Christian Business Builder

In this article I want to talk about the sixth success tip for a successful business. Here in Proverbs 3:7, Solomon tells us that we need to, ” fear the LORD, and depart from evil.” This admonition is to contrast the warning in the first half of the verse to not be wise in your own eyes.

Throughout the scriptures God directs his children to live and act contrary to the “ways of this world.” Whether it is the command to Moses to confront Pharaoh, or the military strategy used to defeat the city of Jericho, or the new commandment Jesus gave to the disciples to love one another as he had loved them. God’s wisdom is always contrary to the wisdom of man.

So, how does this truth relate to this passage and ultimately to our business and its success? There are three things that catch my eye:

A fear of the Lord provides the believer with both knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge given by God is always going to be the best and most useful knowledge. The wisdom which is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. (James 3:17)

To depart from evil will keep our business honest before all men. We will become trusted and our customers/clients will know that we can be counted on in every situation. This kind of trust produces a loyalty that will create return business as well as a great referral network.

As we build our businesses under the conditions of this success trait, we will be more comfortable and confident. This level of comfort and confidence alone will cause more people to want to work with us and it will take the pressure of success off our shoulders as we trust in the Lord.

Talk more later ….

As we have been looking to scriptures for the step by step plan to business success for the Christian business builder, we have considered four steps to this point.

First, Proverbs 3:5 teaches us to trust in the Lord with all our hearts. No one can better bring success to you and strengthen the value that you bring this world through your business than the Lord. When we who are Christians trust in the Lord, we cannot be stopped.

The second step is to abandon our own understanding. When we focus our business on the things that we can understand, calculate, and decide our tendency is to take our eyes off the Lord and his direction for our life and business.

The third step is to not only trust the Lord but also to acknowledge him in all your ways. In this step we move further down the path of departing from what is traditionally considered as “business sense.” However, if you want real success as a Christian, you have to acknowledge God in all things.

The last article spoke to the fourth step which is to let God direct your paths. He alone knows what’s best for you, so if you want what’s best in your life and business, you need to let God direct your paths.

Tonight the fifth step is found in verse 7, were Solomon warns us to, “Be not wise in thine own eyes, …” What exactly does that mean? Well, the wisdom spoken of here means, “intelligent, skillful, artful.” So, God’s word tells us not to view ourselves as intelligent, skillful, or artful “in thine own eyes.”

In simple words, we need to avoid the prideful view or our skills. We need to see them as a gift of the Lord and honor him in using our skills in the building of our business. We have been trained in the world of business to “brand ourselves” as an expert in our chosen field. We can certainly do that as long as we are quick to acknowledge God’s role in making us and expert. It is when we begin to think that we are “all that and a bag of chips” that God cannot work in our life or business.

Our success in business is always going to be greater when we recognize the source of our intellect, skill, and artfulness. He wants to bless our efforts and will do so when we serve him and our customers in humility rather than prize.

Talk more later ….

“… and he shall direct thy paths.” (Proverbs 3:6b)

The fourth step to successful business is to allow God to direct your paths. Sounds simple doesn’t it? Yet, if truth be told this is the most difficult step of all.

Remember a guy named Adam? He had it made! He was the unique creation of Holy God who was the first of the entire human race. He was given a pristine world to keep, a wife to love, a garden to tend, a God who walked with him every day, and only one thing he could not do. Pretty sweet set up don’t you think?

I don’t really know how long it lasted, but even in these truly perfect conditions, Adam found a way to mess things up. The reason? He wanted to direct his own path! Eve had taken of the fruit and now Adam was left with a choice. Follow God and see how he would deal with Eve or follow Eve and turn from God’s direct command on his life. We all know which choice Adam made and what his choice cost him, his family, and his God.

