NOAH'S BUILDING PLAN

 Noah did everything just as God commanded him (Gen 6:22).

When God chooses to do something on the earth He uses a man or woman to accomplish it. It is a partnership that is very one sided. God got the worst part of the deal.
God got to a very bad place with the human race. He decided to start over. He was going wipe out the entire population and begin afresh. He chose one man to place His entire strategy around. Can you imagine that? God placed His entire plan around one man. Why? Because He could trust him. The Bible says Noah did everything just as God commanded him. He didn’t argue with God. He didn’t take short cuts. He listened and he obeyed.
Who was this man Noah? "Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God" (Gen 6:9-10). When it came time to execute God’s plan, He chose Noah to build a big boat. However, Noah had no idea what a boat was or how to build one. So, God told him how to build it. He gave him the dimensions; the height, width, space requirements—everything he needed to complete the task.
God will instruct us in performing our work too. God is in partnership with us in our working life. He has given us the tools, the creativity, and the drive to accomplish what He placed us on earth to do. That partnership requires us to listen to our senior partner though because He knows the exact way our project is to be done. And when you follow His direction that project will be excellent in every way.
"Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, The Holy One of Israel: ‘I am the LORD your God, Who teaches you to profit, Who leads you by the way you should go’" (Isaiah 48:17).
Do you need God to show you how to succeed in your call? Ask for His wisdom and understanding. God says he will give it generously (James 1:5).

WHAT IS YOUR PROMISED LAND?

 So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant (Josh 24:13).

God called the people of Israel to leave Egypt and come out of slavery in order to enter their own Promised Land. It meant they had to change a way of life they had known their whole lives. Instead of being told what to do everyday by a taskmaster, they were now being led by the cloud of God that led them into the desert with the ultimate goal of entering their own Promised Land.
Every believer has a Promised Land in their lives. It is the place where you receive all God intended for you to receive. However, many of us are still living in Egypt where we sweat and toil in response to the taskmaster of production dictated by our workplaces and our lifestyles of busyness.
We will know when we are beginning to experience our Promised Land when we experience God’s rest at the same time we are fulfilling our work life call. We will begin to give testimony to what Joshua says in the above verse. We will begin to receive things we never built or planted. We begin to experience a level of rest in our working lives that is not characterized by sweat and toil. Things become easier because we are receiving them as a fruit of our call instead of a goal.
I began to experience this new way of living as I began to be obedient to doing things based on His direction versus my perceived outcome. Provision began to follow obedience. Projects began to get done with little sweat. God brought the people to me to get things done. There was no longer a tendency to manipulate outcomes that I wanted to have happen. God was giving me my Promised Land as I yielded to Him.
Are you living in your Promised Land? If not, release the goals of your life to the Lord and simply be obedient to His voice. Ask Him for the steps you are to take to receive your Promised Land.

HEARING HIS VOICE

 "He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God." - John 8:47

Jesus said that the key to being able to hear God's voice is first to be one of His children. One of the great mysteries of the universe to my logical mind is how God can communicate with six billion people on the earth at the same time. It is one of those mysteries I must let go of because my "hard drive" would crash if I had to explain and understand this before I believed and trusted in Him. It is as though God places a computer chip in each human being, and when we place our faith and trust in Him, it becomes activated. We begin to communicate with Him. Jesus says that if we are children of God, then we can hear God's voice. He further explains this relationship in the following parable:

"I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice (John 10:1-5)."

The Shepherd is always representative of Christ. Sheep are representative of God's children. This passage tells us that the Shepherd communicates with His children. We are called by name and we can listen to our Shepherd's voice. There is another comforting aspect to this relationship. The Shepherd goes before the sheep to prepare the way. Jesus has already gone before us today to prepare our way.
Knowing the Shepherd and His voice allows us to have the assurance that we will not be fooled by another shepherd's voice. The sheep know His voice. It is only when we are dull of hearing that we mistakenly hear another's voice and follow it. Sin can create a poor frequency in our communication with the Shepherd. Make sure your frequency is free of static (sin) today so that the Shepherd can lead you and go before you.
Finally, distractions can also keep us from hearing our Shepherd's voice. When the sheep get entangled in the fence or wander off, they get too far away to hear the Shepherd's voice. We must stay in close proximity to the Shepherd to hear His voice. Stay close to the Shepherd today. Listen and follow. He wants to lead you.

CITY TRANSFORMATION BEGINS IN TWO PLACES

 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. (Acts 17:16-18).

