An international speaker and trainer, Rich Marshall brings over 40 years of in-depth knowledge and hands-on experience in pastoring, preaching, church planting, specialized business consulting, corporate training, coaching/mentoring, and strategic planning, within both the private sector as well as the non-profit sector. Co-founded by Rich and Wilma Marshall, ROI is an inspirational and equipping ministry to the business and church community.
Full transcript:
Ray: Well, hello everyone, this is Ray Hilbert. I am your host here at Bottom Line Faith. And this is the program where we love to bridge that gap between faith and business and the marketplace. And if you’re a first time listener, welcome to the show. You know, we’ve been at this now for going on two years, and the Lord has allowed us to travel the country and interview some of the most amazing, godly leaders in the marketplace; entrepreneurs, CEOs, sports leaders, and even pastors and spiritual leaders. But the common thread that we look for in each of these conversations is how are they living their faith out in the marketplace? The special thing about our guest today is we’re going to get a chance to hear from and learn and get to know one of the pioneers, true pioneers in this space that we call marketplace ministry. Folks, joining me is Rich Marshall. Rich is speaker, pastor, marketplace leader. We’re going to learn all about his background, but Rich, welcome to Bottom Line Faith.
Rich: Thank you so much Ray, for letting me be here. And you know, I’m sitting listening to you saying, man, I’m old enough to be a pioneer, but I guess I am.
Ray: Well, let’s jump right into that because, you know, at about 21 years ago, I had a chance with Matt Pale and our co-founder at Truth At Work to launch Truth At Work, which is a marketplace ministry and we’ve got presence across the country. But you were one of these guys that God spoke to more than two decades ago into this space of marketplace ministry. Would you take, just give us a framework of how that came to be for you?
Rich: Ray, it was, I had no idea this was coming. I was pastoring a church in San Jose, California, happy pastoring, God was working. The church was growing and there was nothing wrong with my relationships. They were just awesome. But in fact, we did a conference and invited in some outside speakers and the registrations suddenly were more than we could hold in our building, so we could seat a few hundred. And we had a couple thousand registered. And so I said, what are we going to do? And I was in a restaurant at lunch and I looked across the room and there was one of my pastor buddies with a much larger auditorium. And I walked over to him and, his name was Dick Brunel. I said, Hey Dick, we’re going to do a conference. And he said, who’s coming? And told him, I said, man, I can’t get the people in. And he said, well come to our church and do it. Which is unusual, first of all, for two churches next door to each other could work together. But Dick and I always did. And he said, let’s do it at our place. So we did. And I remember the opening night, the rest of the conference was great, but the opening night when he stood up and said to the crowd, a few thousand people out there and he stood up and he looked out and he said, “Hello Kings.”
And I thought, what is he talking about? And they said, “Hello pastor.” And so afterward we went in the back room and I said, who are the kings you’re talking to Dick? He says, “Well, Rich, you know that verse, the Scripture in revelation one verse six?” Well, I didn’t, but I’m a pastor, so I said, yes. Acted like I knew. He said, that’s where it says he, the Lord has called us kings and priests and I’m using the phrase kings to refer to business leaders, government leaders, school teachers, et cetera, and priest to talk to pastors, missionaries, worship leaders, and just to make a differentiation there instead of using clergy and laity. I said, “Odd,” like that and like any good pastor, I said, do you have any tapes on that topic? So a while back, I was still talking to tapes and he said, yeah, I’ve got two sermons. He gave them to me and I preached them, which is what we call research if you’re a pastor.
So I preached basically his two messages and I got done and the topic had captured me. And I preached it for a year at our church. I started preaching on kings and priests and the people in business are in ministry. And I’d look out to our folks, say, you’re in the ministry as much as I am. In fact, we ought to ordain you to the ministry. And at the end of the year, we did. We did an ordination service for our business people to say, because ordination, you know, preachers use it for a tax write off, but it’s, you don’t get ordained in order to do something. You’re doing something so you get ordained. And I said, you’re already ministering, so let’s ordain you to the ministry. Let God anoint you for the ministry. And so this went on for a year in our church.
