Faith and the Marketplace: Becoming the Person of Influence God Intended You to Be

By Bill Winston

Whether you work as a plumber or politician, manager or metal-worker—where you work is your mission field. Believe it or not, your business was created for Kingdom business.There is a level of fruitfulness and authority in which God wants you to operate. This life-transforming message has been newly revised and expanded to provide you with fresh insights and revelation on how you can be a person of tremendous influence in the arena where God has placed you.This Kingdom leadership playbook promises to catapult you to the next level of your career, profession, business, or ministry. Learn how to build your faith in God and understand His perfect plan for your life. Your faith was never meant to be separated from your work or business life. Using both scripture and personal stories, Bill Winston will show you how God is restoring this unbeatable team of kings and priests to advance His Kingdom and transform the marketplace through the superior principles of faith and fruitfulness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HigherLife Publishing
• Release date: Feb 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781951492595

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Preface

FAITH AND THE MARKETPLACE: Becoming the Person of Influence God Intended You to Be is a continuation of my signature book Faith & The Marketplace. It contains powerful, new revelation that God longs to share with His people about how to become an undeniable success and person of value and influence in the marketplace—His way!

What does His way mean? It means doing business and any marketplace endeavor above human intellect and human ability by accessing and using the supernatural wisdom and ability of Almighty God!

Jesus did most of His miracles in the marketplace not in the synagogue. He did them where the world could be a witness. Miracles or the supernatural is what separates the Church from the world. They demonstrate the presence and power of God. We need God’s power to see the economic transformations of our companies, communities and cities not in decades but now.

I firmly believe that too many of God’s marketplace leaders are still designing and executing their plans and businesses without His wisdom and power. As a result, they are still competing with the world instead of taking their place of leadership and dominance in their areas of influence.

For certain, this book is not like any other business book you will probably ever read. But, if you are a born-again believer, I believe it will be one of the most important business books you will ever read. It’s a Kingdom business playbook that contains insights and wisdom given during many hours with God in private study, as well as from many years of walking with God as I obediently followed what He called me to do in the earth.

One important piece of wisdom is that God always starts with the end in mind (Isaiah 46:10), and we are to operate as He operates. Many years ago, He told me, Buy that shopping mall. Well, I didn’t know how that was going to happen at the time. But, I received the Holy Spirit’s Word and began to act on it in faith. The first step is to say the end result. Then God begins to fill in the blanks. Today, we not only own one but two shopping malls.

As a Kingdom entrepreneur in any sphere of the marketplace, you must get a revelation that all increase in the Kingdom of God is accelerated. You don’t have to wait ten years to reach a million dollars in profit. Why? Because first, you are using God’s resources, not your own. Second, the increase is not earned but created. Third, you don’t learn your strategies for business success you discern them (revelation from God). When you can download in prayer the wisdom of 30 years of business experience—that’s acceleration!

Job 32:6–10 in The Message translation says, "I kept thinking, ‘Experience will tell. The longer you live, the wiser you become.’ But I see I was wrong—it’s God’s Spirit in a person, the breath of the Almighty One, that makes wise human insight possible. The experts have no corner on wisdom; getting old doesn’t guarantee good sense’ emphasis mine. It’s God’s Spirit in a person" that makes them wiser than their competitors.

Another advantage the believer has in the marketplace is the grace of God. Through His grace, God’s people can use invisible resources—the Holy Spirit, angels, favor—that those who are outside of the Kingdom of God can’t access. Grace is often defined as God’s unmerited favor. The definition I like is God’s willingness to use His power and ability on our behalf even though we don’t deserve it. Divine favor brings supernatural increase, recognition, prominence, preferential treatment, petitions granted, policies and rules changed on our behalf, and battles won that we don’t even have to fight! In short, God’s favor will cause opportunities and resources to come to you, even resources from the world’s system, if necessary, to help you win in the marketplace.

If you are familiar with my earlier teaching on faith and the marketplace, you know that it came from a revelation that God gave to me when I was enrolled in seminary back in 1986. After a time of seeking the Lord to better understand my purpose and calling in this life, I heard, Take the straps off. The Lord was taking me to a greater understanding of His Truth, one that would allow me to see a ministry as any enterprise where Jesus is Lord. People would then recognize a ministry as a manufacturing company, or a publishing company, or ABC Distribution Company.

He revealed to me that there will be godly men and women with great integrity managing these companies. They will be God’s anointed ministers in the marketplace. They will operate these businesses using the principles of faith along with their basic business skills. God also led me to Isaiah 48:17: "Thus saith the LORD, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the LORD thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go." As I read these words, I saw them as I had never seen them before. The word profit stood out like light in the darkness.