In order to transform a city or nation, it must take place in two areas; the marketplace and the local church. Paul was burdened for Athens when he saw all of the idols in his city. So, he began a strategy to win back his city by preaching in both the synagogue to the religious leaders and Jews and also in the marketplace every day.
The Old Testament records reveal that even at the time of the temple construction it was clear that foundations must be built through the marketplace and the synagogue. "He erected the pillars in the front of the temple, one to the south and one to the north. The one to the south he named Jakin and the one to the north Boaz" (Chron 3:15-17). Jakin was a priest of the Lord that represented the spiritual foundation of the Church. Boaz represented the strength of the marketplace and its role to have impact on the society through workplace ministers, or kings.
God is moving today in cities across the world through collaborative coalitions made up of priests, kings and intercessors. This is a city transformation trinity that the Holy Spirit is forming to rid our cities of idols and to restore the spiritual foundations.
When we begin to equip and release those in the workplace to fulfill their godly roles in business, government, media, arts/entertainment, and education we will begin to see the idols in our cities removed. Pray that God raises up Godly workplace leaders who will lead with a biblical worldview.

LYDIA, A WORKPLACE MINISTER

One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God (Acts 16:14).

There was a business woman whom Paul encountered in Thyatira named Lydia. She was an early church entrepreneur dealing in purple cloth, the most expensive type in the 1st century Middle East. Most accounts believe this was Paul's first known convert. I find it interesting that his first known convert was a woman and an entrepreneur.
"We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home" (Acts 16:13-15a).
This encounter with Lydia and her women associates ultimately opened the way for ministry in that region. God often worked in and through women in the early church. Lydia was an influential businesswoman, and the gospel was affecting all strata of society, just as it does today.
Lydia was a maker of beautiful cloth mainly used by members of the royal families and Roman senators who were required to have a purple band around the edge of their togas, or robes. Purple cloth was both valuable and expensive in the culture of the first century. It was often worn as a sign of nobility or royalty. Lydia’s ministry would be to the upper class business community.
Evidence of her conversion was immediate. She told the men if they considered her a believer in the Lord, she would like for them to come and stay at her house. Evidently she had plenty of room to accommodate the four of them; Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke was with them also. She continued to urge them and they accepted her invitation and stayed at her house. 
Lydia's heart was like the good soil in the parable of the sower. When she heard the word of God, she received it with joy and obeyed the words of the apostle. 
Who are the "Lydias" God has placed in your circle of influence? Pray that you will be the instrument, like Paul, to bring the gospel to influential women entrepreneurs.

NEW PARADIGMS

Yes, he has hidden himself among the baggage (1 Sam. 10:22).

If you want to experience something you’ve never done, you must do something you’ve never done. In his book Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing His Will, Henry Blackaby writes, "You cannot go with God and stay where you are."[1]
God often has to radically change us if we are going to fulfill His purposes in our lives. Saul was about to be anointed by Samuel as the first king of Israel. Samuel said to Saul, "The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you in power, and you will prophesy with them; and you will be changed into a different person" (1 Sam. 10:6). Up to this point, Saul had never prophesied or led a group of people. He had also never had to be accountable to a prophet and to God for his every action.
Saul took a big step of faith right away and prophesied with the prophets just as Samuel said he would. How exciting that must have been. Yet, when Samuel called the entire nation of Israel together to announce him as Israel’s first king in history, Saul was nowhere to be found. This part of the story is humorous. Excitement is in the air, but when they call Saul’s name, he doesn’t even come forward. So the people "inquired further of the Lord, ‘Has the man come here yet?’ And the Lord said, ‘Yes, he has hidden himself among the baggage’" (1 Sam. 10:22).
I recall when God began moving me from a career in sales to a new ministry to men and women in the workplace that involved writing and public speaking. Neither of these were my particular forté. I was forced to do something I had never done.
The story of King Saul should be an encouragement to us all. God continues to pick the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. Your greatest setback can be thinking that there’s no way that God can use "little me." However, the reality is that He can and will, if we respond to the new places He takes us.

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[1] Henry T. Blackaby, Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing His Will (Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 1998), p. 132.