Now, in our modern culture, we are constantly bombarded by the voices of the experts who want to be your guiding light in every phase of life and business. These voices tend to uplift man while quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) diminishing God’s role in your day to day choices. Subtly we hear that God wants us to be happy and that real success is always about money and possessions and that for three easy payments of $39.99 plus shipping and handling they are willing to share with us all that we need to be healthy, happy, and RICH! (And before you swamp me with a whole list of the verses about God wanting us to be rich, I will get to that later in this series.) When all is said and done they are rich, we are wandering in the wilderness, and only Satan is really happy.

All this because we didn’t let God direct our paths!

Why should we surrender our life (including our business) to the direction of God?

1. No one knows better what is best for us than God. He is the very giver of our life and he never gives life without purpose. (Psalm 71:6)
2. No one can empower us to succeed better than God. God’s word says that the one who lives in us (the Holy Spirit) is greater than the one who lives in this world (Satan). (1 John 4:4)
3. No one can guarantee success like God. (Psalm 1)

You see, God never works to our detriment. He always works to give us place to worship him and bring glory to his name. It is the same in life and business. That being said, we need to allow him to direct all of our life’s path!

Talk more later ….

You know I think that being actively Christian in this society is as difficult as I have ever known it to be in my 30+ years as a Christian. The reasons for this are numerous; Christianity has been rejected by the vast majority of the population, schools have taken an almost anti-Christian stance in educating students, and business leaders have embraced a quasi-Christian philosophy that values human effort over the wisdom of God.

With this backdrop it is difficult for we who are dedicated to the truth of God and his word to find place in our chosen professions. There is often lots of “God talk” without much “God seeking.” In this series of articles I am trying to reverse this trend. It is time for we “Christ followers” to look to him and his word for the answers to our business life as well as our personal relationship with God.

We have been examining the passage in Proverbs 3:5-10 to see where we might seek the Lord more directly in the building and operation of our businesses. This article will cover the third thought seen here:

“In all thy ways acknowledge him,”

For more than a century, we have been taught in school and in life that if we are going to be successful in life that we need to “pick ourselves up by our bootstraps” and “never quit.” We have been told that we can achieve anything as long as we stay focused and keep at it. We have been told to find something we love and do that thing. It is all up us and we are the only one who can make or break our success story.

Now, while the scriptures do surly speak to the subject of industry and hard work, they also speak to the subject of God’s direction and leadership in making directional choices in life.

I for one can tell you that listening to the voice of the Lord in making the right choices with regard to direction isn’t as simple as it sounds. There are so many voices in the world today with so much advice and so many options. How is someone supposed to make right choices in the midst of all that is out there in the world?

The answer to this question rests in this simple phrase from Proverbs 3, “In all thy ways acknowledge him …” Only when we acknowledge the Lord throughout the whole of our lives activities will he provide us with the wisdom to make the right choices at the right times in our lives. What is also so amazing about God is that even if we have made wrong choices, he is always willing to help us return to the right path by simply seeking his forgiveness and acknowledging him from this point on!

The little word “way” is the key to understanding this portion of scripture. According to Strong’s Concordance, “Way” means a course of life, mode of action. In other words our acknowledgment of God needs to be throughout our entire course of life and mode of actions, not just those we find easy, but also those we don’t want to release to anyone.

Only as you release more and more of your life and business to God will you have the power to know and understand the level of success God has in store for you. The only caveat that I need to make here is that God’s view of success may be quite different from yours. However, you will never find yourself in a better place as a Christian business owner than the place that God has called you to Think about it!

Talk more later …

In this article series, we are looking at Proverbs 3:5-10. This passage is often used to describe generally the whole of the believer’s life (and rightly so). We are narrowing the focus a bit and looking at how this passage should effect the believer as they follow God’s leadership in their business life.

Today we are going to look at step 2 of the process, “and lean not unto thine own understanding.” Have you ever wondered out loud what was wrong with your own understanding. After all, you might well think. you are a pretty smart person, an entrepreneur, and someone who can surly make it in this world. After all we are taught from the time we are first able to catch a ball, run a race, or swing a bat that “we can do anything we put our minds to.”

