Mentor's Tip # 3: The Power of a Sanctified Place
by Michael K. Lake, Th.D., D.R.E.
 
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Genesis 3:8a (NKJV)
"8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in
the cool of the day . . ."
There are many powerful things that we can bring to light in this small portion of scripture:
1. God has a cycle of coming to fellowship with you. There are seasons of powerful visitation in the life of a minister. We look forward to that seasonal visitation, but we can so easily overlook the daily visitation that He wants to have in our lives. This scripture teaches us the importance of daily consistency in our meeting with the LORD.
2. The second powerful truth that is alluded to here is that there was a certain place within the Garden that God would come to walk and fellowship with His children.
This is the third in a series of teachings that I have been writing that can produce a powerful threefold cord of sanctification in your life. As you place this final block into place, you will feel resistance by the enemy. He does not want to you get all three into place! He knows that you will be so much harder to get stopped or even devoured from what God wants for your life.
David, Jerusalem and a Sanctified Place
As we read through the Bible, we see God coming down and visiting with His people. We have Adam and Eve in the Garden. We see God coming to visit with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In fact, these three men would make altars or stones of remembrance at places where God visited them to mark the spots. I am sure they visited those places often to build their faith.
Then we come to a very special place to be sanctified. Israel had been in the land for a long time, in fact many generations. Yet we find that the land that became Jerusalem was never taken. By the time that David came around, folks pretty much had settled on the fact that it would never come under Israel's control (kind of like today). But David sensed in his spirit that the LORD had placed His name on that series of three mountains. He was willing to go to war to gain the place where for centuries all men of Israel would be required of God to meet Him there three times a year (during the Feasts.) Not only did David have to win it through warfare, he then had to purchase a threshing floor to build the temple on. (One day I will teach you about the significance of the threshing floor.)
Here is my point: We had a people that understood the power of sanctified time. They also knew they were a sanctified people that had an anointing to empower them to study, worship and pray. The final piece of the puzzle Satan could not allow them to have - a sanctified place.
Look at the power of what happened when all three came together. The reign of David and Solomon were powerful and Israel had a golden age. This age will only be surpassed when Jesus comes to rule and reign in Jerusalem for a thousand years. We call this time period the "Messianic Age." What a glorious time it will be!
For many that answer the call to ministry, right here is where you get some real resistance from the enemy. You realize God is calling you to a time of prayer and study. You also realize that you are called to ministry and begin separating yourself for both. Satan will fight you tooth and nail from getting all three into place. Since most students (or even ministers) do not know how important all three are when they are placed together, are not prepared for the warfare that is launched by the enemy at them. The enemy is scared that you will place all three together and establish your own mini-Jerusalem within your home and ministry!
Here are some steps to help you fight:
Step One:
Sanctify time. Schedule time to get into the Word, to pray, worship and have fellowship with the LORD. Be consistent and MAKE THE TIME!
Step Two:
Sanctify yourself. Realize that God has separated you from everyone else in the world to use for His purposes. You have an anointing to ministry. You also have an anointing to pray and to get deep into study. Dedicate yourself to discovering and developing proficiency in all of your anointing!
Step Three:
Sanctify a place. Set apart a room or somewhere that can be clean, quiet and productive for prayer and study. If you have an office at home, make sure that it you have good lighting, comfortable chair, shelves for books, etc. Take anything out that would be distracting. That's right, that TV has to go! Unless you are watching videos as a part of your instruction, get that temptation out of there that would take away from prayer and study. If you have problems with habitually surfing the web, turn it off unless you are researching something needed for your studies. Keep the place holy. If it does not facilitate study, prayer, worship, revelation, etc., get it out of there.
If you get into the habit of always meeting God in this sanctified place, always getting into the Word and hearing from Heaven, you will find over time that it becomes almost automatic. All you have to do is enter the room and you can feel your spirit rise up to pray, worship and study. This is why the devil is fighting you so hard. When you get to that place, the devil will have hell to pay. All you have to do is to walk into your sanctified place and you will hear from Heaven, the Word will begin to come alive and he can't get anything in there to stop it!
So sanctify a place, a time and become that sanctified person who God can use to change a generation!