By Dr. Melodye Hilton
God continues to illuminate our minds concerning the remarkable call upon marketplace saints. The vision goes beyond financial increase or influence to one core purpose – the expansion of the Kingdom of God! The Kingdom is the “rule and reign of Jesus Christ.” Whoever we are, wherever God has called us, we are to submit to His governing rule thus seeing His will established in our spheres of influence.
I experienced a defining moment in my life 12 years ago when I went on a pilgrimage to Edinburgh, Scotland. I visited the castle there and saw the beautiful crown jewels. I was confused when I saw a large ordinary-looking rock sharing an honored place adjacent to the crown jewels. It looked so out of place! As I read the plaques I discovered it was the “Destiny Stone.” It was upon this rock that the Kings and Queens would sit to be coroneted. At that moment “it was no longer about them, but their kingdom, their people, and their very land.” To the people of Scotland, the Destiny Stone’s wealth far exceeds money or prosperity but the freedom of the people. Without true understanding, we would throw away that stone of destiny for the more obvious beauty of the crown jewels. We cannot ignore our most valuable inheritance, though appearing common, to exchange it for temporal wealth.
Tears began to run down my face when I recognized that to embrace destiny I had to understand from the heart that it was not about me, but FIRST the Kingdom – God’s rule and reign. Secondly, it was about people. Do I have a heart to see people redeemed, or just the land? Charles Finney embraced destiny submitting to the ultimate reign of God. He saw whole cities (people) come to Jesus, THEN the reciprocal to that was city transformation. Marketplace saints’ core values cannot be about us personally, our business prospering, or the revitalization of our towns and cities – though that is a by-product when the people in those cities are redeemed! We cannot be caught up in the “American Gospel” of comfort, goods, and possessions – but recognize that they are an offshoot of our absolute surrender to God’s core values.
Though we may not evangelize in the traditional religious sense, we are facing an open door in this season that we might bring in the harvest! We live Biblical principles while engaging the culture in relevant ways speaking their language; nevertheless our motives, goals, purpose, and destiny is the Kingdom of God to be made manifested in their lives.
As the revelation of marketplace ministry increases and we continue to break off the small thinking mindsets of poverty and pulpit elitism, we cannot allow the pendulum to swing so far that we hear the warning of the Lord say, “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich.” Our God has given us the “heathen for an inheritance!” He has surrounded us with people – a sphere of influence – to be living epistles read of all men! With a Kingdom of God mindset and a passion to reach the people He so desperately loves; then we will see the very land redeemed, wealth released, and a true demonstration of a marketplace minister!
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