Honoring God with Your Business
There is that distinction the Bible talks about. Make sure you don't, you're not unequally yoked together with an unbeliever, and the wise walk with the wise. A while back, there was a book, by Robert Cialdini called The Psychology of Persuasion. He went through a lot of different topics and when the book came out, that stuff started showing up and it's always shown up in marketing with fake scarcity timers, fake social proof timers, fake countdown timers, fake limited-time offers, and all that other kind of stuff.
I'm not being critical. I've done some of these things in the past, right? When I just didn't know better and there are some honorable applications of that. However, if somebody uses that to leverage up their profit that is not serving the kingdom.
Another thing to steer from is scaling your pocketbook before you scale your clients’ results. That's why we call it delight for us. Delight. You want to have customers delighted. Otherwise, why do you do what you do as a Christian, right? You're not a heathen, you're a Christian.
We're about this to make a difference or to be salt or to be light. Salt is a preservative. Light is an illuminator. So, our members should have absolute impact and benefit from what they're transferring their money. To us what they should receive is 10 times, 100 times than what they put in. So, always optimize clients first, always.
There have been times when I've invested tremendous resources out of my pocket into helping our members get results. And some of them have worked and some of them haven't. I don't care. I'm not going to. That's not something I'm ever going to back off on. I think you should put clients first.
On the other side of things, what we must do to honor God is we have to take our inherent skills and business, and then we must be led by Him. On what to do next, what to do now, because we want God’s idea. We don't just want a good idea. One of the ways we can honor God is by slowing down and letting him lead our path. What's cool about that is it takes all the pressure off.
Here's one of my favorite prayers in the morning. Every morning I wake up and open a list I have in a little black notebook. I write five or seven things I'm grateful for. And then I write bullet points of things that I'm stressed out about, or that are bothering me, business, personal, whatever. And then I pray this prayer that I learned from Joyce Myers, 15 years ago, “Lord, I'm bringing these things to you. If there's something that you want me to do about them, show me what it is. And as your son, a family member in your royal kingdom. I will absolutely do it. Otherwise, Lord, this is your deal. Handle it.”
But because I do my best to submit, I do this imperfectly, but I do my best to submit to his plans and purposes. And sometimes they fly in the face of an advisor. Sometimes they fly in the face of what my team leadership thinks we should do. I don't care. My knees bow to one. And so, we honor God by it. By plugging in and deeply pressing into his plan for our business our saltiness and our illumination into the marketplace.
The purpose of wealth is people. The world system is to love money, and use people. The kingdom system is to love people, and use money. If I could just plug into him, there'll be things that work out a lot better. That's a way we honor God. I think another way we honor God is just by taking care of our biology, taking care of our mindset, taking care of our thinking processes, and being still.
He's a still, small voice. Sometimes when I'm making decisions, I've got a whiteboard over there. I'll write down a couple of options. And then I'll just, I'll pray over it. I'll walk around, confess scripture. And if I don't have peace, then I don't go. If there's no green light, I’m not doing it. It's either like a heck yes, or it's a no.
When we draw near to him, he draws near to us. And so sometimes what the hardest thing is, is we're like trigger-happy people, right? Like entrepreneurs, Christian entrepreneurs, and A players, often want to quickly take ground. Let's go attack. However, that can get us in the ditch. Because it's through faith and patience that we inherit the promise. So, patience is a key part of honoring God with our businesses.
There are three critical things that I've learned over my twenty-plus years, evaluating over one hundred and fifty different business models as a Christian entrepreneur.
I've put together my observations and these three keys (I learned the hard way) into a Christian Entrepreneur Manifesto, along with some step-by-step walk-throughs and demonstrations.
There is no opt-in required.
It walks through my favorite model, the Finders model.
It might be interesting for a Christian looking to start something new or for the first time to escape the "business running them vs. them running their business" or the nine to five and not to have to work for themselves or someone else until the age of eighty.
Check it out here:
https://christianentrepreneurinc.com/go
I hope it helps!
Blessings,
Paul
PS: God is a big God.
He gives us above and beyond what we can ask or think.
We must ask big.
We must think big.
And if we don't, it's not His fault if we live limited.
Work hard, pray harder, and never ever ever ever quit.
You've got this!
PPS: Whenever You’re Ready... Here's How I Can Help You Generate An Additional $5 to $10k Per Month Or More:
- Check Out Our Christian Entrepreneurship Manifesto
Learn why some "make it" and others don't - Access More Articles Like This
Sharpen your Mindset, Model, and get Mentored - Watch Our Christian Business Incubator Training
Learn key lessons from analyzing over 150 different business models, launching ten virtual businesses in ten different markets with ten different models, and hitting six figures in four and seven figures - Schedule A Free Discovery Call
Make sure you read the Manifesto and review the Training first and then let's hop on a call and get all your questions answered about the Christian Startup Business Incubator