In 1975, Bill Bright and Loren Cunningham met for the very first time. It just so happened that God spoke to each of these leaders that very week about the importance of the seven cultural spheres, or mind molders, as Bill Bright called them.

Francis Schaeffer later introduced a similar strategy, and Pat Robertson also contributed to this movement. They realized that if we are to affect the culture for Jesus Christ, we need to focus our attention on these seven areas from which most people adopted their values and beliefs. These seven areas were business, government, media, entertainment, family, education and religion.

Unfortunately, their efforts did not really affect much change, because their attempt to affect these areas was done through the religion mountain instead of the business mountain that affects all of the other six areas.

This focus was simply an evangelism strategy to affect key areas in society. They believed we needed to be salt and light in these areas and to raise up young people to get careers in this area. Some in the church have criticized this strategy as dominionism and even a religion. That is simply not the case.

None of the leaders, who came from both the conservative non-charismatic community and the charismatic community, believed we were trying to create dominion over the areas based on the Genesis 1 mandate Adam and Eve. We learn in the New Testament that Jesus never had dominion in a physical sense in the areas he ministered. He did, however, have tremendous impact in communities.

Bill Bright and Loren Cunningham raised up young people as missionaries for evangelism but failed to raise up business leaders or leaders in these spheres.

Another reason for the failure in my opinion is that the faith@work movement had not yet taken place. It was not until the mid-1990s that God’s Spirit began to move among men and women in the marketplace to see their work as a ministry and calling worthy to be embraced as a spiritual calling.

Many ministries were birthed in the mid-1990s, including my own. Yet, sadly, the combination of all of these ministries probably affects less than 1% percent of those believers in the workplace.

It would not be until the year 2000 that a reemergence of the seven-mountain message was re-awakened through Lance Wallnau. In 2005-2008, there were international conferences on the seven mountains that I hosted. Lance Wallnau was one of the main speakers at these events.

It was the year 2000 when I first heard this message through Lance. A few years later, Lance and I began to host international conferences on the seven mountains, as they became known. This name was based on the Scripture verse from Isaiah 2:2-3:

In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow to it. Many people shall go and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”

During the years 2000-2010, we saw men and women in the marketplace begin to realize their high calling. They began to realize they were not second-class citizens spiritually, but God had actually called them to manifest the glory of God in and through their working life. This was not embraced by local church leaders, and to this day, is still in its embryonic stage of understanding among leadership in the church at large.

We realized that it only takes 3-5% of a leadership operating at the top of a cultural mountain to shift the culture’s view of an issue. The best-case study of this is the gay rights movement.

They have literally shifted culture’s view of that issue by infiltrating top positions in entertainment, media, education, family, business and government to embed their people with their worldview. They began writing scripts for sitcoms and movies to have gay characters seen in a positive light.

Over time, they have seen the culture become desensitized to the negative aspect of their lifestyle, and it has now become mainstream. They shifted America’s view of this as a moral issue to being a social issue. Their latest ploy is to get culture to see them as a discriminated class like those in the civil rights movement, which has really angered leaders in the civil rights arena. Christians can learn from their strategy.

In March of 2019 I, along with several leaders, hosted the 2019 International Culture Shapers Summit. We moved away from the seven-mountain branding to “culture shaping” that is more inclusive and less controversial for those who seem bent on making the seven-mountain strategy something it is not.

We had 50 different leaders present on the key areas of influence over three and a half days, and we partnered with the Museum of the Bible. Presenters included Roma Downey, Tony Perkins, Hugh Hewitt, Steve Green, Lance Wallnau, Del Tackett and many others. All of the heads of the faith and work ministries participated as well.

We now are in the year 2019, and we need to ask some hard questions.

What is the next step?

• How can this movement make a difference, which we must admit has had negligible impact so far? True, we have shifted the mindset of many business leaders, and there are some pockets of early adopters who are making a difference.

• How do we identify those who are embracing this strategy and connect them to create a larger leverage point to impact the culture like William Wilberforce did with the Clapham Group in England who achieve 69 world-changing initiatives by working together, not the least of which was the abolishment of slavery?

• What outcomes should we expect if we mobilize God’s marketplace leaders around the seven cultural spheres?

• What are the tactics that should be employed at this time?

• How do we fund worthy projects that can make a kingdom impact on our culture?

• What would success look like if we were successful?

Let us pray that God will use His remnant to stand for righteousness in our culture today and model Jesus’s command to bring heaven on earth in every area of society. {eoa}

Os Hillman is president of Marketplace Leaders, author of 18 books and the director of the Culture Shapers Summit. Os writes a daily email devotional called TGIF Today God Is First that is read in 104 countries.

“In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow to it” (Isa. 2:2).

In 1975, Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade, and Loren Cunningham, founder of Youth With a Mission, had lunch together in Colorado. God simultaneously gave each of these change agents a message to give to the other. During that same time frame, Francis Schaeffer, founder of L’Abri, and Pat Robertson of Regent University and the Christian Broadcasting Network were given a similar message. That message was that if we are to impact any nation for Jesus Christ, then we would have to affect the seven spheres, or mountains, of society that are the pillars of any society.