And it launched me into what’s now become a 20, 25 years of ministry in the marketplace because soon after that, left that church, started traveling, speaking. It’s amazing Ray, that you and I have not run into each other until now because you were called into this maybe before me or at the same time, and we’ve been doing the same stuff. Thank God that over the last couple of decades God has raised up. When I put my first books out, a first book out on on marketplace called God @ Work in 2000, there were very, very few books on the topic. In fact, I had to work hard to find any as research material for my first book. Now you can find hundreds and thousands of books on the topic and so thank God what’s happened over the last couple of decades with marketplace ministry because of speaking to the very people that are listening to us now saying, you are important in the kingdom. Your calling is as high a calling as your pastor’s calling or as a missionary that went to China because God called you right where you are in your workplace. Let your light shine right there. So that’s me in a brief nutshell.
Ray: That’s incredible. And you’ve now got more than two decades in this space. The book that you mentioned released in 2000 God @ Work and then there was a followup right? God @ Work Volume Two. And that was in what year?
Rich: That was 2005, yeah.
Ray: And then you’ve got a latest book that just been released here in the latter part of 2018 and what is that?
Rich: So the latest book is called, God @ Rest. And my first book flowed easily, and my second one flowed easily. This one I worked on for 10 years, Ray. And I’d write a page or a chapter and I’d get a block and I wouldn’t write for a month or six months or a year or two or three years sometimes knowing that the book needed to be released. And finally I said to my wife, I said, I can’t get this out. She says, cause you got to learn it for yourself before you can put it in the book. Because God @ Rest is not talking about taking a vacation. It’s talking about learning how to find strength in the middle of the battle. I mean, when the enemy’s coming after you and you’re there in a high powered sales meeting or whatever it may be, conflict that you’re in. How do I find the rest of God in the middle of that? And she said, you got to learn it. And I did. I had to learn it. And it’s, I tell you, it’s awesome to learn to figure out how in the middle of turmoil to get to that place of peace. But you can get there. And so finally that book came out. It’s called God @ Rest. So I’ve got God @ Work, God @ Work, and now God @ Rest.
And actually the title came to me years ago was I was at a conference up in Oregon and Jim Gall was sitting next to me and he said to me, he poked me. He says, by the way, Rich, your next book will be titled God @ Rest. And I thought, well, that’s strange. But then I began thinking about that and when I first heard that title, I thought one thing and then I learned another thing. And that’s what finally came out in this book. And I think that it’s going to be a book that will take the people in the marketplace to a place of peace, a peace of mind. I know it will. I think it’s going to be as impacting as my first couple of books were. And that’s the prayer.
Ray: That’s fantastic. I want to circle back around in a couple of moments to talk about some of those threads of connection between God @ Work and God @ Rest. But I would like to go back and just kind of hit that rewind button back a couple of decades ago. In your estimation, 20 some years ago when you began to get this inspiration and write and speak and those sorts of things as you indicated, very few resources, very few books, conferences, ministries, like Truth At Work and others that exist in this space. Why do you think that there has been this awakening just over the last couple of decades? And then why do you think it took so long? I’m sure you’ve got some thoughts on that.
Rich: Boy, I wish I knew why it took so long, but to me it has made so much sense. And so Ray, I’m a pastor. I love pastors. However, pastors have not been our best friends.
Ray: And when you say been our best friends, what do you mean?
Rich: I mean, they don’t get it. They haven’t been able to grab this message enough to release it to their congregation. And listen to me business folks, if you have a pastor who understands you and can pray for you and come alongside you and lift you and build you, thank God for him or her because it’s unusual. Secondly, if you have a pastor that you think might get there, you’re hoping they’ll pray for you. I’m hoping you will pray for him or her. I’m hoping you will pray for your pastor because we can’t do this alone, either the pastor or the business person. We need each other. But what happens is ministers, pastors will say on Sunday, I’m going today to minister and I had to change that phraseology to say, I’m going today to equip ministers and I’m not going to minister today. This is not my day of ministry. This is my day to equip others. So they’re talking about the weekend service does that, I’m talking about the weekend service is there, I believe, designed by God to get people ready for their workweek. And so back to why it’s taken so long.