So, why would the Holy Spirit inspire Solomon to put such a thought as this into the very pages of God’s word? I think that there are at least three reasons:

1. Man’s understanding, since the fall, has always been corrupted by sin. In Genesis 6:5, God’s word tells us, “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

Now I realize that this verse represents mankind at its most rebellious, but their minds/understanding became more and more evil (corrupt) the more they operated on their own, without a heart that trusted the Lord.

In business, the more we lean on our own understanding rather than having a heart-felt trust of the Lord, the more apt we are to drift from God’s will and be drawn into areas of struggle we are not meant to travel through.

2. God’s thoughts are above our thoughts. In Isaiah 55:8-9 God himself declares, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Given the opportunity to build your business on the limited understanding of man or the limitless understanding of God which would seem to be the best choice?

3. Even after our conversion to Christ, our understanding is still under the attack of Satan and without God’s blessings we will surly fall! (Romans 7:17-23)

Without God we are limited to a humanistic worldview that basically says, “Get all you can, can all you get, and sit on the lid.” The problem with this worldview is that it violates God’s desire for us to spend ourselves in life (and business) to glorify him. His word clearly teaches that if we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness that he will add to us all the things in life that we need!

So … this week think about your view of business and ask yourself the question, “By whose understanding am I building this business?

Talk more later ….

By the way, as always, your comments are both requested and appreciated!

Ok, yesterday I told you that I had a seven step plan for business success. I told you that I would deliver that plan to you over the next seven days. I also told you that the creator of this plan can guarantee you success if and only if you are willing to follow the plan completely. If you fail to completely follow this plan your level of success will be effected.

So … without any further adoo, here is step number one in the seven steps to business success:

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; …” (Proverbs 3:5a)

I know, I kown, you’ve heard this before. But wait, give me a chance and I will show you how all of these thought fit together before I am done and, if you believe God’s word, you will see how your success can be guaranteed if you are willing to work this plan.

Now, let’s look at step one.

Trust means to be confident or sure. It means to be bold and to make to trust. So, if we apply this to business success, we could say that if we are going to be successful in business, we need to be confident in the Lord; to be bold in him.

We need to trust in the Lord “with all our hearts.” Our heart is the seat of our intellect, emotion, and will.

So, when we put these definitions together, we need to be confident in the Lord with all of our intellect, our emotion, and our will. This means that the Lord needs to be our confidence when we consider the technical aspects of business and marketing, when we struggle with the emotional ups and downs owning a business can bring, and as we surrender our will for success to that of the Lord. (Remember he doesn’t always define success the same way that we do.)

It is a simple first step, but it is not an easy one. To truly trust in the Lord means that you have to always agree with him and yield yourself to his direction throughout the course of your business career. Add to this the fact that Satan battles, seeks to blind and discourage all those who trust in the Lord and you have to make a real commitment to this first step.

However, if you are willing enough and surrendered enough God will bring you to a place of real success if you trust in him with all your heart.

Tomorrow - “and lean not unto thine own understanding.”

Over the next eight days I want to outline for you a sure fire success formula that will allow you the greatest opportunity to be successful in this life! Now, I cannot guarantee anyone success, mostly because I don’t know what success looks like to you, I don’t know how closely you are walking with God, I don’t know if you are being led by the Holy Spirit, I just don’t have enough information to guarantee you success.

What I can do is lay out a plan that was written by the Creator of all that is. His plan will at least lead you to the greatest opportunity for success (guaranteed if you follow the plan without fail). But, remember as you go along, Adam and Eve were guaranteed success in their lives as well but failed to follow God’s plan. His guarantee was good while their execution left something to be desired.

This plan lays out perfectly with seven clear and distinctive parts. (Remember 7 is the number that represents perfection.) This is a perfect plan, designed by a perfect being, to provide perfect success to those who have the faith and the courage to follow it perfectly. Any deviation from the plan lessens the synergistic effect and lessens the level of success you can expect.

Success is a strange thing, God desires it for everyone, yet so few achieve it! Are you ready to take up the challenge? Come back tomorrow and we will get started!

Wax on, wax off Danielson!