Business With Godনমুনা

Ultimately, none of us own anything. We are all stewards of what God has entrusted us. God holds us to account with how we manage what He's given to us. Do we, like the unrighteous servant, use His resources towards our personal gain? Or do we use them to advance His interests? 

Everything we have is a gift from God. And the nature of blessing is supernatural. In fact, much of this reading plan is an attempt to bring the supernatural back into business. Its advice will put you in positions perhaps every day, if not multiple times a day, where God must show up for you or you will be sunk.

Some people may think, though, that if God is responsible for the success of the business, then they must not have any responsibility. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

When God gives, He often expects a return! He gave Adam the garden and Adam was expected to tend to it. He appointed Solomon king and Solomon was expected to make the people prosper and build God a temple. He blessed the Israelites and they were expected to be a blessing to the nations.

In fact, sometimes our love affair with God will lead us to do and give so much that some would perceive it as irresponsible wastes! The poor widow gave all of her money. Mary poured out all of the expensive perfume. And the Lord rejoiced in both of these occasions.

Businesses today concern themselves with creating value for their customers. And that is important! To be a faithful steward, though, we need to remember that ultimately God is our number one customer, employee, shareholder, and stakeholder. It's nice when people are pleased. Are we more concerned, though, if God is pleased?

God desires to put Himself on display through us. So let’s ask Him, "How do You want to show Yourself?" This requires we continually grow in apprehending God's value for benevolence, beauty, freedom, creativity, environment, and design. 

And as we commit to walking with Him, at any cost He asks us to pay, we will also grow in follow-through, excellence, and completion. Our culture calls it work ethic. God calls it faithfulness.

Being a faithful steward means surrendering all of our resources (time, money, talents, relationships, knowledge, expertise, etc.) to the desires of God for our lives and businesses... and to do so whole-heartedly.

Faithful stewards, furthermore, understand that God is putting people (bosses, employees and customers) in our charge. What we do unto them we do unto God. Are we treating God with honor and respect? Are we paying God a living-wage? Are we giving God the benefit of the doubt? Are we giving God our whole-hearted efforts? Are we more concerned about God than ourselves? Stewards understand we will answer to God for the way we have (or have not) made others prosper. 

Here are today's questions:

1. How is the Lord challenging you to steward time, talents, money, resources, etc this week?

2. What does creating value mean, in a kingdom context? What do people consider valuable? What does God consider valuable? What kind of “returns” is He expecting?