It’s taken a long time because we took 200 years to build our picture of what a church looked like and what a pastor looked like. And that wasn’t inclusive of marketplace ministry. So we have to break a lot of tradition out and it takes a long time to knock those walls down. But thankfully it’s beginning to happen. And so over these last two decades, like you mentioned, there are a number of powerful ministries. Truth At Work is one of those that’s been around a while. There are a handful of others and I believe that God is going to change it. And I think the next 20 years will be even more explosive than the last 20 years have been. That’s as my faith.
Ray: And I think part of that is Satan’s very crafty. He’s got a strategy. And I think that if I were the adversary here, if there were a way that I could figure out how to keep the vast majority of the body of Christ feeling like they’re not in ministry, that’s probably the strategy I would use. You and I were telling a story about David Green and we had a two part interview with David Green recently here at Bottom Line Faith. He came from a long line of pastors but he calls himself the black sheep of the family because he was called into business as opposed to being a church pastor. Tell us that story that he shared about the 90/10 okay, this is great. I think you’ll love this.
Rich: So back up a little bit; how I know David. He and I both spoke at the same conference and I didn’t know who he was but he was sitting on the front row going to speak after me and, and I look at business people and I say, how many of you are in full time ministry? Well all of you are. I mean the reality is, you all are in full time ministry. That’s what God has called you for. And he came to me afterward and said, Rich, you’re the first pastor that told me I was in full time ministry. He said, I knew it, but others have not recognized that. So he knows he’s called to business and that’s his ministry. So he was relating to me some years after that. He said, I was called to speak to a group of 80 or 90 pastors and they asked me why I would allow my funds to go bail out? Oral Roberts University was in trouble and David came along with money, 60 or 70, 80 million, a lot of money to get them out of debt. And so one of these pastors said to him, now, Mr. Green, you gave a lot of money to ORU. How many of those graduates do you think are going to go into full time ministry? And he said, I looked at him and I said, Oh, probably about 10% like you and 90% like me.
And then he turned to me and he said, Rich, never ask a question unless you know the answer in advance. Cause that guy who asked that question was, you know, he was under his seat by that time because David recognizes he’s in full time ministry but a lot of pastors don’t, which is a part of the issue is that until the pastor recognizes all of us are called to minister, as long as we think. And I’m not talking to my pastor buddies when I say we, as long as we think we are the call, which is why the phrase clergy and laity has built a gap in the church that’s not needed. Though clergy referring to those who are in quote fulltime ministry and let him know the word laity simply means people. So you’ve got two classes in the church, you’ve got the people and this leadership class and it’s caused the divide, which is why I use the phrase kings and priests and I’ll get theological arguments with it. That isn’t what it meant. And all that I say, I’ll say, all I know is this; it’s better phraseology than clergy and laity. Clergy doesn’t show up in the Bible. Laity does. And it simply means the people, but kings and priests out of Revelation 1:6 or Revelation 5:10 to me is a good way to say, you know what? Some are called as kings. We’re going to go out there, we’re going to go into battle. We’re going to win battles and some of us are called as priests. We’re going to train people to minister to the Lord. That’s what a priest really is supposed to do, is to train people to minister, not just to minister. So that’s, I had the switch in my head. I don’t have a church that I pastor. Now, I pastor a lot of pastors, pastor a lot of business people, but while I was still in a local church preaching, every Sunday had to switch my thinking about Sunday morning. I’m not going to minister. I’m going to equip ministers.
And I tell you, that little switch will make your preaching differently because you’re not. You don’t really care now what the Greek word means you. You care now about how’s this going to affect work Monday morning? How’s this going to work on your sales? How’s this going to work on your management? How’s this going to work in your long range strategy? What are you going to do with, how is God going to fit into this? Does he fit into it? Here’s how he fits into it and changes your preaching.
Ray: I love it. In fact, as I was listening to some of your comments there, I’m thinking really the only ones we see Jesus the most upset with in scripture are the priests. When he’s hanging out with the laity, he kind of enjoyed it no matter what they were up to.
Rich: Well, you know, that’s what he was. He wasn’t raised in a priest’s home. He was raised in a business home. His dad, Joseph, was a business man. That’s where Jesus was raised. So his background, his earthly background would have been in the marketplace, not in the temple. Now, when he went to the temple and his parents found him there, confounding the theologians of the day. So what are you doing? He said, I’ve got to be about my father’s business. And there we are right back to Jesus understood business.