These seven mountains are business, government, media, arts and entertainment, education, the family and religion. There are many subgroups under these main categories. In essence, God was telling these four change agents where the battlefield was. It was here where culture would be won or lost. Their assignment was to raise up change agents to scale the mountains and to help a new generation of change agents understand the larger story.

During the last 10 years, God has been igniting men and women to see their work life as a holy calling from God. They have begun to realize they have a spiritual calling upon their lives. In the last few years, the message of the seven mountains has begun to re-emerge through many leaders simultaneously, many not knowing one another.

I recall when God began speaking to me about this through my friend Lance Wallnau. I began to teach share this message at international conferences. I had been travelling internationally and had not been in my church for over three months. When I returned, my pastor, Johnny Enlow was in his third message on the seven-mountain strategy. This became a book entitled The Seven-Mountain Prophecy. When God speaks simultaneously to leaders about the same issue, this is often when we realize God is initiating something through His church. Recently I was attending a meeting in Washington, D.C. hosted by CalltoAll and All America. They were presenting a strategy to impact America for Christ. The seven spheres of culture were a core part of their strategy.

Henry Blackaby once said, “You never find God asking persons to dream up what they want to do for Him. When God starts to do something in the world, He takes the initiative to come and talk to somebody. For some divine reason, He has chosen to involve His people in accomplishing His purposes.”

How Culture Is Defined

Culture is defined by a relatively small number of change agents who operate at the tops of these mountains. It takes less than 3 to 5 percent of those operating at the tops of a cultural mountain to actually shift the values represented on that mountain. This is exactly what the gay rights movement has done through the mountain of media and arts and entertainment. They are gradually legitimizing their cause through these two mountains.

Worldview is reflected in each of the mountains of influence by those who operate at the tops of those mountains. The more liberal and ungodly the change agents, the more liberal and ungodly the culture. The more godly the change agent, the more righteous will be the culture. It matters not if the majority of the culture is made up of Christians. It only matters who has the greatest influence over the cultural mountain.

What Happened?

I began to ponder why we have lost our influence if this strategy was introduced in 1975 by these major leaders. Why are we in the condition we are in today? We seem to be making some strides in other parts of the world, but in our own nation, we seem to be losing the cultural battle. Loren Cunningham and Bill Bright have done a wonderful work for the kingdom. Who could question how God has worked in and through their ministries? Yet, I had to ponder whether the strategy that was used was the best strategy.

You see, one of the mountains of culture is the church or religion mountain. The door that was used to reach the culture by Loren and Bill was the church mountain. They trained young people through this mountain and sent them out as missionaries.

These young people were being trained to win the world through evangelism. Once they won one person to the Lord, they moved to the next person. They appealed to the young people to be missionaries to win the lost. This appeal was seen as a higher calling. They often had to raise support and live on only what they needed to exist. This also contributed to a poverty-spirit mindset and a dualism that says, “This is a higher call than working in a secular job.”

Consequently, over the centuries, this has affected men and women to believe there is actually a higher call in vocational ministry. Decades passed, and these young people were a byproduct of a cultural mindset that did not see secular education as a means of impacting culture, but saw it as a cop-out and even a lesser call, or in some cases, evidence of backsliding and selling out to mammon and an ungodly society. This has contributed to a subculture among evangelicals that is more concerned with criticizing culture than changing it.

I wonder what would have happened if we had trained our young people biblically and then encouraged them to go to Columbia University or Harvard or Yale and prepared them for a career in business, government, education, media or entertainment to reach the culture through these mountains. This is where real societal change is going to take place, because this is where the authority lies to make societal change.

Francis Schaeffer seemed to understand this dichotomy when he established L’ Abri Fellowship in 1955, with study centers in Europe, North America and Asia. These study centers were designed to stimulate students in an intellectually and deeply spiritual foundation to give representation to faith within the seven spheres of society.

“When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when the wicked rule, the people mourn” (Prov. 29:2).

Another explanation for the lack of progress in our nation may be the fact it has not been until the last 15 years that an awakening among men and women in the workplace has begun. This silent majority has been awakened through a very real revival among this remnant of the church that had been satisfied to simply sit on the sidelines and write a check each week to their local church. This move of God has awakened them to the spiritual nature and value of their calls in and through their vocations. Martin Luther brought the Word of God back to the people, but the faith-at-work movement is bringing the work of God back to the people.

We are each called to become change agents in the sphere of influence God has called us to impact. As each of us does this, we reclaim the culture one person at a time, one industry at a time, one mountain at a time. This becomes our larger story. In the end, we know God will establish His kingdom on the top of every cultural mountain.

One of the most noteworthy gatherings of seven mountain leaders to be convened in many years is coming up this year March 28-31 in Washington, D.C., called the International Culture Shapers Summit. There has never been a gathering of more than 50 high-level culture shapers in one venue like the Culture Shapers Summit. Consider some of the speakers: Roma Downey, arts and entertainment; Tony Perkins, the family; Del Tackett, education; Lance Wallnau, the 7-mountain mandate; Hugh Hewitt, media; Ken Blackburn, government; Os Hillman, seven-mountain strategy; and 40 other leaders will be presenting over four days. The Summit is co-hosted by the Museum of the Bible, World Changer Network and Marketplace Leaders. All attendees will have access to the Museum free as part of their Summit registration.

