Higherlife Transformation Christian Coaching Centre

*THERE IS A WEALTHY PLACE IN GOD*
Psalm 66:12 says *“Thou hast caused man to ride over heads; we went through fire and water; BUT THOU BROUGHTEST US OUT INTO A WEALTHY PLACE.”* You know, all of us at some time or another have gone through hard place – through fire and water - financially. We have been is some tight spots, so to speak. But the good news is it God’s will that we come out of those places. God says He is bringing you ‘out’ and ‘into’. I believe God is saying you are coming out from where you are now, you are coming out of debts, you are coming out the land of not enough, you are coming out of poverty, you are coming out of financial insecurity, and inadequacy. He said He is bringing you into place called a wealthy place and where is this wealth place. It is the place of God’s perfect will for your life – your wealthy place is where your blessing is, where your anointing, passion, energy, gifting health is.
To enable God bring you into wealthy place, first you have to personally acquainted with your covenant – with the covenant that He have provided for you in Christ, and that is covenant of wealth. God has plan for you as His child to be wealthy; God has purpose for you to be wealthy; God has a design for you to be wealthy; God has an objective for you to be wealthy. Many Christian have no idea that there is a wealth place in God that He wants to bring them into. The reason for that is largely they do not in the perfect will of God, many operates in the permissive will of God. God will for you is to live a wealthy life, and I can further prove that by the Word.
*“But thou shalt remember thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, at it is this day.” (Deuteronomy 8:18).*
*“Praise ye the Lord. Blessed is the man that feareth the ; Lord that delighteth greatly in his commandments. His seed shall be mighty upon earth: the generation of the upright shall be blessed. Wealth and riches shall be in his house: and his righteousness endureth forever.” (Psalm 112:1-3)*
*“For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” (Psalm 84: 11)*
*“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” (Psalm 23:1)*
*“Beloved I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as they soul prosereth.” (3John 2)*
I think you can see from the Word that God doesn’t have a problem with your being wealthy. In fact, wealth is what He want for you. Friend, God has a plan, purpose, design and objective for you to be wealthy. Another way to say it is: You have an assignment from God to be Wealthy. There is a wealthy place in God, and He wants to take you there.
*PRAYER:*
Dear Lord, thank you that You have a wealthy place for me—a place that is spacious and brings freedom, rest, rich relief, liberty, abundant prosperity, and overflowing abundance. I give You praise for bringing me out of (name a difficulty in your life) and into my wealthy place! In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
*Coach Dayo Adepoju*
*Kingdom Minded Entrepreneur*