YOUR WORK

 "I have brought You glory on earth by completing the work You gave Me to do." - John 17:4

The Lord has revealed to us that the number one thing we are to do is love the Lord our God with all our heart and to love our neighbor as ourselves. His desire is for us to know Him and the power of His resurrection. These mandates deal with our relationship with Him. The fruit of this relationship must then result in our glorifying Him by completing the work He has given each of us to do. It will become a by-product of this relationship, not an end in itself.
What is the work God has called you to do? Jesus never did anything the Father had not instructed Him to do. He lived in such communion with the Father that He knew when to turn left and when to turn to the right. Is it possible to have such a relationship with our heavenly Father? I think that if it weren't, He would not have given us such an example.
"Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know" (Jer. 33:3). What has He called you to do? Perhaps you are called to be the best CPA in your city or the best advertising executive or the best office worker or assembly line person in your company. Whatever work He has called you to do, He will use you as His instrument to accomplish something that He has uniquely prepared you to do.
When our life is complete, what a glorious day it will be if we can each say, "I have completed the work You gave me to do." This will have brought great glory to Him.

KNOWLEDGE THAT IS PRODUCTIVE

 

"For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." - 2 Peter 1:8 Productivity is a term all workplace believers can relate to. It is the by-product of what we desire from our work. Without productivity, we do not make sales, we do not deliver goods, and we do not achieve our goals. There are things in our work lives that can creep in making us unproductive. The same is true in our walk with God. The apostle Peter tells us that we can become knowledgeable of Jesus but fail to be effective and productive in our relationship with Him. We are a society that has great knowledge, but our comparable scale of productivity from that knowledge is extremely weighted to the knowledge side. The apostle Peter tells us there is a solution to this dilemma. For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith, goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:5-8). Is your Christian experience filled with knowledge, but little power? Is there staleness in your walk with God? Is there unrest in your soul? It may be due to a need to develop character that only the Holy Spirit can develop out of an obedient heart. Ask the Lord today to add these qualities to your faith so that you can be productive as a soldier of Jesus Christ.

BEING PROMOTED BEYOND YOUR ANOINTING

 

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor 12:9). Have you ever done a job so well that you were promoted outside your skill set? The exceptional salesman gets promoted to manager and fails as a manager. The secretary gets promoted to office manager but fails for lack of management skills. Understanding your anointing will enable you to know when you are moving in a direction away from that which God has intended for your life. I have seen this principle happen a lot over the years, said Hillman. There is a paradox between these two concepts that cannot be ignored. Sometimes God will place you in situations in which you have no natural gifting. In these cases, God puts you there to experience His power in order to accomplish your tasks. My wife, Angie, is a good example of this. Before she came to work with me full-time, she was a marketing and advertising manager for a non-profit organization. This organization hired a career consulting company to take all their employees through a series of tests to determine if each employee fit into his or her proper job function. When the results of Angie’s test were shared with the rest of her team, her profile revealed that one of her greatest weaknesses was lack of organization and focus. Her boss took exception to the assessment and publicly acknowledged that Angie was the most detailed and organized individual on the entire team. "How could that be true?" he asked. The consultant said, "Oh, I am glad you asked that. Angie is a perfect example of someone who has overcome her weakness, because even though she recognizes this is her natural bent, she has overcome this by learning to be focused and detailed." In essence, she has yielded this area to the Holy Spirit and God has worked through her weakness. God sometimes moves us beyond our natural gifting and allows us operate in a place where our natural gifts do not fit the job. Other times He is teaching us to acquire a new skill set for the given situation.

ASA, A MODEL KING UNTIL..........

 

"Because you relied on the king of Aram and not on the LORD your God, the army of the king of Aram has escaped from your hand (2 Chron 16:7). Asa was a godly king of Judah. There were two kingdoms during his reign – Judah and Israel. Israel’s king was Baasha, who was a wicked king. To the east of Judah was Damascus, whose king was Ben-Hadad. Asa was an amazingly faithful and righteous king for thirty-five years. He got rid of the idol worship and even deposed his mother for idol worship. God blessed his rule by allowing peace in the land for thirty-five years. When Asa came into power the nation was lost. There was no godly ruler. There were many wars and the people began to cry out to God for deliverance. God sent them Asa. When Judah was attacked by Zerah the Cushite who marched against them with a vast army and three hundred chariots, Asa called upon the LORD and God answered his prayer and delivered them from a larger and stronger army than Judah’s. However, thirty-five years later, Asa began to move away from trusting God and decided he could buy the favor of his enemy, the King of Ben-Hadad. Asa sent gold and silver to him as a bribe asking Ben-Hadad to cancel his treaty with King Baasha and go to war on behalf of Asa and Judah. Asa’s strategy worked and he defeated Israel. However, there was a cost.  "In the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa was afflicted with a disease in his feet. Though his disease was severe, even in his illness he did not seek help from the LORD, but only from the physicians. Then in the forty-first year of his reign, Asa died and rested with his fathers" (2 Chron 16:12-14). What we learn from Asa is that whenever we place our trust and obedience in the Lord, God becomes our source for security and prosperity. However, when we move away from trusting God, that security is removed and we fail to receive those things God intended us to have.

THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM

 

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near (Matt 3:2) God is doing a unique work on the earth today. There are seasons in which the Holy Spirit speaks things to the Church. During one decade it might be a focus on evangelism. During another, it might be a greater awareness of the Holy Spirit. During yet another, it might be a focus on social problems in cities. Today, God is speaking very clearly to the Church about societal transformation. Fifteen years ago, the idea of a community being totally transformed through the Gospel of Jesus Christ was a foreign concept. However, according to George Otis, Jr, director of the Sentinel Group, there are over 500 communities that are in some form of quantifiable transformation process today. The defining characteristic of a community that is being transformed is that the socio-economic traits are being positively affected. The crime rate goes down, the economy is improved, and the number of Christians in the city increases, prayer increases, and the city leaders become Christians. It is the manifestation of Deuteronomy 28:13, "The LORD will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the LORD your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom." In order to go beyond the Gospel of Salvation to the Gospel of the Kingdom we must exercise a different level of faith for our communities. Jesus talked about the kingdom of God more than 70 times in the New Testament—much more often than he mentioned salvation. While salvation is part of bringing the kingdom of God on earth, it includes much more. When the Gospel of the Kingdom comes into a life and a community, everything in its wake is transformed. How might God want you to be the catalyst to bring the entire Gospel of the Kingdom into the lives and communities you are called to influence?

OPENING OUR SPIRITUAL EYES

 

"And Elisha prayed, 'O Lord, open his eyes so he may see.' Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha." - 2 Kings 6:17 Elisha was counseling the nation of Israel against the impending attack of the king of Aram. The Lord supernaturally gave Elisha the plans that the king was implementing, and in turn, Elisha warned Israel of each intended attack. The king could not understand why his plans were continually foiled. It seemed there was a secret informer in his midst. He was furious when he was told it was the God of Israel who was to blame for this inside information. The king decided the only way to resolve the situation was to get rid of the problem - kill Elisha. The king's forces arrived and surrounded Elisha and his servant. Elisha's servant became upset and fearful when Elisha was not upset. Elisha immediately prayed that his servant's eyes might be opened to see that there was no need to be afraid because the angels were protecting them. And Elisha prayed, "O Lord, open his eyes so he may see." Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. As the enemy came down toward him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, "Strike these people with blindness." So He struck them with blindness, as Elisha had asked (2 Kings 6:17-18). Who is the Elisha in your life? Do you have a mentor friend who can see the activity of God in your life when you cannot see it? We all need to have somebody we can trust to help us see the activity of God. It is often difficult for us to see what God is really doing because we are so consumed by the circumstances of the moment. Ask God today to help open your spiritual eyes so that you might see Him in your circumstances.

HEARING THE VOICE OF GOD - EVEN ON THE JOB

 

I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me. . . . My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. (John 10:14,27). Tom Fox is a successful financial investment manager who heads up a workplace ministry in the Twin Cities, Minnesota area. He used to be troubled when he heard Christians say, "The Lord told me . . . " He certainly had never heard God speak to him like that. "What is different about those people and me?" he wondered. In the book of John, Tom had read that Jesus had said that His sheep hear His voice, but he didn’t understand how they could do that. His pursuit to answer that question began his quest to discover how to hear God’s voice himself. Today, Tom realizes that God does speak and that we, as His children, can hear His voice. He has discovered how to hear God’s words of guidance in his daily life, which includes the day-to-day operations of his business, and he is teaching others how to hear God’s voice as well. A friend of mine told me a story about an experience he had in Israel that demonstrates how sheep know their shepherd’s voice. He and his wife were visiting some of the famous biblical sites when they saw a group of shepherds and their flocks. They watched as three different shepherds put their sheep in the same pen for the night, and they wondered how in the world the shepherds would separate their sheep the next day since none of them had any identifying marks on them. My friend got up early the next morning to watch the shepherds gather their sheep. The first shepherd went over to the pen and called out to his sheep. One by one, his sheep (and only his sheep) filed out to follow him. The same thing happened with the other two shepherds. My friend said it was amazing to watch how only the shepherd’s sheep followed him while the others remained in the pen—and all because they recognized his voice. What a picture of Jesus’ words spoken centuries earlier. Ask God to help you hear the voice of God—even on the job.