If you’re concerned about the direction of our nation, consider joining like-minded leaders who will convene March 28-31 in Washington, D.C. {eoa}

Os Hillman is the Summit Director of the 2019 International Culture Shapers Summit and president of Marketplace Leaders. He is an author of 18 books and the popular devotional, TodayGodIsFirst.

In 1975, Bill Bright and Loren Cunningham met for the very first time. It just so happened that God spoke to each of these leaders that very week about the importance of the seven cultural spheres, or mind molders, as Bill Bright called them. “If we are to affect the culture for Jesus Christ, we must affect these seven areas for Christ: business, government, media, arts and entertainment, family, education and religion.”

Unfortunately, their efforts did not really produce much change because their attempt was done through the religion mountain instead of the business mountain that affects all of the other six areas. We’ve lost significant ground in all of these areas since that time.

These leaders raised up young people as missionaries for evangelism, but failed to raise up business leaders or leaders in the other six spheres. I believe another reason for the failure was that the faith@work movement had not yet taken place. It was not until the mid-90s that God’s Spirit began to move among men and women in the marketplace to see their work as a ministry and calling, worthy to be embraced as a spiritual calling. Many ministries were birthed in the mid-90s, including my own. Yet, sadly, the combination of all of these ministries probably affects less than 1 percent of those believers in the workplace.

It would not be until the year 2000 that a re-emergence of the seven-mountain message was re-awakened through Lance Wallnau. In 2005-2008, there were international conferences on the seven mountains hosted by Lance and me.

The name “Seven Mountains” became associated with this movement based on Isaiah 2:2-3:

In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow to it.

Many people shall go and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths.”

For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

We have also realized that it only takes 3-5 percent of a leadership operating at the top of a cultural mountain to shift the culture’s view of an issue. The best case study of this is the gay- rights movement. This group has literally shifted culture’s view of their issue from being a moral issue to being a civil issue by infiltrating top positions in entertainment, media and government to embed their people with their worldview.

They began writing scripts for sitcoms and movies to have gay characters seen in a positive light. Over time, they have seen the culture become desensitized to the negative aspect of a destructive lifestyle, and it has now become mainstream. Their latest ploy is to get culture to see them as a discriminated class like the civil rights movement, which has really angered leaders in the civil rights arena. Christians can learn from their strategy.

Since it’s 2019, we now need to ask some hard questions about this movement.

What is the next step?

• How can this movement make a difference, which we must admit has had negligible impact so far? True, we have shifted the mindset of many business leaders, and there are some pockets of early adopters who are making a difference.

• How do we identify those who are embracing this strategy and connect them to create a larger leverage point? We want to impact the culture as William Wilberforce did with the Clapham Group in England who achieved 69 world-changing initiatives by working together, not the least of which was the abolishment of slavery.

• What outcomes should we expect if we mobilize God’s marketplace leaders around the seven cultural mountains?

• What are the tactics we should employ at this time?

• How do we fund worthy projects that can make a kingdom impact on our culture?

• What would success look like if we were successful?

The answer to those questions will seek to be answer at the 2019 Culture Shapers Summit March 28-31, 2019. Over 45 culture-shaper leaders will be presenting their ideas about what we need to do to be salt and light in the culture that can lead to greater influence. Check the Summit website out here. {eoa}

Os Hillman is author of 18 books and the popular TodayGodIsFirst.com, a devotional read in 104 countries, and is director of the Culture Shapers Summit.

“I believe that one of the next great moves of God is going to be through the believers in the workplace. —Billy Graham

Billy Graham made this statement in early 2000. But seeds of this began as early as 1975 when Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ and Loren Cunningham, founder of Youth with a Mission, both evangelism ministries to students, met for the very first time.

It just so happened that God spoke to each of these leaders that very week about the need to equip leaders in 7 key areas of business, government, arts and entertainment, media, education, family and the church. God said to these leaders, “These are the areas that most define the culture. You must raise up leaders in these areas if you expect to shift the culture.”

Some leaders call these gates “mind-molders” or “mountains” based on Isaiah 2:2: “In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow to it.”

It does not matter what you call them. They are simply places of the greatest influence in culture.

So why haven’t we seen more fruit from this vision? That’s a good question. I believe the reason is twofold:

1) Bill Bright and Loren Cunningham sought to fulfill the vision by equipping young people who were missionaries living on support who had little ability to impact the culture beyond evangelism. They were raised up from the church mountain instead of the other six mountains where culture influence is greatest.