Experience the powerful advantage of integrating your FAITH and Work

YOUR WORK MATTERS TO GOD (Work has intrinsic value)
How does God view the notion of work? Without question, He regards it as very significant, we can say this first of all because God Himself is a worker. You may have never thought of God is this way. But that is how He makes His first appearance in the page of Scripture.
In Genesis 1 God is found creating the heavens and the earth. Genesis 2:2 call this activity “work” it is the same word that is used for men’s work in the ten commandment. Furthermore, since the time of creation, God continues to work. It is true that after completing the creation He “rested” from that work that is He stopped working on it. Nevertheless, Jesus declared to the Pharisees, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.” (John5:17). What is the ongoing work of God?
He uphold the creation (Col. 1; 16-17).
He also meet the broad range of needs that all His creation have. (Ps. 104:10-30).
He is working out His purposes in history. This was Moses point in Deuteronomy 11: 1-7.
And of course He accomplished the great work of atonement at the Cross as Jesus explained, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me, and to accomplish His work. (John 4; 34).
God is a worker: This alone gives us a clue that work itself must be significant, that it must have intrinsic value. For by definition, God can do nothing that is not inherently good or else He would violate His own nature and character. The fact that God calls what He does “work” and call that work “good” means that work has intrinsic worth.
God created people as workers: We also find at the beginning of the work of Genesis that God created man in His image as a worker. This gives us a second reason why work has intrinsic value. Most of us already familiar with the profound and often misunderstood truth that man was created in the image of His divine creator, but since God Himself is a worker, we would expect man who is created in God’s image, to be a worker too. (See Genesis 1:26, 28-29).
The concept of mankind ruling over the other creatures and subduing the creation and eating from the produce of the earth all point to man as a worker. Not only is God a worker, but man is a worker too. In fact, Ecclesiastes 3:13 calls this work a gift of God: “Moreover, that every man eats and drinks sees good in all his labor—it is gift of God.”
God created people to be His coworkers: So man works because he is created in the image of God. But he was created not as a worker unto himself, but as a coworker with God. This puts a slight twist on what we have said so far, giving us a third important reason arguing for the inherent value of everyday work. The creation account says:
And the Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed… Then the Lord God the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. (Genesis 2:8, 15).
God planted the garden; man cultivated it. The first partnership! What an incredible privilege… an infinite God collaborating with finite humans. Work can be a wonderful gift! Having created us, God honors us by making us coworkers with Him. Psalm 8 describes this in vivid terms. The psalmist opens by praising the Creator for His being and character, and finally for His work. He essentially asks, “In light of who You are and what You have done, God, of what significance is man?” The answer is that man has great dignity and value as God’s coworker (See Ps. 8:5-8).
But does this include all work? So we have seen three reasons why our everyday is significant. The fact that God is a worker argues for it. The fact that people mirror God when they work argues for it. And the fact that people’s work is an extension of God’s work argues for it.
But how far can we press for this? Are we to think that God smiles on every sort of “work” that humans do? This can be answered in three qualifying statements.
All legitimate work is an extension of God’s work.
Because of sin, none of our work completely fulfills God’s intentions.
The connection between the works we do and how it contributes to God’s work is not always obvious.
God’s Work—your work (work has instrumental value). The fact that God is a worker and has created mankind in His image as His coworker. This led to the observation that all legitimate work is an extension of God’s work. We need raise an important questions. How can every worker discover the connection between his everyday work and how that work contributes to what God wants done in the world? In other words, how does the professional athlete participate as a coworker with God? How does the retailer do God’s work? How does the work of the shoemaker, the bank teller, the journalist or the mortgage banker contribute directly to God’s work?
To answer these questions, we need to see that there are at least five major reasons for the work God gives us. There may be other reasons beside these, but these reasons clearly given in Scripture, and they are fair comprehensive. These reasons show that work has broad instrumental value in addition to intrinsic value. In other words, it is a means to several ends.
Through work we serve people.
Through work we meet our own needs.
Through work we meet our family’s needs.
Through work we can earn money to give to others.
Through work we love God.
Now at a glance you should already be able to see some ways that your work contributes to God’s work. At a minimum, your job provides you with an income to meet your needs and if you have a family, to meet their needs as well. But is this part of God’s work? Yes, but we are running ahead of ourselves. First we need to be very clear about what it is that God wants done in this world. Has He given us any clues beyond that creation mandate in Genesis 1 and 2? Indeed He has.
Conclusion: Loving God. Loving others. Loving ourselves. This is what God has told us to do. This is what He wants us to concentrate on. And our work, far from being opposed to these commands, is actually one of our most important means of fulfilling them. Work matters to God. It has important instrumental value.
I have found that when a person looks at work in this way, it revolutionizes his attitude toward his job. For the first time he sees a connection between what he does all day and what God wants done. And I think most Christians sincerely want to do God’s will. But so often they view His will as something abstract and general. Work makes it very practical and specific –and personal.
This means that you do not have to quit your job and go into ministry to do something significant for God. Some will undoubtedly need to do that. But God wants most of us to stay where we are and contribute to His work in the everyday tasks of life. This is what He had in mind when He created the world as recorded in Genesis 1 and 2. And this is part of the Great Commandments that Jesus recalled in Matthew 22.
This all sounds wonderful, if not utopian. The unfortunate truth, though, that must be laid alongside these principles is that we live in a fallen world in which sin has dramatically affected work and workers.
Note. This is an adapted excerpt from Doug Sherman and William Hendricks, Your Work Matters to God. (NavPress, Colorado Springs, 1987). P77-96