From this revelation came the Joseph Business School (JBS), founded in 1998 and now a nationally accredited business school, training students using practical and biblical principles to be successful entrepreneurs and business leaders. The wealth created from the graduates’ businesses will help establish God’s Kingdom in every place and eradicate poverty wherever it is found.

For decades, I have been teaching and preaching, demonstrating and documenting that one word given to me that day while in seminary, which became the basis for the first edition of Faith & The Marketplace. My first book focused on your purpose as either a king or priest. This second edition includes new revelation of how God has planned, empowered and provided for you to achieve your purpose.

As the world’s economic system continues to fail, those trained on how to do business by the Book will prevail. In fact, the church institution will become the most successful and wealthiest in the world, no longer living on leftovers and struggling to meet the church budget. There will be plenty in Daddy’s house. The people of God will no longer be working for money, but money will be working for them. God’s promise is that the true believer will be the head and not the tail, the lender and not the borrower.

Here is a biblical prophecy spoken by Ezekiel that must be fulfilled:

The desolate land will be cultivated instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass through it. They will say, "This land that was laid waste has become like the garden of Eden; the cities that were lying in ruins, desolate and destroyed, are now fortified and inhabited…I the LORD have spoken, and I will do it.

Ezekiel 36:34–36, NIV

When Adam and Eve sinned and were put out of the garden of Eden, they began to produce another culture, a culture that was built outside the presence of the One True God. It was a culture originating from the mind of its architect, satan, and not from our Creator. Soon, laws were made to support this culture and to legalize its destructive influence.

Without God, society is stuck with inferior principles getting inferior results. Without the wisdom of God to make divinely directed decisions, the world remains on a course of self-destruction. The book of Proverbs says, "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" (Proverbs 14:12). In six of the seven pillars shaping our society—government, business, education, media, the family, and arts and entertainment—there has been a conspicuous absence of faith in God. The seventh pillar is religion.

What happened? Faith left the marketplace. Today, in almost every nation, crime, corruption, and cyber-terrorism have increased and global poverty is on the rise. These problems remind me of the story of the mythical character Hercules fighting the giant Hydra, a dragon-type monster with many heads. As soon as Hercules would cut off one head, two more would grow back in its place. We cannot solve today’s problems without the wisdom of God.

This is why the ministers who God spoke to me about in that life-changing prophetic word in 1986 must receive their calling and take their rightful place as marketplace shapers of destiny. As Jesus points out in the gospel of Mark 10:27, "With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible."

In this revised and expanded edition of Faith and the Marketplace: Becoming the Person of Influence God Intended You to Be, I not only discuss the restoration of the Old Testament model of kings and priests, which is today’s clergy and laymen working together for the good of the Kingdom of God, but also the powerful revelation of fruitfulness found in Genesis 1:28. You will want to read my new chapters on fruitfulness over and over.

Today, more than ever, we need this revelation that every king needs a priest. Every Abraham needed a Melchizedek, every King David needed a prophet Nathan, every Pharaoh needed a Joseph. Even in the history of our United States Armed Forces, every General Patton needed the prayer of his army chaplain. Why? The problems we face today are more than physical. We need the return of this divinely created unbeatable team of kings and priests.

As you read Faith and the Marketplace: Becoming the Person of Influence God Intended You to Be, I pray that "the eyes of your understanding will be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of His calling for you, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in you, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward you when you believe" (Ephesians 1:18–19, Winston translation).

God gave us dominion over all Creation. We are not to sit idle but to participate in transforming the earth into what God intended it to be from the beginning, moving all His creation to His glorious end, "For we are labourers together with God" (1 Corinthians 3:9).

You and I are born for such a time as this.

Bill Winston

Introduction

ONE OF MY EARLIEST revelations about the Kingdom of God came during a mission trip to Haiti many years ago. The ministry team saw poverty all around until we came to an opulent white mansion in the middle of the city surrounded by beautiful green grass and enclosed by a tall, wrought iron fence with gates.

It was clear the people inside the gates were not living like most of the Haitian people we saw. No! Those inside seemed to be living in affluence and comfort far above the standard of living of most of the island.

Somewhat surprised, I remember asking, What is that? The driver replied, Oh, that’s the United States Embassy. The U.S. ambassador lives there.

Ambassadors are diplomats from one country who conduct business on behalf of their government in another country. They live in that foreign country in an embassy. The grounds and buildings of an embassy are considered the property of the ambassador’s home country and are protected by its military. No one is allowed inside the embassy without permission.