2) A second reason I believe we have not seen greater fruit is men and women in the workplace did not see themselves as marketplace missionaries called to impact the culture through their vocations until the last 15 years. It was not until the late 90s that a move of God began in our nation and world that became a trumpet call to the spiritual calling through our work life. It was called the “faith at work” movement. Dr. Henry Blackaby, Peter Wagner, Billy Graham, Ed Silvoso and many other Christian leaders began to say, “I believe there is a move of God taking place in the workplace today.” Many of the most prominent workplace ministries birthed in the mid-’90s.

During the late ’90s and early 2000s, more and more conferences began to take place around work, calling and community transformation. Over 300 initiatives can be sited today that have birthed in communities with a goal of community transformation. Conferences on the seven cultural mountains were hosted by Lance Wallnau and me for several years in a row in the mid-2000s. Many other faith-at-work conferences were held around the nation. The Billy Graham organization invited me to consult with them about what they were seeing as a “move of God in the workplace in early 2000.” We co-hosted two conferences with the Billy Graham organization in 2004 and 2005.

During the last five years, we have been hearing more and more stories of Christian leaders making a difference in the seven cultural mountains. There are many believers on the Fox Network representing Christ on the media mountain. There are many Christian voices in the mainstream media gaining greater influence. We are seeing more and more Christian-themed movies on the arts and entertainment mountain. There are many believers operating on the government mountain in Washington, DC. Our current president is very influenced by Christians who are in or close to his administration. There are new initiatives taking place on the education mountain.

One initiative being launched on the education mountain is a curriculum based on the seven cultural mountains for Christian high schools. Another initiative involved the creation of a textbook on how the Bible has influenced culture that is being used in many schools in America and other nations. Pastors are beginning to understand the importance of equipping marketplace leaders to see their work as a calling. There is an entire organization that was birthed focused on this for pastors called Made to Flourish.

The reason this move of God is so important is that men and women who operate in places of influence have the greatest ability to impact culture through their influence in these six areas. They often have access to financial resources and places of power needed to make significant impact. We have learned that it only takes 3-5 percent of a leadership operating at the top of a culture mountain to shift that mountain.

The gay rights movement is our best case study of this fact. This group represents less than 2 percent of our population. Yet, through a strategy to influence culture through the seven cultural mountains they have shifted America’s mindset about this issue from being a moral issue to being a civil issue. Just imagine what Christians could do, given we represent more than 40% of the population in our nation, if we adopted an intentional strategy to impact culture.

There will be a major Culture Shapers Summit in Washington, DC in 2019 that is featuring over 40 top leaders who operate within the seven cultural mountains. This will be the most significant gathering of leaders focused on the seven cultural mountains in the last few years.

The army is gathering to prepare for the next great move of God. {eoa}

Os Hillman is president of Marketplace Leaders and author of 18 books focused on culture impact through a person’s work-life calling.

When we think of Joseph, we often think of the adversity he went through to achieve his ultimate destiny. He had a unique marketplace call upon his life that was earmarked by extraordinary adversity, which, in turn, was used to save a nation from starvation and usher him into his eighty-one-year assignment to be second in command in Egypt. He was betrayed by his brothers and wrongfully accused of raping Potiphar’s wife, causing him to be thrown into prison—this brought a total disruption to his life. The Joseph calling is a unique calling that not every leader has; those who have it are known for the adversity they are required to go through in order to fulfill a special assignment from God for their lives.

This calling begins with a dream. At the time of Joseph’s dream, he was an immature teen who more than got under the skin of his older brothers. He evidently had a big mouth that got him into trouble. Joseph was also a pet son of his father, Jacob, which further infuriated his brothers. His dream revealed that he would stand over his brothers one day and even his father would come before him and bow down.

 Now Joseph dreamed a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, “Please listen to this dream which I have dreamed. We were binding sheaves in the field. All of a sudden my sheaf rose up and stood upright, and your sheaves stood around it and bowed down to my sheaf.”

His brothers said to him, “Will you really reign over us, or will you really have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his words.

Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, “I have dreamed another dream. The sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing to me.”

But when he told it to his father and his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Will I and your mother and your brothers really come to bow down ourselves to you to the ground?” So his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

God often gives an individual a dream. However, after the dream, God begins a process that seems to go in the exact opposite direction of the dream. There is often a contradiction before there is the manifestation of the revelation. This is what happened in Joseph’s life for the next 13 years.

God took Joseph through a time of personal transformation that involved extraordinary levels of pain and disappointment in order to bring him low before he could be brought high in the kingdom realm. That process involved being betrayed by his own family, sold as a slave and being wrongfully accused for a sexual crime he did not do. He completely lost his reputation but was faithful in using his God-given gifts to serve others while in prison.

The six stages of this process I discussed in my first article are designed to bring us to a place where God can fully trust us with all he wants to do in our lives. He knows he can trust us when we can glorify him in the process of the pain and suffering. If we fail to do this in our pit, then we will fail to glorify him in the elevation period. The truth is that if we walk away from God because of something bad that happens to us, we never really had a relationship with him in the first place.

God’s goal is to make us servants, stewards and slaves. And so the adversity period in our lives is designed to remove our dependence upon titles and accomplishments for our self-esteem. God brings us to the place where all we want is Christ in us in order to create Christ in others. That is when we know the testing has accomplished its purpose.