CHURCHES THAT WILL THRIVE AFTER COVID19 WILL MOVE:
• From building walls to building bridges in the. community.
• From measuring attendance to measuring impact.
• From encouraging saints to attend services to equipping saints for the work of service.
• From self-focused "serve us" to service.
• From duplication of human services and ministries to partnering with existing services and ministries.
• From condemning the city to blessing and praying for it.
• From being a minister in a congregation to being a minister in a parish.
(Building the External Focus Church" Christian Washington. www. leadnet.org/resources.asp)

How to Flourish through Financial Crisis
John Pletcher
Amidst the current threat of Covid-19, fear of loss, and physical distancing, so many of us are slapped by financial uncertainty. With shifts in labor needs, downward market trends, and suspended jobs, we might relate to Naomi’s raw feelings in the Old Testament story of Ruth. She was experiencing deep grief. Like Naomi, we may start to feel bitter and empty. How do we survive financially, spiritually, and emotionally in the face of a financial crisis?
God lovingly intends for us to do more than survive. The marvelous intentionality of God’s original design, along with our being created in his image, included the call to “be fruitful, increase . . . fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature…” (Gen 1:28-30) Such royal work and mission from God, often called the “cultural mandate,” included a down-to-earth, daily bread reminder. God is the one who supplies the plants, trees, and seeds for humans and animals as food
In their book From Dependence to Dignity, Brian Fikkert and Russell Mask highlight this important insight:
Note that while God made the world “perfect,” he left it “incomplete.” This means that while the world was created to be without defect, God called humans to interact with creation, to make possibilities into realities, and to be able to sustain ourselves via the fruits of stewardship. In summary, when our entire substance—mind, heart, actions, and body—is living in right relationship to God, self, others, and the rest of creation, we experience human flourishing. This is what humans are created to be. It is the good life for which we are longing.
Reality check. Our lives often feel very bad instead of good. We are in such a collective season right now. In the wake of the Fall (Gen 3), our lives are extra-complicated, broken, and all too often, we feel like we are far from flourishing. We feel the pain, serious distance, and the overall dark condition of our fallen existence. We do not experience those right relationships with God, self, others, and the rest of creation. Instead, we scrape and struggle to fulfill that original royal calling, to be fruitful leaders, flourishing with creative productivity. How can we flourish in ways that are emotionally responsible and growth-oriented? Amidst numerous rich theological insights supplied in Ruth’s story, I find one extra-encouraging.
Reminders of God’s Faithful Promises to Provide
As they returned, Naomi and Ruth had two totems to greet them. The town itself was a huge totem: Bethlehem. This Hebrew name means “house of bread.” Though they had experienced the severe season of famine, this little town’s name served as a constant reminder of God’s faithfulness to sustain and supply for his people. In addition, the story reports that they arrived “as the barley harvest was beginning” (Ruth 1:22). The sheaves of barley were waving at them from the fields. The scenery all around them shouted the message, “God is faithful. He provides.” He delights to take us from empty to flourishing.
I have an intriguing totem—actually a set—sitting on the shelf behind my desk. They are a uniquely carved pair of elephants that I successfully bartered for and purchased from a precious Chinese merchant on a dusty backstreet in Hong Kong. I only paid a few dollars, but their real value is priceless.
The year was 1990. I was a college student with very little money, but I had sensed God wanted me to go global and learn some bigger mission principles. The trip’s cost would be fifteen hundred dollars, an astounding deal for such a trip today, but it was an enormous sum of money for a twenty-year-old in that era. Honestly, I took the risk, signed up for the trip, and I had no real clue from where the resources would emerge.
I’d like to say I was full of faith, but honestly, I was all over the map emotionally and at times very anxious. I prayed passionately and wondered. I paced my dorm room, calling on God to supply. My anxiety rose, but so did my prayers and my hopeful anticipation. I shared with people about my upcoming trip and asked for their help, steps that proved both humbling and formative. Marvelously, the Lord was faithful, supplying every penny of the fifteen hundred dollars.
The experience of that trip proved profoundly transformative. It supplied some of my earliest perspective shifts on God’s link between entrepreneurial businesses, new churches, and God’s expanding kingdom. Today, the carved elephants serve as totems, a constant reminder that God is big enough, and he faithfully provides. Years later, when I am feeling a current financial crisis or a challenge of any size—sometimes for fifteen hundred dollars again, or at times hundreds of thousands for some new missional endeavor—I look at the elephants. My elephant totems are a constant, tangible reminder of how good, strong, and faithful the Almighty is to supply.
What are Your Totems, Your Tangible Reminders?
Years later, this little village of Bethlehem would serve as the birthplace for a boy who would grow up to satisfy humanity’s deepest hunger and ultimately supply the greatest hope for flourishing. Forgiveness, new life, truly abundant life. We dare not miss the bigger redemptive story, such swoosh of grace. This place, the House of Bread, Bethlehem became the destination of seeking Wise Ones and run-to-find-the-babe Shepherds. Bethlehem was the birthplace of the One who called himself our bread of life, our ultimate redeemer, King Jesus.
Gaze anew on these totems, Bethlehem and a barley harvest. Look closely, and see King Jesus, the one ultimately capable of supplying our every need and leading us into true flourishing, even in a financial crisis (Phil 4:18-19).

