God in the MarketplaceSample

Foundations of Marketplace Ministers: Knowing the Voice of God

One of the most amazing aspects of our new covenant in Christ is that each and every son and daughter of God has access to hear His voice. This is a radical upgrade from what the children of Israel had access to under the old covenant. Of course, even the old covenant people had access to the voice of God in conscience and also the outline of the ways of God in the Torah. However, when it came to the leading voice of God which we would call today the prophetic, that aspect was relegated only to a special class of people called the Prophets. The new covenant reality is that every believer has access to not just the voice of conscience but also the prophetic leadership of the Holy Spirit.

The apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost declared this clearly when he interpreted what the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the upper room meant by quoting the ancient prophesy of Joel.

As marketplace believers who are operating our lives out of a divine union with God through our growing intimacy with Christ, finding and coming into alignment with our callings and representing the love of God accurately in the marketplace (Holiness), we also get to enjoy and engage with the voice of God to our hearts, leading us and helping us to come into divine connections.

If you do a study of Jesus through the gospels and ask yourself where is Jesus wherever He prophesies, you will find that He is more often than not in the marketplace. It is my experience and also the testimony of many of the believers that I have the privilege to encourage and mentor that once you become open to God's prophetic voice in the marketplace, you find yourself experiencing it at an intensified level.

Again, I must say that sometimes how we envision the operations of the Spirit are going to happen in the marketplace can look slightly different from what we might be accustomed to in our religious settings. Many times prophecy in the marketplace will look like a solution to a very practical problem in the office or in a project. What makes it a prophetic moment is that you know that you didn't know the answer or have the natural capacity to come up with it. Sometimes it will look like you just knowing something about how a coworker is feeling even though on the outside no one can tell.

Reflection

• Ask God to help you tune into His voice in a more dynamic way than what you are used to, especially in the marketplace settings of your life.