God releases his blessing in proportion to the character you allow him to develop within you. He will totally ruin you and remake you at the same time. The result of this will be a new you, where you will be grateful to God for what he had done within you. Someday you will be able to say that you would actually go through the process again if it meant you would gain what you gained.

God turns the pit into a well of the Holy Spirit—he makes a deposit that will last a lifetime. The psalmist reminds us, “As they pass through the Valley of Baka (trouble), they make it a spring; the early rain also covers it with pools” (Psalm 84:6). This journey through the Valley of Baka is designed to help us become sons and daughters of the living God.

Os Hillman is president of Marketplace Leaders and author of eighteen books. This article is an excerpt from The Joseph Calling book by Os Hillman. To read the first chapter free and download a free 12-week Joseph Calling Bible study, visit thejosephcalling.com.

In 1994 I was married, had built a successful ad agency for 12 years in Atlanta and had enough money in the bank to retire comfortably. I was leading Bible studies in the workplace, giving money to Christian causes and thought I was a model Christian business leader.

However, that would all change in the spring of 1994. My world began to fall apart that spring, and within three months, several things began to happen: I went through a marriage crisis, lost over $500,000 overnight in a “Bernie Madoff” scam whose leader fled the country with my money. Soon after, my largest ad client, who represented 80 percent of our business, refused to pay a $140,000 bill and fired us as their ad agency. And just a short time later, my vice president came to me and said he was leaving the company. What he did not say was that he was taking my second largest account with him. My wife divorced me a few months later.

In three short months, my life shifted drastically—I would lose my family, my wealth and my business. This would usher me into a seven-year season of adversity. Most psychologists say any one of those events is enough for the average person to commit suicide; I certainly felt like life was over for me. The fact that I was a Christian only compounded the shame and guilt I felt from these failures.

I would struggle to make sense of my adversity for the next two years. Then one day a friend sent me an audiotape from a man named Gunnar Olson. On that tape, Gunnar talked about a “Joseph Calling.” He suggested that there are many who were going through adversity in their business and personal lives today because of a unique calling that comes from God. I had never heard of the concept of a “Joseph Calling” before, and so I felt like I must meet this man in person.

Gunnar was from Sweden. He was founder of the International Christian Chamber of Commerce, which operated in 75 countries at the time. He agreed to meet with me when he came to Washington for their international conference, which would be two months away. And so I flew to Washington to meet with him. He was so gracious; he invited me to his suite and listened to my story.

After listening to my story, he and his board member began to chuckle. I was taken back by their response to my crisis, but Gunnar quickly responded by saying, “Os, we are not trying to be rude. It’s just that we have heard such similar stories from so many other marketplace leaders that it is uncanny to us. Os, you have a Joseph calling on your life.” He then went on to explain, “A Joseph calling is a marketplace call that a man or woman goes through in order to become a spiritual and physical provider to others. You become known, just like Joseph became known, by the adversity you have gone through. It is a marketplace call.”

He then took out a napkin and drew a diagram. Gunnar said, “Os, this is where you are currently. As you begin to press into Jesus with all your heart, he will guide you to this next destination (spiritually speaking). You have probably made some mistakes during your process, but what you need to remember is your call is greater than the mistakes you have made. You have a marketplace call upon your life. Yes, you probably have made some mistakes along the way. But what you need to realize is the call is bigger than your mistakes.” That day changed my life forever. Gunnar would become my spiritual father in the marketplace for the next 22 years.

That day I walked into his hotel room as a shamed and defeated Christian businessman, but I walked out with an understanding that I was in a process of a call to the marketplace. That day Gunnar became my spiritual mentor and father. Now, twenty-five years later, I have spoken and ministered to men and women in the marketplace in 26 countries and written 18 books, including a daily devotional that is read in more than a hundred nations (www.TodayGodIsFirst.com). God turned my Valley of Achor (trouble) into a door of hope for me and for many others (Hosea 2:15).

Since that time, I have discovered there are six unique stages that “Josephs” will go through to fulfill their assignment as a Joseph. I have reviewed these in detail in my new book, The Joseph Calling, being released this month. These six stages can be seen in almost every major leader God has used in the Bible and even modern-day Christian leaders.

Here is a brief overview of the six stages “Josephs” go through in order to understand, navigate, and fulfill their purpose in life:

1. The Recruitment Stage. There is usually a crisis in the life of the leader that ushers them into their larger story.
2. The Character Development Stage. Like Joseph and David, there was a season of character development to remove pride from the leader’s life.
3. The Isolation Stage. God often isolates the leader to turn his mess into a message and make him a messenger.
4. The Cross Stage. God often allows betrayal to take place in the leader’s life to see if he will wash the feet of his “Judas”.
5. The Problem-Solving Stage. Josephs are problem-solvers. God uses their adversity to make them a problem-solver in culture.
6. The Networking Stage. God uses networks. Joseph had the 12 tribes. He uses networks to accomplish his assignment.