Coaching Works

Flourishing in the workplace
Michael Coveney

No matter where you look, doom, gloom and despondency surround us. And yet in the midst of a global economic slowdown where the threat of redundancy casts an ever-growing long shadow, the Bible tells us to ‘look up’ and to be cheerful. Not only that, it promises that those that love God will flourish irrespective of what is happening around them. So what does the Bible mean by ‘flourishing’ and how do you shrug off the despair that surrounds so many people? This practical, article aims to answer these questions and will equip you to thrive no matter where you work. (All Bible verses are from The Message translation)
Throughout history in good times and in bad, God has consistently blessed his children. Everything God does towards us is to bless, prosper and make us rich:
How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He's the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth's foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son. Ephesians 1:3 – 6
Christians are the most blessed people on earth. Our God prospers and honours those who honour him. The lives of God-loyal people flourish. Proverbs 15:6 (The Message)
Flourish means to thrive, grow, increase, and prosper, to do well. So how does this translate into today's workplace experience - are God's promises just as valid or has He withdrawn them? Or maybe He didn't quite mean what we read? For most people, their financial and social wealth will come from the workplace. It's where we spend most of our adult life (64%) and from it the quality of life we enjoy. But so often work is seen as a necessary evil, something to be got out of. If that's how we see it then we’ve totally missed the point and we'll miss out on the blessings that God has in store for us. As I look back through my career I see the hand of God in guiding me, blessing me and helping me to achieve things that I thought were not possible. And it was because His blessing was upon me - not because I deserved it but because He is a God who loves to bless. I'm saddened when I meet Christians who hate their jobs. Of course there are times when I faced people and situations I didn't care for - but it was in those times where I saw God at work. I’ve been threatened with demotion because my boss didn’t like me, but God brought me through them all and into a better place than I had before. Now you may be thinking "it's alright for him - he doesn't know my situation - the difficulties my profession faces, the people I have to work with". In answer to this I want to take a look at what the Bible says about work and the importance of our attitude towards it.
God’s view of work
To begin with, God is a God of work. Work is part of Gods DNA – just look at creation. God’s plan for us is to work – to go into the world and subdue it, to be fruitful. It's through a job well done where we gain satisfaction. What did God say after each day of creation? He saw that it was good. Is that how we look back on our workday? It is God’s intention that every Christian should thrive, grow, increase, prosper, and do well at work.
Keys to Prospering at Work
The Bible has many examples of how God wants us to be at work - Joseph and Daniel being two of them. Both were put into work environments that initially they would not have chosen. Both found themselves in a foreign land, were unjustly treated, falsely accused, we're plotted against. At one stage both thought they had lost everything - their livelihood, future prospects and yet they both achieved fame, respect and wealth. God was able to turn around each of their circumstances and bless them - but only because of the following right attitude they had to the work they were given.
1. Remember who you are, no matter where you are placed
Ask anyone about themselves and they will usually respond with their job title. However, we can't impress God with either a job title or how much we make. If we judge success at work in terms of position or earnings then we will never be satisfied. As Christians, our workplace is our mission field - it's the place where God has appointed us to be His ambassadors, the place where God has said He would never leave or forsake us. You may say that you only put books back on a shelf, that you are just a cleaner – or that you’ve been repeatedly overlooked for promotion and ignored. But this isn’t how God sees you. “But I hate my job” you may say. Why? Is it beneath you? You are not an employee but a prince, a valued servant under the protection of Almighty God. He has a plan for you and He will bring you out of it when your work is done and when you are ready. There is much said about pressure and stress in the workplace. Pressure is generally something that other people place on you - but stress is how you respond internally. Stress is a spiritual attack - to avoid it you must constantly see yourself with God’s eyes as to who you really are.
2. Work hard, without complaint
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord. Colossians 3:23.
The Hebrew for word for work and worship is the same. Avodah. When we work we worship God. The more we put in, the more we’ll get out of it. Today’s bonus culture implies that organization’s only get performance if staff are incentivized. However, a recent study published in the Harvard Business Review showed that not only is this untrue, but it can actually have a bad effect on performance. Both Joseph and Daniel were the best they could be, irrespective of how they were rewarded. Joseph in his early work life wasn’t even paid - but each saw their service as being towards God and it was God that honoured them. In Daniel 1 we read that “In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom”. This was the result of God’s strength and their hard work. Joseph was put in charge of the jail even though a prisoner himself. Why? Would their promotions have happened if they had both, with some human justification, complained about their lot? In our workplace we represent God. And if our colleagues know we are Christians they will judge God by the way we act. Would God steal things, time, fiddle expenses? It's all about attitude and if that attitude is wrong then how can God promote us? By being faithful in a few things, will determine if we can be faithfully in greater things. Romans 12:1-2: So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life-your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life-and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.

We could add here that embracing the workplace where God has placed us is the best thing we can do for Him! The verse goes on to say: Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture [ a culture of complaint, mediocre performance] that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Joseph and Daniel proved themselves - and it didn't go unnoticed.
3. Respect your boss
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Ephesians 6:5
Paul in writing to the Ephesians told them to respect those that have the rule over them. It applies equally well to us today and that includes your boss. And there is a good reason for this. Real wisdom, God's wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterised by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honour. James 3:17
A recently published study showed that those who help others at work without being asked and because they wanted to, are 40% more likely to receive a promotion in the following year, have significantly higher job satisfaction, and feel 10 times more engaged with where they work. God wants you to honour your boss, no matter what kind of tyrant they may be. Why? Because it is the mark of a faithful servant. Also no one is going to recommend promotion to anyone who disrespects them.
4. Stand firm in your faith

Don’t compromise your faith and service to God, even though it threatens your position. Joseph refused to sleep with Potipha’s wife. Daniel refused to pray in secret. In each case their Godly life style clashed with what was expected of them in the workplace. But each stayed true to God - but without being a pain. This is where a life that has honoured your boss pays off. Character works itself out by who we are and what we do. Decisions at work should always be made from the perspective of a life lived for God.
5. Seek to improve yourself