While working in a foreign country, ambassadors have what is called diplomatic immunity. Diplomatic immunity is defined as the privilege of exemption from certain laws and taxes granted to diplomats by the country in which they are working. This means that while in that country, the diplomats are immune from criminal prosecution and civil suits.

So, the white mansion I saw in Haiti was the property and responsibility of the United States government. The U.S. government, not the Haitian government, took care of it, protected it, and provided for the needs of the ambassador and embassy staff living in it. But this is the key: The staff didn’t live there according to Haiti’s local economy, but according to the wealth and economy of the United States. You could perhaps say that the American ambassador was immune to Haiti’s poverty and lack.

That day I began to receive a revelation of how the Kingdom of God operates, and the way God wants every born-again believer to live as Kingdom citizens in the earth. "But our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20, MEV) and My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19). As representatives of heaven’s government, we no longer have to live on the level of fallen man but on the level of Father God! We are, after all, as the apostle Paul tells us, ambassadors for Christ" (2 Corinthians 5:20).

You may be asking right now, What does being an ambassador for Christ have to do with faith and the marketplace? The answer is, Everything. We are on this earth to carry out the will of the King and His Kingdom and to enforce His will by using the superior laws and principles of heaven’s government. We are here to reverse the effects of the curse that entered when Adam fell (e.g., poverty, violence, hate, famine, and disease) and to rebuild every community, city, and nation to flourish like the garden of Eden. This book was written to tell you how.

As Kingdom ambassadors, we have access to government secrets. These secrets are original ideas given to us by God that those outside the embassy gates can’t access. Whether you are a king or priest, God wants you to dominate in your assignment through creativity, problem solving, innovation, and wealth creation. And fruitfulness is how you bring them forth, make them public and produce them in the earth.

In Faith and the Marketplace: Becoming the Person of Influence God Intended You to Be, my desire is you will add to your understanding God’s command to be fruitful and learn how to apply this command to achieve ten times better results or performance in whatever your field of endeavor. Fruitfulness can happen in the life of every believer once they find their place of grace (purpose) and employ God’s Genesis 1:28 mandate to be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth, and subdue it.

So, whether you are called to the pulpit or the pew, you have a calling. You are not ordinary. You were born with much more potential and for greater work than where you are right now. Like the Elijahs or Esthers who decided the destinies of nations, the fulfillment of your Kingdom assignment is extremely important. As a clergyman or on the city council, as an educator or evangelist, as an economic rainmaker or homemaker, or a missionary, you are anointed to be fruitful and render exceptional service. And through this divine partnership of kings and priests and, of course, Almighty God, you can effectively change the destiny of millions, if not billions, in cities and countries all over the world.

Lastly, as you read this revised and expanded edition, I pray you will not only confirm your unique place and purpose in the Kingdom but also bring forth heaven on earth wherever you are sent through faith and fruitfulness.

God bless you on your journey…enjoy!

Part 1

The Foundation

• CHAPTER 1 •

Fruitfulness: God’s Way to Change the World

GOD REVEALED MANKIND’S PURPOSE in the first chapter of the book of Genesis.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Genesis 1:26

God made Adam and Eve in His image and likeness and gave them dominion over everything He had created. He planned for them to bring heaven to earth and to recreate the garden of Eden throughout the planet. This was mankind’s original purpose, and it has never changed.

Like heaven, Eden was a place of exquisite beauty, opulence, and abundance. There was no sickness, lack, or death. God had provided everything Adam and Eve would ever desire, including peace, love, and perfect fellowship with the Father.

After God revealed our purpose in Genesis 1:26, He then told us how to fulfill that purpose in verse 28:

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

In this verse, to bless means to empower for success or empower to prosper. When God blessed Adam and Eve, He conferred on them the power He used to create the universe, which is called The Blessing. After God blessed them, He then gave them four laws or principles of creation to dominate and rule the planet—be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth, and subdue it. Like our purpose, these laws for dominion have never changed. Whether you are an entrepreneur, high school principal, or public official, your success is in direct proportion to how well you understand and apply these four principles.

These four laws for dominion are why I wrote this revised and expanded edition of Faith and the Marketplace. When Genesis 1:28 becomes a revelation, illuminating your mind and transforming your thinking, you will become, in the words of Booker T. Washington, a person with indispensable skills and undeniable value¹ in the marketplace. The extent of your education or your country of origin or the color or your skin will no longer make a difference. Fruitfulness will not only level the playing field, it will cause you to dominate the field.

When you master these principles, you will bring forth fruit that will bless humanity, glorify God, and change the world around you for the better. Why? Because you will bring forth heaven’s solutions—products, services, ideas, technologies, and innovations conceived and created from another realm (the eternal) that have never been seen before.

