Place of your strength

Place of your strength

A man of God must have a place of strength, a place where he draws his strength. This place can be called “a place under an oak”. There is a number of places under the oak in Scripture: in Shechem there was a place under the oak where Jacob hid their treasures – that is, it’s a place where treasures are hidden. Joshua mad a covenant with the people and set a rock under the oak – this is a place of promises and covenants. Therefore “a place under the oak is a place where we gain strength, get renewed in the strength, reload, where we draw the secrets of God; where we come broken and leave reinforced. Even animals have this kind of place where they renew their strength. And each man of God must have this place of strength, where you draw strength. And this isn’t a business trip to China or a vacation in Dubai – this isn’t a tourist journey to relax. After a tourist trip you often return empty and unwilling to meet with your people, as you have not a single revelation and nothing to share except for selfi – photos. This is not a place of strength. A place of strength is not where you rest from God, but you draw strength and return to give it out. You store your treasures there, you are rich.

To be led by the Holy Spirit is a place of strength.

I am not talking about a geographical place. You prayed that you have a place of your own, but after you got it, it became as a coffin lid for you, because it is a place where you sin. When you get alone, you don’t seek God, you fall there, and a place under the oak became a place of your burial. I am not talking about this place. I am talking about a place under the oak where you draw strength and not a secret room for your dates with the devil.

An angel of the Lord came to Gideon and set under the oak in Ophrah. This is also a place of visitation.

But they also planted oak trees in places where they burnt incense for idols, where they sinned, that is a place of fall.

But it is also a place of obedience. Each of you know what to do. I can prophesy it to you, but you know yourself what to do. So do this. And that will be your place under the oak. You will begin to see how strength returns to you. And obedience is what the place under the oak begins.

This is not about geo location and rooms, this is about the way. Enter in obedience to what you already know from the Holy Spirit. And you will see how strength returns to you. Obedience is a place of strength. Strength will flow into your life.

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The best things in God grow in the place under the oak. Treasures, gems grow. I once was in a museum of stones and saw that gem stones are like flowers. Some of them repeat precisely the flower structure, even to pestle and stamens. They really grow, like crystals, but grow very slowly, not like one season flowers. And it is amazing that such stones blossom in a secret place. Such flowers don’t blossom in a public place. They blossom in total darkness, often deep underground, where human eye can’t see, nor can wild bird.

And in this sacred place of strength the inner man grows. We’ve got to bring in order this place of strength. This happens in secret. Each man of God must have secret, mystery. Even an embryo, before coming into the world, as it is written, is made in secret, in the depth of the womb. I would call this mystery the womb of God. And no man knows what is in the Spirit, but God’s Spirit knows. And no one knows what is inside man, except the man’s spirit. Only the man’s spirit knows what’s inside man. Peter didn’t know himself, but his spirit did. Christ heard his spirit and said he would deny Him. But Peter spoke out of his head, out of his emotions.

And there in the spirit beautiful stones are made, our foundation is made, in the secret place, sacred place. What’s with your place, if you were to draw it now, what would it look like, in what condition? Miserable pantry with all kinds of stuff, untended? You don’t show up there every day, but seldom, perhaps you can hardly open its door, you’ve forgotten how to do this? Or, on the opposite, it’s been well cared?

I remember I was once in a mega church where pastor was showing around – huge building with all the equipment, but he said, “look here” and pointed to a small door inside his big cabinet which led to a small room, sound isolated, where there was a small pillow to kneel on it and a Bible, that’s it. “Here, – he said, – is the center of my whole life. Everything else comes from here. After you leave we  will pray with deacons and pastors for three hours, and after that I will pray alone for another three hours”. Such a thing. Think what’s with your room, do you have it this room or you are all stuck in You Tube, and it has become your coffin lid? You come into your room, and inside it there’s coffin, you lie down in it and relax inside, looking through your channels, or you have your job stuff – that is, place where you die.

Or you rise above, with Him, with your Lord!

And we spoke before that the place of strength is in obedience, it is in worship. This place can also be moving, not necessarily it is static, it may be on the way. Sometimes seek it, and I have to catch up with it, galloping on my spirit – my horse is my spirit. Sometimes I get on my spirit and rush forth in order to fund my sacred place. I catch with it, because it’s moving, it is a cart, it is an ark, I have to catch up with the ark and touch the edge of the cherubim wings. An do you know its pace? It’s faster than the light speed. And you have to enter the spirit in order to catch up with it.

Sometimes my sacred place under the oak slips away from me with a huge speed, and I have to find it underground, in heaven, in the west, east, south. This is what Elijah thought, and he walked to the mountain for forty days to meet with God. He ate the bread, drank the water, then did it another time, and set off.

Sometimes our sacred place of strength is in suffering and pain. The Lord restores us back, when we are split in two, into oneself. We get split in two, and we need pain. God sends this pain and restores us back to ourselves, in order to return to Him – through ourselves to Him. We get split, like blurred contour that flickers, and we don’t know who we are. Am I after my own will, which I am used to, doing almost only what I want, and already don’t ask anymore, whether it’s pleasing to God that I do this thing? Or am I the one who loves Jesus like crazy, and is ready to give everything for His sake? These are two different people, and we are two. Paul speaks of this in Romans 7 – here I am who desire to do good, but I don’t, and here I am who find joy and light in the law of God. They are two completely different people, but this is you. And in order to make them one, God sends pain. And we ought to understand that these sufferings are a gift of God, they are called the sufferings in Christ.

But we try to separate ourselves from it, take pills, run to people, instead of stopping for a moment and saying, what’s going on, Lord? This is why the prophet says, “as they walk the valley of tears they make it a place of springs”. Think, your valley of tears, perhaps you need it? You’ve gotten rid of it by taking pain-killers. Christ refused to take pain reliever on the cross and received the providence, because He knew, not a single hair will fall without the will of the father.

Sometimes our place of strength is hidden by God in an exploit, a heroic action. There are people who never did an exploit. They hide from risk. Their whole life and faith is counted on hiding from risk, so that their life is not exposed to danger, not realizing that apostolic faith lives on the edge of risk. Not only it likes to leap along a precipice, but it leaps over it.

For some of us, you have to think seriously, because you’ve got to prepare to make a destiny carrying decision, which will be like an exploit. And your secret room is there, it has run away from you, from the place of safety. It is your ark that travels, the ark of your spirit. And it has hidden in an exploit, which awaits you.

You may look around and see others living ordinary – you compare yourself with others, but your exploit is dying. You shouldn’t even be here, you’ve oversat here, but life is getting dimmer and dimmer, it’s glitter is fading. And you know that however anointed the service may be, it won’t return your glitter, because your ark is an exploit today.

Sometimes you need to show forgiveness and mercy, sometimes great perseverance, sometimes we need to enter under the mantle of compassion, in order to draw strength in nobleness. You act like everyone else, and this isn’t shining mantle anymore.

Where is your ark hidden today? Go there, where the stones grow, your gens tones, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds, rubies. He says, I will make foundation of rubies. Think that the foundation of the Throne is like sapphire, as Ezekiel saw. And superficial Christians always need someone to lead them, they will always seek for the deep ones, who know what they do, they can’t live without them. But there are makers, who make realms. Even now I am speaking to you out of a realm. I didn’t have to read books to share these things, it didn’t come from books.

Something must be there in your bag, the wealth that you could give to the generation, your own and next. This can’t be any brick in the darkness, but gems grown in your secret room. Therefore, I encourage you today to restore, renew, cleanse, create, bear it, finally – the place of your strength.