Many people at work try to do the absolute minimum - their contract and nothing more. And then wonder why they don’t get promotion. Promotion isn't a long service medal – it’s usually because you have better skills and experience that others don't have. Invest in your own career – don’t leave it up to the company you work for or others. Your career is your responsibility. Asking God for guidance is not a cop out of taking responsibility. When going after a promotion or a new job ask yourself whether that position is attainable - do you have the right skills, the right experience, and in some cases the right contacts? If you don’t then you need to invest your time and resources to acquire them. I’m convinced that God will bring you into situations and contact with people where you'll gain experience, develop skills and develop contacts. Don't go it alone. Meet up with others who have done it before and ask them for an honest opinion about your suitability. But only do it with those who have that experience and have been successful. It’s like learning to fly a plane - go to another pilot who is a great pilot for advice, not a bad one or one who thinks they can fly.
6. Join up with other Christains

God doesn’t expect us to work alone – we are many members of one body. Transform Work UK believes that the workplace and the nation can be changed by Christians getting together to pray for their workplace – their colleagues, their managers. To help the organisation adopt good Christian principles – which are also good business practices. Check out our Christian Workplace Group directory to see if there is a group in the organisation you work for. If not, then why not start one up? The booklet A Short Guide to Christian Groups in the Workplace is freely available from this web site that shows you how to do this. It’s amazing what two or three Christians can accomplish when they meet in His name.
Summary
To summarise, the experiences that Joseph and Daniel went through helped them to flourish and become prosperous in their workplace - even though they didn't realise it at the time.
Joseph’s experience in managing Potipha’s house and the jail, helped him later on to meet the right people and to manage the land of Egypt.
Daniel’s training in Nebuchadnezzar’s palace gave him access and respect with the king at the right time.
Neither of them realised where they would end up - but it was the way they handled the tasks they were given, the way they treated their boss, how they lived out their faith in God, and their attitude to be the best, that made them the right people for the job they ended up with. And God can do exactly the same for us as well.

