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On the nagging thought that there may be a whole lot more spiritual potential to your business/career. (Guest Post by Dave Kahle)

Almost every Christian business owner, salesperson and executive has a firm grasp on the idea of stewardship – that everything in this world including our businesses, belongs to God, and we are just temporary stewards of it.

“Everything,” of course, means everything – our families, our gifts and abilities, the position or job that we hold, the influence that we have, the people in our lives – just to name a few.

Once we understand that, we are just naturally led to this question:  If that’s the case, am I making everything of this business (or my career) that God wants? What exactly does stewardship mean?  Is there a greater good, a bigger impact for His kingdom that I’m not seeing, or not yet realizing?

That’s a pretty important question.  What if we spent the rest of our working life in this business, and in the end realized that we had missed it?  That there was a larger dimension to the business — a bigger purpose — and we missed it? That would not be a good day.

For almost all of my adult life, I have had a sense, at a very deep level, that the Lord had something larger in store for me.  I never quite understood what it was, and rarely got a glimpse of it beyond the deeply embedded idea that I was meant for something else.  At times, that idea raised to the surface and was a part of career decisions.  At other times, it receded into the depths from which it came. But, it has always been there – for decades. It was one of the things that sustained me and gave me hope in some pretty desperate circumstances.  It is only in the recent couple of years that I feel like I am seeing a clearer and more detailed picture of what that larger and deeper purpose is.

I don’t think I’m unique.  While God may have something larger and more spiritual in mind for me, He probably works that way with everyone – including you!  You are, of course, His child.  Could it be that He has something larger, deeper and more spiritual in mind for you?

There is this verse: 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10

Could it be that God has prepared a ‘good work’ for each of us — uniquely and personally — to do?

If so, then could it be that there is a deeper, larger purpose for your career and your business than you currently see?

Instead of just a means of making an income so that you can support your family and make money, could it be that your business is a spiritual entity, with a significant role to play in God’s ultimate plan?

During the research that I did to write The Good Book on Business, I discovered that the answer to that question was a booming, emphatic YES!

In brief, here’s a short list of what I discovered about business in the Bible and the purpose of your business:

  1. Business is the venue that God has chosen as his first choice to interact with             mankind.
  2. Business is where we develop our faith.
  3. Business is where God develops the next generation of Kingdom leaders.
  4. Business is where spiritual gifts are exercised.
  5. Businesses provide economic security for their stakeholders.
  6. Businesses are spiritual entities, and sometimes morph into churches.

 

Business is far more important to God and to the Kingdom that almost anyone in our contemporary society have realized. Click To Tweet

 

Business is far more important to God and to the Kingdom that almost anyone in our contemporary society have realized.  Unfortunately, the common idea that business is where we make our money and church is where we do our ministry is 180 degrees different than the picture of businesses in the Bible.  Business is ministry, and the Bible clearly teaches that businesses have far more potential than just making money.

Alas, most Christian business people have never realized that, because we have never looked for it.  What prevents us from seeing that is often the blinders that we have put on ourselves – the ideas and paradigms that tell us that our business and careers are purely secular, and have no spiritual impact.  As long as we believe them, we will be oblivious to the greater spiritual potential that lies in that which we do for a living.

As a result, we miss it.  We spend our entire lives and business careers pursuing goals that are not in alignment with our spiritual purposes.

And that is incredibly sad.


About the Author:

Dave Kahle has been a Bible teacher, elder, house church leader, short-term missionary and Christian executive roundtable leader.  For 30 years, he has been an authority on sales and sales systems, having spoken in 47 states and eleven countries.  He has authored 13 books, including The Good Book on Business. Sign up to regularly receive insights and wisdom from Dave at  www.davekahle.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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