Ray: That’s fantastic. And so, Rich now we’ve got a good foundation, understanding of your background and how this transition happened for you. Let’s get into some of the nuts and bolts for a few moments here. As you mentioned, you traveled the world and you counsel and work with business entrepreneurs and business leaders. What are two or three principles that you believe are important for Christ followers to really apply if they want to do marketplace ministry? What comes to mind?
Rich: Well, when you mentioned that, there are a lot of thoughts that come to my mind, but the one that hits me the most right now is I’m thinking of Ephesians 4 says he has called us as apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. And so I’m thinking that which we call the fivefold ministry. Usually we think of those are the professional guys in the church or the Bible college or the missionary field or whatever it might be. But as I’ve looked at it, if we’ll take those five gifts, apostle, prophet, pastor, teacher, evangelist, you’re going to find them in the marketplace. And if you want to start hiring your staff, let’s think about those gifts that God gives.
So the apostle, that really means one sent. It’s kind of a visionary, a business founder. An entrepreneur will often have this apostolic anointing that allows him to see big pictures and start businesses. The pastor would be the one who is kind of your HR Department and caring for the people or maybe the pastor’s the president who has to see every department in the company and make sure all of them are staffed right and the people are cared for. You’re going to have your evangelists. She’s a head of the sales team with an evangelist’s heart who can go out and sell Jesus, but sell your products. The prophet will be one who’s able to look into the future and see what’s coming and look into the past and see what problems, what came because we didn’t notice it, but that prophet anointing.
What’s left? The teacher; surely there’s some training that’s taking place in your business. What if we started thinking about the fivefold in business instead of just in the church setting and started hiring our staff based upon their anointing from God? I tell you, Ray, I think companies will change and when I talk about this to companies, they can begin identifying, oh, that’s why she’s so good at this. That’s why he’s so good at that. Not because we put them there, but because God had already given him that gift. So you’ll find somebody that’s in sales. You’ve done sales, Ray. My guess is that evangelist, that anointing is upon you still today and now you’re selling in another way, selling the whole message of Truth At Work and Bottom Line Faith. But it’s an anointing and a gifting that God gave to you.
So listen to me. Market buys votes. Those of you in sales, ask God for that evangelistic annuity. You know, years ago, early eighties, I was pastoring a new church, San Jose, California. A young man came up to me, worked for Apple Computer. Apple Computer was new at that time. He handed me his business card and his title on the card was evangelist. I said, how’d you get that title? And he said, well, I was selling stuff for Apple. And my boss said to me, what’s the best way to describe what you do? He said, I just spread the good news of Apple Computer. I said, really? You spread the good news? He said, yeah, I’m an evangelist; one who brings good news. So I said, they gave me that title at work. So Apple Computer 80, what almost 40 years ago, titled this man evangelist.
And I found out that in the marketplace there are people that call their salespeople evangelists. One who brings good news. The good news about Apple, the good news about whatever your company is. When we find somebody who’s got that ability to spread the news, let them lead your sales department. They’re probably going to lead a few people to Christ while they’re at it.
Ray: That is so powerful. What you’re saying is there is a parallel of what we see in the Scriptures to its application in business. Is that what you’re telling me?
Rich: Absolutely. Well, in fact, my guess is because God, the all knowing God who already knew everything, gave the gifts not just to build your local church, which is important that God has done it, but to build business because God knows not only does business bring resources in for kingdom work, which by the way is not the only reason why you bring in resources and why you run a good business. But businesses where we touch people. If I’m a pastor, I’m going to touch people a couple of hours a week. If I’m in business, I’m going to see my friends 40 hours a week. And so God knew that that kind of relationship at work where we’re with them every day and we show up every morning and we say, good morning. Every night we say goodbye, see you. Tomorrow is where our giftedness can come out. So why not see that God knew it all and gave those five gifts, not just for Sunday morning church but for the church as we’re spread throughout all of the population.
Ray: That is so powerful. I love it. So when I asked the question about, give us a couple of foundations or principles, you know, for business and faith in the marketplace, you talk about the five fold ministry as a construct for a business.
Rich: Correct.