Psalm 72:18 says, "Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things." The word wondrous is described in some Bible commentaries as great wonders that no one can match; works that leave all others behind. Wondrous works are what happen when we partner with God to bring forth heaven’s ideas and plans into the earth. No competitor will be able to match what you do or how you do it! You will leave others far behind by dominating your industry and leading in your sphere of influence. Like Daniel, who was ten times better than all his peers, you are now positioned to become a game-changer and a history-maker!

In short, fruitfulness will make you unstoppable in fulfilling your Kingdom assignment and advancing God’s righteous cause wherever He sends you.

God’s First Commandment

Be fruitful were the first words that Adam heard God speak in the garden of Eden. These words weren’t a suggestion, but a command, and they carried the power to bring themselves to pass. Why? Because in the beginning, words were more for creation than communication. "God said, Let there be light: and there was light (Genesis 1:3, emphasis mine). God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind… and it was so" (verse 11, emphasis mine).

To be fruitful means to produce, to create, to make public, or to bring forth.¹ What was God commanding Adam to bring forth? Everything He had planned for the earth and mankind before the world was created. When God told Adam to be fruitful, He expected Adam to create in the earth what He had already created in heaven and stored in heaven’s warehouse. And God has the same expectation of us today. God is waiting for men and women of faith who are filled with the Spirit of God to bring forth into this three-dimensional world of time, space, and matter His plans and solutions that are present right now in the heavenly realm.

Heaven’s Solutions Are Spiritually Discerned

So how do you know what God plans and desires for you to bring forth? Well, first off, know that God doesn’t reveal His thoughts to our intellects but to our spirits. I believe million-dollar ideas and opportunities are passing by God’s people every day. New ideas, inventions, and industries are just waiting in heaven for someone to manifest them in the earth by faith. But many in the Body of Christ remain in lack and poverty because they have failed to discern how God plans to prosper them and the world through them.

To be fruitful requires spending time with God so we can spiritually download what God desires to show us. Don’t miss that. When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, He said, "This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’" (Matthew 6:9–10, NIV). Only through prayer and meditation on God’s Word, can we know the plans God has and wants to birth through His Church.

The apostle Paul wrote, "But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit" (1 Corinthians 2:9–10).

He goes on to write, "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (verse 14).

God has big things for His people, and He eagerly waits to show us. He tells us to "call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not" (Jeremiah 33:3). The Message Translation says, "Call to me and I will answer you. I’ll tell you marvelous and wondrous things that you could never figure out on your own."

Notice, God promises that when we pray to Him, He will tell us "wondrous things" (Psalm 72:18), things we could never figure out on our own! This is how Dr. George Washington Carver was able to invent more than 300 products from the peanut (e.g., milk, plastics, paints, dyes, cosmetics, medicinal oils, soap) and 118 products from the sweet potato (e.g., postage stamp glue, synthetic rubber, molasses). He even discovered a new type of gasoline. Dr. Carver invented things that had never before been seen in the earth, and his discoveries caused Tuskegee University to become known all over the world.²

THIS IS WHY FAITH AND THE MARKETPLACE WERE NEVER MEANT TO BE SEPARATED. God designed us to be co-creators with Him, and Jesus constantly taught this to His disciples, "Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works" (John 14:10).

Abiding in the Vine

In John, chapter 15, Jesus tells His disciples that He is the "true vine and God is the husbandman, which means vinedresser or gardener (verse 1). Every branch" bears fruit because it stays vitally connected to the Vine, Jesus.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

John 15:4–5

The branch represents every born-again believer. For our lives to bear much fruit for the Kingdom of God, we must abide in Jesus Christ. The Greek word for abide means to remain, to stay or to continue.³ It means to reside permanently. We know that if a branch is separated or cut off from a tree, it doesn’t last very long. It soon shrivels, dries up, and dies.

To abide also implies connection and dependence. When we became new creations in Christ through the new birth, the very life and nature of God came to live on the inside of us. Our spirits became re-connected with the Father, just like Adam’s spirit in the garden before he fell. You see, when you professed Christ as your Savior and Lord, you became a believer. The Bible says that your old nature was crucified with Christ and you became a new creation in Him. Yet, how many of us are still living much the same as we did before salvation? Here we are with this incredible capacity to tap into the vine of God’s purpose, provision, and promise, and we don’t. We have not only the command to be fruitful but the capacity to do it!

Like the branch of a tree, if we, as believers, do not remain connected to the True Vine, Jesus, our spiritual lives will soon become dry and lifeless. Like Samson, we will

Reviews for Faith and the Marketplace

[Prince Oludare Akintola · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great Book, deep, clearly written, well grounded in the scriptures, impactful and insightful!