Marketplace Ministry/ You are Called by God

Are you called to Ministry? Is ministry for just a select few or is it for every disciple and follower of Jesus Christ? Today we’re going to answer these questions and many more. There is an important connection between your faith, your marriage and your job.

You are called by God to be his minister in the marketplace. The talent, skills and position you have puts you in the center of the action where God wants to work. Blue collar or white collar work, it doesn’t matter, there are people around you who need God.

In order to have a more powerful effect in the market place, it’s important that if we’re married, we take care of our wife. Jack says that a man’s ministry in the marketplace will only advance to the extent his marriage permits and by strengthening your marriage you also strengthen your career. If you’re leaving your wife in the dust as you pursue God, you are running the race in vain.

In I Peter 3:7 the Bible calls for husbands, to be considerate of your wife, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.
Here is a favorite story of Minner Labrador about brother Lawrence. As a young man, Herman's poverty forced him into joining the army because he was guaranteed food and a small stipend. While in the army he was injured and later went to a Carmelite monastery. There they called him Brother Lawrence and today he is remembered for the relationship to God while working in the kitchen of the monastery.

Another man would have complained and whined about the position. But for Brother Lawrence God was there. God wasn’t there in some abstract way, but in a constant, loving and supporting presence. He would say, “I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him and if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before him, who has given me grace to work; then I rise happier than a king. If I pick up but a straw from the ground I do so for the love of God."

Everything that he did at work he did for God. The Bible tells us in I Peter 2:9 that you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Wherever you may go, whatever work you may be employed in, God is there with you and through you that place of work is now a place he abides.

You are God’s minister in the marketplace, if you’re married, keep it strong that the Lord’s glory may cover the earth.