Strike this sentence from your vocabulary if you want to move forward...

Last night I decided to banish, "it is what it is" from my vocabulary and encouraged our church to do the same.  It seemed to strike a chord with many.  I mean they REALLY responded once I explained the rationale behind this and even Larry said, "My word honey, what did you preach last night?  When I walked in the sanctuary some of those people were going after God like I've never seen them!!!"  (He was preaching in the youth building.)  I said, "well babe, we've removed 'it is what it is' from our vocabularies and we're choosing to believe that because of God's power things don't have to stay like they are!!!" 

So many times people make statements like, "well, it is what it is..."  We resign ourselves to whatever circumstances we are in, and believe we just have to accept them.

Think about some of the things we say --

"I know there's nothing I can do about this..."

"I just have to get through this..."

"My back is against the wall.  I have no other options."

"Kids are just gonna do what kids are gonna do..." 

"The situation with my adult children is hopeless." 

"My job situation is impossible."

All false statements.  Lies from the pit of hell.  Yes, things may be difficult, hard times WILL come, and nobody including Christians are exempt hard times and attacks.  Right now there's one particular situation in my life that is a challenge.  It's different from what I believe God has in mind for the long  haul, but I refuse to "it is what it is" this situation.  I'm praying it through!!  There WILL be a shifting...a change WILL come in the atmosphere...I WILL NOT settle!!! 

We don't have to just resign ourselves to lay down and take whatever comes.  Giving up is never our only option.  No matter how bad things are, there is always something we can do and we are never out of options, because we can call on God.  And that is our greatest option!  We are in control in all the ways that count.  And when we call on God, He hears.  He always has other strategies we know nothing about.   There have been so many times in my life I have looked at a problem and analyzed and only seen solution A, B or C, but what do you know...God pulls out solution D!!!  It's amazing.  

Last night I preached from Daniel 10:1-14.  Take a look at that and realize that from the very first day Daniel prayed, an angel was sent forth with the answer, but it 21 days to get there, and he had to pray things through to the finish line.  When Daniel prayed, denomic forces rose up and warfare broke out.  All this was to try to hinder the prayer from being answered.  This is why it's important to pray and NOT GIVE UP.  What if Daniel would have given up?

There was a Welsh woman who lived in a remote valley in Wales. She went to  a lot of trouble and spent a bunch of money to have electric installed in her home.  After a few months, the electric company noticed she didn’t seem to use very much electricity at all. Thinking there might be a problem with the hookup, they sent a meter reader out to check on the matter. The man came to the door and said, "We’ve just checked your meter and it doesn’t seem that you’re using much electricity. Is there a problem?"  "Oh no" she said. "I'm very happy with everything.  We turn on the electric lights every night to see how to light our lamps and then we switch them off again."

Now, why didn’t this woman make more use of her electricity?

She believed in electricity
She believed the promises of the electric company when they told her about it
She went to a great deal of trouble and expense to have her house wired for it
BUT - she didn’t understand the potential of electricity in her home.

AND SO, she used it’s power sparingly.

Do you use the power of God sparingly?

I told our church last night that the days of Celebration Church conserving God's power are OVER!!!   This is not a conservation area!  We're going to lavishly call on the power of God and release it!

There are those who use the power of God in much the same way that Welsh woman did.

They believe in God’s power.

They know the promises in God’s Word.

They know about the power of the anointing and the Holy Ghost.

They’ve read stories about other people and breakthroughs.

But they use the power of God very sparingly.

There are times we throw up occasional appeals to God when something major happens but we don’t know the outcome of what it would be like to let His power flow through us continually to take back our homes, our kids, our community, our LIVES for His glory.

"It is what is is..." ???

 Strike it from your repertoire, that is...unless you want things to remain the same.

**I also shared a very powerful blog post within my message last night from my friend in both "real life" and blog world...her name is Rhonda Flint and you can read her post here.   This was a powerful admonition about taking our children back for God.  I recommend that everyone read this post as well as her other great writings.