Every Joseph will go through these six stages in order to fulfill the call of God on his or her life. {eoa}

Os Hillman is president of Marketplace Leaders and author of 18 books. This article is an excerpt from his new book, The Joseph Calling. To read the first chapter free and download a free 12-week Joseph Calling Bible study, visit thejosephcalling.com.

What takes you into times of sadness or even depression? Recently I found myself in this place and for days I wrestled feelings of depression and sadness. I prayed. I sang songs. I spent time with God. I went on a prayer walk. Still, I was in a funk.

Finally, I realized the root cause of my sadness. I found myself thinking about areas where I had failed. “If I had only done this, maybe this would not have happened.” I was second-guessing myself. I was looking at all the things that I thought I should, or could have happened from my circumstance that didn’t. Another word for that is “regrets.” Do you have any regrets in your life?

Sometimes we can do something about our pasts. We can make restitution where we were wrong. But there are other situations that no matter how hard we try, there is a negative outcome and it cannot be reconciled. In those cases we have to let go. We have to commit those things to God and say, “Lord, I have done all I know You have asked me to do, and things still did not turn our right.”

Obedience does not equate necessarily to good outcomes. Obedience got Jesus the cross. Many martyrs for Jesus have obeyed and died for their obedience. We see this going on in the Middle East right now. Every week we are seeing Christians being killed because they proclaim faith in Christ.

We need to understand that we are in a war zone every day. Satan wants to steal, kill and destroy from our lives it says in John 10:10. More importantly, Satan wants to define us by our past—especially past failures. He does not want you to believe God is a God of new beginnings. God always looks at us in terms of our future. When God came to Gideon, He addressed him, “Oh, mighty warrior.” He was far from that at the time.

There are circumstances in our lives that happen that remind us of our past. This can bring discouragement and make us think we haven’t made any progress. Satan often reminds us of who we once were. But God sees us for who we are becoming. Listen to what the Apostle Paul says, “Not that I have already attained or have already been perfected, but I follow after it so that I may lay hold of that for which I was seized by Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:12).

We are never going to get to a place where we have “arrived.” We will always be human, and this means we will never be perfect. But we don’t have to be completely healed in order to step into the future. Recently a staff member said a teacher used to say to her, “Fake it till you make it!” What was he saying? He was saying, “Faith says we call things that are not as though they are!” (paraphrase of Rom. 4:17). Scripture says, “for as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” Stinkin’ thinkin’ can lead to stinkin’ behavior if we allow our minds to meditate on the past.

Satan wants us to believe we are powerless over our circumstances, that we are the victim of an unjust God who left us here to suffer. But God wants to transform our past into a new beginning.

The enemy only has power over us when we make agreements with his lies. When we let others define us instead of God, this becomes an idol in our lives. We cannot let others who see us in a negative light define who we are going to become. Only God has the right to do that.

Wounds can come through words, but the truth makes us free. “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).

We must believe and receive the covenant promises. “For I know the plans that I have for you, says the Lord, plans for peace and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jer. 29:11).

“My soul waits in silence on God alone; from Him comes my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my refuge; I will not be greatly shaken” (Ps. 62:1-2).

For some of us, we need repentance. First we need to repent of anything that we might have actually done that has contributed to our regrets. Once that is done, forgive yourself. Allow God to love you unconditionally and receive His forgiveness. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

So, let me encourage you to see yourself as God sees you. He sees you as His son or daughter in whom He delights.

The Lord your God in your midst,

The Mighty One, will save;

He will rejoice over you with gladness,

He will quiet you with His love,

He will rejoice over you with singing” (Zeph. 3:17).

Os Hillman is the author of TGIF Today God Is First, todayhgodisfirst.com and president of Marketplace Leaders.org

Would you characterize your life as one lived by faith? I believe there are six attributes of a person who lives by faith.

Attribute #1: Live by the Word

Do you believe perception is reality? Perception is not always reality. You might perceive that a product you buy will do what it says it claims to do, only to discover it falls short. Sometimes we perceive things about God based on our experience versus what the Bible really says. The apostle Paul exhorts us to live by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7). Hebrews 11:1 tells us, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (NKJV).

God told Joshua to walk around the city seven times by faith, not by his logic or reasoning. He had to live by the word from God, not his perception of how illogical the command might have been for him and his troops. The Bible talks about obedience being better than sacrifice. So, live in the Word and obey His Word, no matter what the perception is that says it might not be logical.

Attribute #2: Count Things as Though They Have Already Happened

The Bible tells us that faith is living as though the goal has already been achieved:

“As it is written, ‘I have made you a father of many nations’ in the presence of Him whom he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did” (Rom. 4:17).

We believe in the covenant promises of God in the Spirit dimension—awaiting the manifestation in the physical. We must claim His promises for our situations. Once we know it is God’s will, we pray in the authority He has given each believer in Jesus Christ. We don’t have faith in faith; we have faith in God and His promises.

Attribute #3: Obey God in the Small Things

God always entrusts you with a small thing before He entrusts you with a larger thing. Abraham was told simply to go without knowing where he was going. He had to trust God with the outcome of that decision:

“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going” (Heb 11:8).