MY WORK IS MY MINISTRY
To me, my work and ministry are one in the same. Scripture does not differentiate between work and ministry, secular and sacred instead, God says “whatever you do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ” ( Col. 3:17)
Pratrick Morley, author of the book Man in the Mirror, plainly state “The issue is not whether or not you are in ministry, but whether or not you are faithful in the ministry God has given you.
If we are not faithful in our work because we yearn to be “in the ministry,” then we are doing a disservice to God, to ourselves and others. In fact I don’t believe that until we are faithful where God places us will we ever be ready to fulfil our dream. Pratrick Morley also observed that “95 percent of us will never be in ‘occupational’ ministry, but that does not means we are not ministers.”
VERY CHRISTIAN HAS A CALLING
The first thing we have do is cast off the false belief that the term call refer only to professional ministers like missionaries, pastors or evangelists. In point of fact, all Christians are called, consider the following survey of verses from New Testament.
“To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints.” (Rom.1:7). This verse alone is enough to debunk the idea that only some believers are called. Indeed, the Greek reads, “to all who are in Rome---the beloved of God, the called saints”. Every Christian in Rome, not just a few, is the beloved of God, the called of God, a saint. The point is made even stronger when we realize that our calling is to sainthood, to be literally ‘holy ones.’ In other words, every Christian is sanctified, set apart by God’s call as his.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Rom.8:28). Once again, we note that unlimited application of God’s call. The promise of this verse is not some small number of elite Christians; rather it applies to all Christians who are by definition, called according to his purpose. “God who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful” ( 1Cor.1:9). All of us, not some of us were called. “I , therefore , the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called” ( Eph. 4:1NKJV). Both as a noun and as a verb, call is applied to all believers. In 1Conrinthians chapter 7, Paul counsels the readers that when they become Christians it is unnecessary to change what they are currently doing in life---their marital state, job or social station---in order to live their lives before God in a way that pleases him. In verse 17, Paul directs, “ Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him.
The word for call in the New Testament is kaleo. It can be translated as calling, vocation, or invitation. After examining every verse that uses the word, I came to this working definition: the call of God is an authoritative, divine invitation with a purpose. The other aspect of the call is that God calls us to something or for something. He invites us for a reason. In Scripture, God call us to be his people and possession, to be holy, to be saints, to experience fellowship with Christ, to serve him only, and expand the kingdom on this earth.
SACRED VERSUS SECULAR
So how did we get to this place? Why do we have a difficult time viewing our work as a calling? Os Guinness, in his book, The Call, gives us some insights into this area. In 312 A.D., during the early reformation period, the Catholic Distortion elevated the spiritual at the expense of the secular, creating a dualism (two worlds) of belief. This belief said the spiritual had greater value than the secular. This is where the term, "full-time Christian work" was introduced. Then, in 1650, the Protestants contributed to the problem by creating another form of dualism - they elevated the secular at the expense of the spiritual. It severed the secular from the spiritual altogether and reduced vocation to an alternative word for work. The result of these two major changes has led to the separation of church and state and the sacred versus secular view of work and calling.
