THE GOD WHO GIVES AND SUSTAINS
Dear friend, as we embark on this prayerful journey together, guided by my role as your Priest and Servant, Fr CK, I want to share some reflections with you before delving into our prayers. It’s essential to recognize that a thriving business owned by a believer has the power to glorify God, serving as an instrument that can lead people into His kingdom. However, the enemy seeks to undermine this ministry through greed, dishonesty, and pride, attempting to divert the credit for success away from our Lord and Savior. Recognizing the vulnerability in self-reliance, it becomes crucial to envelop your business in prayer to safeguard its integrity and success while keeping your heart aligned with God.
As Christian business owners, we must acknowledge that we are vessels for God’s work. Before investing time in brainstorming ideas, products, designs, and services, it’s paramount to begin with prayer. By seeking God’s guidance, we can discern His will for us as business owners, avoiding pursuits that were never meant for us. Entrusting our business to the Lord, we can rest assured that He will provide everything needed, including networking opportunities, ideas, and collaborations.
- God has been a giver from the very beginning. His original plan for man was blessing and increase (Psalm 115:14-16).
- When God puts His favor and blessings upon your life, it will be evident to all who see it (Genesis 39:3; 1 Samuel 18:5, 14).
- God plans to prosper his people and not harm them, plans to give them hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).
- God wants us to prosper spiritually most of all. But He wants His people to prosper in the area of personal finances too.
The scripture from Proverbs 3:5-6 serves as a reminder: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”
As Christian entrepreneurs, it is crucial to be discerning about the opportunities we accept and the collaborations we engage in. We are called to be Spirit-led rather than driven by our own desires. Before committing to collaborations, conduct research – are they believers, and do they align with your values? Pay heed to the convictions and guidance from the Holy Spirit. To truly honor God with your business, seek wisdom and discernment, trusting that He will never lead you astray.
In doing so, let us focus on three eternal principles.
1. NO DEBT REQUIRED
The first principle is that no debt is needed to develop and run your business, if you use God’s way.
When He reveals the dream of a business adventure to you, He will put the tools and resources in your hands to make it happen. No doubt about it.
The Lord will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall NOT borrow.
(Deuteronomy 28:12)
When we take a business loan without any personal guarantee, we are not operating in the blessing of God, according to Deuteronomy 28:12. In fact, there are no scriptures within the Bible in which God commands someone to take a loan based on His direction.
2. WE MUST NOT NEGLECT FAMILY FOR BUSINESS
The second principle tells us we must not neglect family for business.
With this principle we need to define the word “family.” According to Dictionary.com, (2014) “the family is a basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not: the traditional family.”
In today’s modern society, the family has undergone significant transformations in its structure. The family is a social unit and can be described as “nuclear” if residing in the same household.
God wants to impart on us a clear understanding of His authority and His plan for us. He chose to reveal Himself and the clear purpose of His will in our soul.
Having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself.
(Ephesians 1:9)
Through Jesus, the Word made flesh; we have access to the Father and can share in the divine nature of the Holy Spirit. Through this revelation, therefore, God out of the abundance of His love speaks to men as friends (John 15:14-15) and lives among them, so He may invite and take them into fellowship with Himself.
By this revelation then, the deepest truth about God and the salvation of man shines out for our sake in Jesus, who both are the mediator and the fullness of all revelation.
The traditional structure of a family is crucial to other universal laws, human cornerstone principles, and teachings in the Bible. It is also important to understand what God wants from us to glorify Him, and not the family.
As you glorify Him and offer Him everything you do, He will pour blessings to you to overflow and pass into your family and future generations.
This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence.
(1 Timothy 3:1-4)
1 Timothy 3:1-4 applies directly to Christian entrepreneurs who want to do business God’s way, because we are overseers of God’s works in business on this Earth.
If God has given you the vision to start or expand a business, the business you start is His work, and you are the overseer, or as we call it in the business world, the Chief Executive Officer.
If you neglect your family in time, space, and support, your life will not be successful.
3. REMEMBER NOT TO LABOUR TO BE RICH
The third and last principle in doing business God’s way is remembering not to labour to be rich in business.
Then, how do we make it?
Do not overwork to be rich; Because of your own understanding, cease!
(Proverbs 23:4)
How, as a new business owner, can you become successful without working hard? Well, let’s first look at the definition of working.
It is defined as the physical, mental and spiritual work causing you extreme fatigue and frustration.
What I want you to focus on is fatigue and frustration. When you are working according to this definition (and the usage of this word in the Proverbs 23:4), the production of that work comes at the price of fatigue and frustration. It makes us feel devastated, as if we’ll never see the light at the end of the tunnel.
While working in our new business to be successful, according to Proverbs 23:4, we are leaning on our free will and ego instead of on God’s wisdom.
However, if you are connected with God, the Holy Spirit that lives inside of you will direct and guide you to focus and see success and prosperity with purpose.
As you trust God more and more each day to guide you in your business, declare boldly His word, meditate on His promises, listen to Him, expect natural and supernatural events in your life, and put Him first because your business should be done by His will.
In your prayer, be bold for God and confess with your mouth, soul and mind that you know with Him all things are possible. Tell Him every day you choose to stand solid in faith, that you trust Him, and you choose to receive every blessing He has for you.
Blessed be it! In the name of His son Jesus, you are asking, you are expecting, and thanking Him because you are receiving. Amen!