I was once invited to speak to less than 10 people in Barbados. I wrestled with God over the logic of that invitation and the meeting. Once I obeyed, God opened many new and greater opportunities as a result of that obedience.

Attribute #4: Think Right

 Sometimes we suffer from bad thinking. We mix the world’s value system in with God’s. “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7). Negative thinking produces negative outcomes.

Fear can drive us to negative outcomes in life. It is a form of negative faith: “For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me,
 and what I dreaded has happened to me. I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;
 I have no rest, for trouble comes” (Job 3:25-26).

If you are trying to kick a bad habit, don’t try to avoid the bad habit. Think on what kind of behavior you want to have that will replace the bad habit. Think about filling the cup up; don’t focus on what is not in the cup:

“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things” (Phil. 4:8).

Attribute #5: There Is Power in the Tongue  

God created the world by speaking it into existence. Gen 1:1-9 says, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so” (KJV, emphasis added).

We learn in Hebrews 11:3 that “by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible” (NKJV).

Can you see that God spoke things into existence—that there is power in our words?

Proverbs 18:21 tell us, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
 and those who love it will eat its fruit.” Your audible words do carry power. God spoke the world into existence. Jesus spoke to the fig tree.

Jesus tells us to speak to the mountain: “So Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, “Be removed and be cast into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them'” (Mark 11:22-24).

One time God spoke to me on a Saturday morning a few months after I published a book. We had very limited sales. The words that came to me as I woke were, “Speak to your mountain of books!”

I went downstairs and laid my hands on my mountain of books and said, “In the name of Jesus, get out of my basement! Go be a blessing to someone who needs to read these books.” That Saturday afternoon a ministry in Dallas, Texas, called me and ordered 300 books! I had no prior relationship with the group and it was a Saturday!

Attribute #6: Claim Covenant Promises—Use the Keys You Have Been Given

 “And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 16:19).

There are 7,500 covenant promises in the Bible that represent the currency of your faith. A covenant promise reveals what you know is God’s will, but you must pray it into existence. God’s covenant promises are His currency for manifesting His will upon the earth. God has given us the power of attorney spiritually on the earth to bring heaven on earth in the area of our calling.

 Os Hillman is president of Marketplace Leaders and author of Change Agent and TGIF Today God Is First at www.todaygodisfirst.com, a free email daily devotional.

“‘I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters,’ says the Lord Almighty” (2 Cor. 6:18).

Satan wants us to see ourselves as slaves and orphans, not sons and daughters of our heavenly Father. The marketplace wants to make us slaves living from performance instead of our hearts.

In Luke 15, we find the story of the prodigal son. Jesus tells this story of a son who asked for an early inheritance, then floundered it away through a sinful life. Once he realized his sin, he repented. The father welcomed him back and did not even make mention of his sin. He rejoiced over the return of this son. This is a picture of the unconditional love of our heavenly Father.

The prodigal’s brother, however, was a picture of a son living as a slave. He lived to please the father through his performance. His works made him feel entitled to preference, and he was angry with the father’s unconditional acceptance of the wayward son. His pride revealed that he was not living as a son but a slave.

We are all susceptible to this attitude.

Before we were born-again into God’s kingdom, we were all slaves and orphans. However, all of us are adopted as sons and daughters when we receive Christ into our lives. Galatians 4:1-7 says, “Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. … Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’ Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.”

Living as a son is the key to living a victorious Christian life. Joseph lived as a son, not as a slave. His father, Jacob, doted on him. In fact, his father gave too much favoritism to his son, attracting spirits of envy and jealousy that almost resulted in murder.

Even when Joseph was made a slave in Egypt, he still lived as a son. A slave would have become bitter and would have retaliated for his circumstances. However, Joseph entrusted himself to his heavenly Father, as evidenced by his behavior. He was thrown four difficult tests, and he passed each one of them with flying colors.

Joseph passed the test of betrayal by forgiving God and his brothers. He passed the sexual temptation by fleeing from Potiphar’s wife and going to prison for his righteousness. He passed the perseverance test when he was forgotten after giving a dream interpretation to the cupbearer. And he passed the stewardship test when he refused to repay all those who had betrayed him and became a faithful steward over the resources of Egypt.

Joseph lived 81 years after being elevated from the prison cell. He could never have passed those tests had he not lived as a son. The one thing he always wanted more than anything else was to see his father again. The father-son connection was strong in Joseph, and this is why he was successful in his trials.

“And God sent me before you to preserve posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of his entire house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt” (Gen. 45:7-8).

When God delivered Joseph from prison, He took him from prison to the pinnacle of power. Many of us have taught that Joseph was second in command to Pharaoh. Actually, Joseph was over Pharaoh’s entire household. He may not have had the title of Pharaoh, but from a spiritual position, Joseph was over the entire nation. However, a closer examination of Scripture tells us two very important things about his advancement: The purpose of Joseph’s deliverance was to save the lives of his brothers for the sake of a new nation and for Joseph to “spiritually father” Pharaoh.