Ray: What other principle comes to mind?
Rich: Well, what about integrity for example? Well, you know, so I’ve been pastoring for a long time and I started administering the business people and I said, Lord, I want to be a businessman because I began to understand that this is where the harvest is going to be. Not Sunday morning while I’m preaching. So I said, I want to start a business. And he spoke to me, he said, you could start a corporate training business. I said, but I don’t know. I don’t know corporate things. He said, here are the things you know; you know integrity, you know ethics, you know those principles. And those are missing in companies. You know how to communicate, you know how to work with people. So build a training company around those principles. So I built a training company and we put together a module of training on ethics, on core values and on communication skills and then on behavioral styles, why we behave like we do.
And so I traveled the US and 20 or 30 nations of the world with my training business. Now I’ve closed that down because I knew that that was for a season to show me what could happen out there. But the interesting thing was the ethics discussions that you could have in business. I was training a company, it was automobile company, large distributor of automobiles throughout many nations. And they had a parts department. Now this company was on an Island. So the parts department, anything in the parts had to be shipped in. So I’ve got this group there and the guy runs the parts department and I say, give me an illustration of ethics at work. He said, okay. One guy raised his hand. Okay, so this guy comes in and says, I need this part. And I said, it’ll be in in two weeks cause I got to order it. And he says, he came in two weeks later and he’s walking in. I realized, Oh, I forgot to order that. What am I going to say? And he said, I thought quick. And when he got to me, he said, is the part? And I said, no sir, it’s on back order. And I said, how has that ethics? He said, because I’m protecting the reputation of our company. And his boss who was sitting there says, no sir, you’re covering your own behind. You didn’t protect our company. You showed a lack of ethics. You needed to say, I’m sorry sir, I didn’t order that. I will have it air shipped into Morrow and have it in your hands delivered by me. And that’s what ethics would have said. But instead, this man who didn’t understand ethics thought that protecting the company’s reputation was his job. And his boss had heard that said, no, no, no, no, no. Ethics says if you make a mistake, you correct it. So I started teaching ethics and core values.
It’s interesting to me, right when when you start reading about companies that have been around a long time, they’ve got values that are set in them that have been there for years. Yeah, and so I would go to a company, I would say, so what are your core values? Many of them don’t know. They can’t say David Green. When I went to him at Hobby Lobby, I said, what are our core values? He said, look on the wall. There are four of them, and we’ve built our company on those principles. Other companies, they say, we don’t have values. I said, you do, you just haven’t written them down. Let’s talk and tell me, have a conversation. What’s important to you? And I’d find out those values. Then go teach the values to the employees because now they have a sense of purpose. I’m not just here to earn money. I’m not just here to support my family. I’m here because these principles, these values guide this company and they’re going to guide him throughout the years, but nobody’s ever taught them. And if you give me a value, I can teach it. You know, I guess it’s one of the gifts of a pastor. You could teach those things while you’ve got the deeply rooted principal there and then you apply to that, your communication skills and away you go. So I had a good time traveling to many countries, teaching ethics principles, core values, behavioral style, communication skills.
And at the end of it, I would always say, I’d say, if folks you’ve listened to me for two days, you know that most of the illustrations I’ve had for you are from my years as a pastor. And you’re thinking, how can a pastor know about a business? Let me tell you who taught me all of these things. It all comes from the same book called the Bible. And I would tell them about Moses. He’s the one that taught business administration, business, the way to organize your business. But you know, groups of thousands, groups of a hundred, groups of tens, I could talk about Joseph and integrity. I mean he’s put in jail, wrongly accused, but as the Holy Ghost was on him and he was, it was just living under that integrity that wouldn’t allow him to lie. And of course, Jesus built a team. And so I would tell that and I’d say everything I know about business, I learned from the Bible and everything I know from the Bible I learned from Jesus. Would any of you like to know Jesus? And I’d have people getting saved at a business meeting simply because I could teach for two days and preach for 10 minutes and get people saved.
Ray: Well, you’re ministering really equipping, administering where the life where the rubber meets the road, their real lives and you made it come to life. So Rich, as you look back over the course of your life, what’s maybe one of the hardest decisions you had to make in your leadership or in business and how did your faith guide that difficult decision?