VIEWING WORK AS A MINISTRY
In the movie, Chariots of Fire, the Olympic runner, Eric Liddel understood this concept. "When I run I feel His pleasure," he said. God calls us to see our work as worship to God. Both words in the Old Testament come from the same Hebrew word, avodah. If you are in the workplace, your mission field is as great as any mission field in the world.
Jesus is our primary model to understand that our work is a calling from God. He saw his work with an overriding ministry objective to it. He did not view his work as secular, but a sacred calling from God. The Hebrews saw all of life as sacred. God placed His Son in a carpenter shop as a young man until the age of thirty. Then, at age thirty, God launched him into a different type of workplace calling. After an extended workplace preparation time, God sent him into the workplace to share the gospel. And, He used other workplace believers to spread His Word to others.
It is interesting to note that of Jesus' 132 public appearances, 122 were in the workplace. He called 12 other men to join him who also operated in the workplace. And he used many of his analogies from workplace situations to demonstrate a spiritual principle
AN INVENTOR TRANSFORMS AN ECONOMY
George Washington Carver understood his calling from God was his work. He was born during the height of slavery in the U.S. He lost his mother to slave traders. If there was ever a man who deserved to be a victim to his circumstances, it was he. But God had a plan for his life. He came to faith in Christ as a young boy and although God gave Carver an inventive mind, he would gain his education under great adversity. Eventually, Carver would become an inventor and have his own laboratory where he would spend time with God early in the morning. The southern agricultural economy was in a shambles after hundreds of years of planting cotton. The land was no longer fertile. Carver was seeking to provide an alternative crop for the farmers. "Under this disaster's crushing weight, Carver beseeched God, 'Mr. Creator, why did You make the peanut?' Many years later, he shared that God led him back to his laboratory and worked with him to discover some 300 marketable products from the peanut. Likewise, from the sweet potato he made more than 100 discoveries. Economists and agriculturalists agree that Carver contributed more than any other individual to rejuvenate the Southern economy.
CONCLUSION
Do you know God’s call on your life? Have you accepted his authoritative invitation? Can you express your purpose under God? If God made Eric Liddell to be fast so that he could honor God through running what has he made your for. God might call you to business, just as he’s called missionaries, teachers, nurses and physicians to their respective professions. As Dallas Willard put it. “It is as great and as difficult a spiritual calling to run the factories and the mines, the banks and the department stores, the schools and government agencies for the kingdom of God as it is to pastor a church or serve as an evangelist.”
The good news is that believers are called to it. All Christians have a calling a high and holy calling.

References
Paul J. Meyer, 24 Keys The Bring Complete Success, Bridge-Logos, Alachua USA, 2006
Michael R. Bear, Business as Mission: The Power of Business in the Kingdom of God, YWAM, Seattle, 2006.
OS Hillman, Your Work Is Your Calling.www.MarketplaceLeaders.org. Accessed on 2/112019.
OS Guinness, The Call: Finding and fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life, W Publishing Group, USA.1998.

calling.www.marketplaceleaders.org