How could it happen that a 30-year-old would father someone possibly twice his age? It is because it was a spiritual relationship. Joseph never lost sight of who he was. He never lived as an orphan or a slave. He could be a father to Pharaoh because he was a good son first. He was able to forgive and see a larger story to his life because of his position as a son that he never rejected. This allowed him to operate from an intimate relationship with his heavenly Father, to have dreams and interpret dreams and to gain supernatural marketplace strategies that would give him favor among the leaders of government because he was a problem-solver, not just a religious person. This is also why he did not succumb to the temptations that come with power and influence and wealth.

Joseph remained a steward of God’s purposes on the earth for the nation of Israel and Egypt. This is why many marketplace leaders cannot be entrusted with wealth and influence today. They still live as orphans and slaves by seeking to achieve value through their accomplishments rooted in performance, workaholism, money and fear of failure.

Joseph lived a life that others were attracted to. His life was rooted in his position as a son of his heavenly Father and his father, Jacob. Joseph’s fondness of his father was expressed many times in the Scriptures. The one thing he longed for more than anything during those years of separation was to be reunited with his father. This is a picture of the spiritual son-to-father relationship.

God Disciplines His Sons and Daughters
“If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness” (Heb. 12:7-11).

In order to be a legitimate son or daughter we must allow our Father to discipline us at times. Discipline is always for our profit. God’s desire is that we all become more like His Son, Jesus. That requires “pruning the branch” along the way.

And God doesn’t prune dead branches, only those that are alive and yielding fruit. This was true of His own Son: “Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered” (Heb. 5:8-9).

So, are you living as a son or daughter or as an orphan? God wants to demonstrate His love to you as your heavenly Father. Why not ask Him to show you how to live as a true son or daughter?

Os Hillman is author of Change Agent and TGIF Today God Is First daily email devotional (www.TodayGodIsFirst.com).

Have you ever thought about how Satan entices human beings into sin?

When we are tempted by a particular thing, it seems natural to engage. We believe that by engaging with that temptation, it will give us something. It might make us feel good, meet a perceived need or be pleasurable. Eve thought God was holding out on her when she wanted to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She didn’t believe God’s warning when He set a boundary and placed the garden as off-limits.

The word Satan means “deceiver.” Other attributes given to Satan is that he kills, steals and destroys human beings. He wants you to impugn the nature of God. He wants to cause war in heaven and bring all humans to revolt against God the Father.

We Are All Sinners

The Bible tells us there is only one human who did not sin. That was Jesus.

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:23-26).

But we believe there will be no consequences.

One of Satan’s ploys is to convince us that there is no consequence to our sin. However, clearly there are lasting consequences that include the following:

1. Separation from God
2. Shame
3. Guilt
4. Compromise leads to deceit in our lives
5. Lost confidence in the spiritual dimension of our lives

When the nation of Israel sinned against God in the wilderness of Egypt, the Bible says it resulted in leanness in their soul: “They soon forgot His works; they did not wait for His counsel, but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tested God in the desert. And He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul” (Ps. 106:13-15).

God calls us to endure temptation and pass the tests that life brings each of us in regard to sin.

“Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.  But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.  Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death” (James 1:12-15).

Satan’s 3 Baits for Sin

There are three areas where Satan uses bait to destroy a person’s life, found in 1 John 2:15-17. They are 1) lust of the flesh, 2) lust of the eyes and 3) pride of life.

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh [sexual sin, gluttony], the lust of the eyes [“I must have that possession,” a consumptive lifestyle, greed], and the pride of life [“I am better than others,” arrogance, unteachable spirit, independence, no need of others]—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:15-17).

Satan does not need any new strategies. These have worked well for thousands of years.

Satan wants to steal, kill and destroy our lives. He wants to make your past your future.

“If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

Another way of summarizing this is to say that Satan wants to:

1. Steal your money.

2. Kill your life and destiny.

3. Destroy your family.

He is doing a very effective job at all three among many in the world today.

How Sin Affects Our Attitudes Toward God

Once we start a pattern of sin, we become hesitant to come boldly to God because Satan has convinced us that God could not love us now because of our sin. Satan convinces you that your sin proves what you already believed about yourself—that you are unworthy of God’s love. Ultimately, Satan wants you to believe three lies:

1. You are powerless over your circumstances.

2. You are a victim to an unjust, unloving God, and you have no value.

3. God has abandoned you. 

Our Response to Sin Must Be Repentance

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10).

Whenever you sin, come in humility and repent of your sin. That is all the Father asks of you. Turn away, and walk toward righteousness. When the Father looks at us, He no longer looks at our sin or failure; He sees the blood of Jesus covering our sin. That is why we can come boldly to Him if we have repented.

Remember, God loves you no matter what condition you are in. However, to maintain your position with God, you must be free of sin in your life. When you fail, simply acknowledge and ask for His grace to walk free so that you can enjoy unbroken fellowship with Jesus.

Os Hillman is president of Marketplace Leaders and author of Change Agent and TGIF: Today God Is First, a free email daily devotional. To learn more about breaking free from Satan’s strategies to defeat you, please go to 3greatestlies.com and watch Os Hillman’s three free videos.