Rich: So when it came time to understand that my ministry was going to move beyond our local church, I had to leave that church and launch out. And I used to say, as a pastor, I was walking by faith, but I wasn’t. I had a salary when I stepped out to do this. I was walking by faith because I had no salary, had no form of income. I had a call from God and that was it. So the step was to say to my wife, sweetheart, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to stop receiving a salary and we’re going to start trusting God to lead us and to take us and to walk us through this. And that was in 1999. And Ray, we’re almost in 19 here, 2019. We’re talking 20 years and I’ve operated without a paycheck. And we’re still here. We’re still making it. God is still taking care of things. So there was a step of faith there that had to take place. Now, during that time, we built a ministry. We built a business. We’ve been up and down on all of those things. But the fact is it was a step of faith that got us started. So stepping out of the role as a pastor, which was my identity and into the role of identity as a son of God instead of as a pastor was a hard step. And yet it was obviously from God. We need to do that.
Ray: You talk about this stepping out of faith and not seeing the next step other than just being obedient, okay? And God made that clear. One of the things we hope to accomplish here on this program at Bottom Line Faith, we pray before every interview here at the program that our listeners would hear from God in this conversation. So Rich, let’s imagine what we don’t have to imagine cause we know it’s true. There’s somebody listening to this conversation right now. They’re discouraged, they’re unsure, they don’t know that next step. What they do sense is that God is calling them to something next, some next step. What word of encouragement? Because you’ve been through this, you just told us that story. What word of encouragement would you have for that one listener right now?
Rich: I would say, let’s listen to Jesus and Matthew 11:28 through 30. Jesus said, come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and heavy laden can mean I’m worn out. It can mean I’m stressed. It can mean I don’t know where I’m going next. Jesus said, come to me and then his promise was, I’ll give you rest. But the rest that he promised at the end of that down in verse 30 says, I’ll give rest for your soul. And the point I want to make about that is this. We are triad beings, body, soul, and spirit. We know that from first Thessalonians, we know because we’ve been taught it. We know that we are a spirit. That’s where we connect with God and we’re a body. That’s where our skill set is, but the soul part of that is our mind, will, emotions. But it’s mostly our mind and and where we get in trouble, it’s in our mind. That’s where the things start running. That’s where my doubt comes in. That’s where I wonder, can I do this? This is where I began to lose confidence in myself or I begin to worry about the future. It’s in the mind and God says, Jesus says, if you come to me, I will give rest for your mind. If we could get my mind at rest, all the stuff that’s flooding it and confusing me and taking my thoughts away from him and from my family, what my calling is, if I can get it focused back on him, that’s real rest. And that’s what right now, if you’re at a place where you just don’t know what’s coming is coming yet, listen to Jesus.
He says, come to me all you who are wearing, heavy laden, some of you that says I will give you rest. And then he says, learn from me. Take my yoke upon you. Watch this. Learn from me. I’ll be your teacher. Take my yoke. He’ll carry the biggest part. And then he says, for I am meek and lowly of heart. Wow. So there’s no place for pride in this thing because if the Creator of the universe can be meek and humble, surely we can bring ourselves to be meek and humble and then he says, I’ll give you a rest for your soul. And that’s what God, I think God is promising that right now to you. By the way, I’ve got a whole book on that topic. The whole book God @ Rest is built around that topic right there. You can get it for 99 cents on Amazon. I put it as cheap as Amazon would let me put it. I’ll tell you what, if you want to get it cheaper than that, tune into my TV show called God @ Work on God TV and we’re giving the book away. The online version. It’s totally free.
Ray: Can’t you give us a better deal than that, Rich?
Rich: You say, obviously he’s no businessmen, right?
Ray: I’m really glad you tied that in because I wanted to just come back to the book and you’ve just summed up for that person who’s listening right now. They’re discouraged. They’re despondent, like Lord, what? Maybe they’re desperate and many are scared, frightened. But you just walked us through. You talked about walking in faith and this hard decision of not seeing the next step, right. And walking away from salary and maybe not comfort but security. And for over 20 years now God has faithfully provided. And then that led us to this last point that out of Matthew 11, rest for your soul coming to Jesus.
