it. He had brought it into a contemporary setting and they marveled at it, but marveling isn't believing it.

You can be impressed and not be changed.

You can be inspired and not be moved. You can get goose pimples and chill bumps and all that kind of stuff and go right back to be who you were before. They marveled at it, but they weren't moved by it, and the reason why they were not moved is because they, then put him back in the context of their understanding, by saying; Is not this Joseph's son? That one sentence is what stops people from doing great things for God. Because people always want to incarcerate you and to how they understand you to be. Good God i'm preaching!   They are always dragging you back into how they see you, every time you want to step into divinity and into the supernatural context of what God has called you to be, there's always some little person, some little idea, some little rumor, some little gossiper, some little hater, who said shy; don't pay no attention to her, I knew her when… Is not this Joseph's son? Good God of mercy! If we don't answer this question, we will not never do anything exceptional. Whose child are you? Because you don't act just like your daddy. Is not this Joseph's son? Well the truth of the matter is; No! He was not Joseph's son, he was the only begotten Son of God. But Joseph was the father they saw and they define him by what they saw, and they said; Is not this Joseph's son? And they incarcerated him to walk into the realm of their understanding; Is not this Joseph's son? What are they saying about you that is stopping you? Will you be limited to how other people define you? Will you spend the rest of your life living up to their ideas of who you are? Or do you have the courage to break the mold? This article today is not for the status quo, it is not for the ordinary, it is not for the routine or the ritualistic. This is for jailbreak people who will not wait to be released but you're going to break out of the dungeon of mediocrity and step into the realm of exceptionalism.

This is your moment, it is now or never.

If you don't do it now you're not going to do it at all. You have to make up in your mind whether you are going to be Joseph's son or not. This is the moment and the question is: Is not this Joseph's son? And what is your answer? NO! I am not who you think I am. I am not who you think I am. How dare you define me by your Understanding? I am not who you say I am. Is not this Joseph's son? Here is your answer; I am NOT Joseph's son, Joseph raised me, but I am not trapped to where I came from, I am NOT bound by who raise me, he raise me, Im in it but I'm not of him. So they they begin to they begin the banter with Jesus and they said; we hear all of these great things that you're doing, why don't you do them here? And Jesus said; it is written that a prophet is without honor in his own country. The first question, is not this Joseph's son? Says; Who do you belong to? And Jesus says; the reason I cannot do mighty works is because the prophet is without honor in his own country. This is a fight between ordinariness and exceptionalism. Why would a prophet not do great works in his own country? A prophet is without honor in his own country. Without honor, a prophet is without honor, he is not being seeing correctly in his own country. Why is that? Because their view of him, not his view of him, determines their level to receive from him. And what he means, is that the only thing that's limiting me from exceptionalism is how you see me. I want to explain a little about exceptionalism.  Exceptionalism is a concept, it's a secular concept that says any group, or society, or country, or people, or persons, who have been endowed with a certain level of creativity, uniqueness, or power in spite of the environment, from which they were extrapolated, they fit the definition of exceptionalism. Exceptionalism does not necessarily mean superiority. It is not arrogant, it's not arrogant. It does not say I am better than my peers.

It just refuses to be incarcerated by the parameters of my peers.

Don't confuse them, there the narrow line between exceptionalism and superiority, but you gotta understand that line. You don't have to be arrogant or be superior, or be condescending to be exceptional. Exceptionalism says that I am not defined by my environment. Exceptionalism says that I am  not incarcerated by how you met me. Exceptionalism says that i was raised in Joseph's house but I am NOT Joseph's son. Later in history the concept of exceptionalism married itself to America and there is the term called American Exceptionalism. I want to explain this, I will tight it all of this up, just give me a minute. American Exceptionalism lends itself to the ideology that America who broke away from Great Britain and came over here to establish this country refuse to be just another country among peers of its era, but chose to be exceptional and to stand out from the trends of its day. American Exceptionalism does not originally, and should not imply American superiority, but rather there's in in a world that is moving by horse, we will move by train, we will bill steam engines and move our people from one end of the country to the other through exceptional technology and because America saw itself as exceptional, for 300 years most of the things that you called normal were in fact exceptional. Look at the thing that took you back 300 years that would disappear. The fabrics that would fall off of your body, the dyes and colors that were not available 300 years ago, the eyeglasses that you wear, the technology that you're accustomed to, the electricity that fuels the technology, the automobile for transportation, the communication, all disappears in ordinariness.

Exceptionalism is the birthplace of creativity

Exceptionalism says; I break the trends, I break the rules, I will not be incarcerated by the limitations of the thinking of the people around me. Exceptionalism goes beyond the physical, it goes to the mentality with which you think. So exceptionalism is what we are focusing on the day they understand not just exceptionalism, not just American Exceptionalism, but we are putting that concept in the context of this text to say;  This is not Joseph son. I will not live up to your low expectations of who I am. I will do things that have never been done before. I will break out of the box. I will break out of the rules. I will not live my life and only go as far as my mother did. I will go further than my mother did. I will go further that my father did. I will be going beyond what my grandmother did, because I will not be limited to the house I was born in. I will be exceptional. Now when they asked him; Is not this Joseph's son? They really were thrown off, how did you get to talk like that? Your daddy is the carpenter, stay in your place, be like your kinfolks, act like your relatives, live like your neighborhood. What are you doing driving that kind of car? Do you mean you going to school? Aren't you Joseph son? How dare you open up your own business? Stay in your place, your are Joseph's son, you are supposed to be swinging a hammer, driving in nails. Stay in your place, I saw where you came from. Is not this Joseph's son? Only you can answer. The question before you, is; will you be ordinary, fit in with the pack, run with the wolves or will you step out and be exceptional? Not superior, just exceptional. The word to exceptional is except, you can't be exceptional if you don't have the word except. It happens to everybody, they all live that word except… They all think that way except… They all fell primitive attic except... Are you going to be one of them or are you going to be exceptional? I think, i'm not sure, but I think there are some exceptional people reading this article. I want you to be bold. I want you to be radical. I want you to be tenacious.

Can I go a little bit deeper?

So Jesus, who is exceptional, is having a conversation with ordinary, and exceptional and ordinary always have a conflict. Anytime exceptional people dwell in the midst of ordinary thinking people there is always going to be conflict. Don't try to get along with people who think ordinary, when you know God made you to think exceptional. Don't even trying to reason with them, don't try to argue with them, don't try to straighten them out, we speak two different languages, they are speaking ordinary and you are talking exceptional. And so Jesus said to them; I will not stay in my place, I will not drive nails and swinging hammers, I will not live up to some dead reputation of some former ancestor and your interpretation of how you see somebody who looks like me, dresses like me, and walks like me, I am exceptional. I am a trendsetter, a rule breaker, I don't have to wear nobody's name but mine. I believe this is a very provocative and powerful subject, we have to hold tightly to what God has called us to do, we cannot get worry and fear and down and do the kind of things with the kind of attitude that God wants us to have, so embrace this word and let it speak to your life.