Rich: Yeah. I think Ray, that I’m thinking we should have met years ago, but I’m really glad we met now because I think the next years we’re going to need each other more than ever.
Ray: Yeah.
Rich: And I need what you’re bringing. I think you need what I’m bringing and I believe Truth At Work. I started hearing about Truth At Work sometime back as I met one of your group leaders in Toledo, Ohio.
Ray: Yeah, that’s right.
Rich: Come on Toledo folks. You know what I’m talking about. Five foot, twenty.
Ray: Yeah. Jim Lange. He’s one of our leaders; six feet eight. Big boy.
Rich: Yeah. He calls himself five foot, twenty.
Ray: That’s right.
Rich: But when he stands up, you look up to him, right?
Ray: Rich, what a blessing it’s been. Thank you for trailblazing in this whole area and how God has used you in your faithfulness. You’ve been an encouragement to me, from a distance over the last 20 years. The last question that we ask every one of our guests here at Bottom Line Faith and our regular listeners know this is coming. This is called our Proverbs 4:23 question. Proverbs 4:23 says above all else, guard your heart for from it flows all of life. And so what would be your above all else advice for our listeners? What would be the one thing that you would like to pass along as the closing comment? Would you fill in the blank for me, Rich, above all else?
Rich: I’m glad you asked that question like that right now. Driving in my car today, back from Sunday morning church here in Orlando, I was thinking about a verse, a Scripture, another one like that. It’s in Romans chapter 10 verse 1. Paul says, brother, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. Here’s what I was thinking when I was thinking about that verse. If your heart’s desire isn’t something you could pray about, you have the wrong heart’s desire. So above all else, if your one thing that you’re looking at and it’s taking your time and your focus and what above all else for any of us is what takes our time and our focus on our money and our energy. If that isn’t something you can pray about, you’ve got the wrong above all else or the wrong, my heart’s desire. I want my heart’s desire. If my heart’s desire is souls to be saved, like Paul was praying, I can pray about that. If my heart’s desire is a godly marriage, I can pray about that. But if your heart’s desire takes you somewhere or thing you say above all else is something you can’t get in conversation with God about, you got to get something else as you’re above all else.
Ray: That’s fantastic. I wrote that down because I read time and again in Scripture about God will give us the desires of our heart but only when it’s in alignment with His. And so that is a great closing piece of advice. Thank you, Rich. You shared with us how we can get your latest book, but if our listeners want to get in touch with you, learn more about you and your ministry, your television show, God @ Work on God TV or just get in touch with you. What’s the best way for people to reach out?
Rich: So my email is Rich@godisworking.com. We know God is working. Reach out to me. Rich@godisworking.com or you could catch us online. Go to this: god.tv/VOD like video on demand. If you go to god.tv/VOD, you’re going to see five words there and one of them is called series. Click on series and go to God @ Work. You’re going to find me on God @ Work and you’re going to find Ray on God @ Work with me shortly because we happen to be together. He’s going to be on my show just like I’m on his show.
Ray: This is called quid pro quo, right?
Rich: It’s quid pro quo. I can’t even say it.
Ray: Well Rich, thanks for being on the program today. What a blessing.
Rich: It’s been a pleasure, Ray. God bless you.
Ray: Well folks, there you have it. Really and truly one of the leading voices of experience, authority and anointing for the last two decades plus, Rich Marshall. Check out his books online, God @ work, volume one, volume two, his newest release God @ Rest and he would be delighted I know to hear from you at Rich@godisworking.com. As we close today’s program, we get asked quite a bit as I’m traveling around the country, people say, Ray, what is the best thing that we can do to help the Bottom Line Faith program grow and succeed? Folks, first and foremost pray. We are seeing God anoint with just amazing guests like Rich and others that we’ve had over the last two years. So that’s the number one thing you can do is pray. The number two thing is go online and give a review. This is how we get more web traffic warrant recognition and more awareness. So just go online, give a review on your podcast platform and that will help us to grow the reach and impact at Bottom Line Faith. We are so grateful you’ve joined us today. Tune in next week where we’ll have a brand new guest and until then I am your host Ray Hilbert here at Bottom Line Faith, encouraging you to live out your faith each day in the market. God bless and we’ll see you soon.