Business Success in the Bible has to do with the biblical techniques, strategies and wisdom that is embarked upon, in establishing a business.You will be surprised to know that the Bible gives great insight on how to approach business. This insight comes from proverbs and other books from the Bible. Some of the greatest businesspeople in history received their business wisdom and inspiration from the bible. Solomon, who mostly wrote the book of proverbs, provided timeless principles that are used still today.
The Bible gives us the following blueprint for business Success:
• Focus on attaining wisdom
• Set goals and plan
• Be diligent with your plans
• Put your faith into action and don’t give up.
• Serve people
When you think about it, at its most basic level, business is simply providing a good or service to someone. So, how do you develop a successful business?
We have to remember the basics. We have to remember that business is about meeting a need for another person. That need may come in the form of a product or service. We give first and we receive last. In our business, we should always have a mindset and a heart for meeting the needs of another person.
When we put the other person’s need before our own selfish desire (You know what I mean. The desire to get the money out of someone else’s pocket before we think about how we can serve them), we are well on our way to business success.
Business Success is all about thinking of creative ways to meet the needs of another person. So, for a business strategy what we need is knowledge and understanding. Knowledge and understanding are products of the mind and we can attain this by reading, connecting with people who have this knowledge, through experience, or by brainstorming creative solutions.
After you apply that knowledge and understanding, we need to have faith and perseverance to see our business Success to completion.
Lets take a look at each element of developing a great and successful business.
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Focus on Wisdom and Understanding – That’s the Key!
Business is all about coming up with good ideas. As a result, we have to focus on attaining wisdom. We attain wisdom by finding knowledge (good information) and making good decisions.
A house is built by wisdom
and becomes strong through good sense.
Through knowledge its rooms are filled
with all sorts of precious riches and valuables.
Proverbs 24:3-4 NLT
As we see in Proverbs, wisdom is the key element to business Success. Good judgment is also very important. You can only demonstrate wisdom and good judgment by having the right knowledge.
What we must understand is that anyone can attain wisdom and understanding. This is not something we are born with. Wisdom is something that we acquire throughout life. If only we can hunt for knowledge and wisdom like we hunt for treasure, we would be in good shape. If we can desire or thirst after knowledge and wisdom as we thirst for water, we would get what we are looking for.
How to get wisdom according to the Bible?
If we don’t know how to get wisdom, the Bible tells us that we should simply ask God for wisdom and he will direct us to the wisdom we seek. God gives us wisdom generously. He is not holding it back from us.
If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.
James 1:5 NLT
So, I ask you how often do you pray to God for wisdom? When was the last time you asked God, the source of all wisdom and knowledge, to guide you in your quest for wisdom regarding a problem or issue you face? Asking God for help is not a sign of weakness, it actually is a sign of strength. You are leaning on Him who is the source of all wisdom and knowledge. The weak thing to do is to think that you have it all figured out and that you don’t need God’s help.
When we “figure something out”, come up with a great idea, or have something just “come to us” without any effort that is God allowing us to grab hold to infinite intelligence (wisdom, etc,.). This is an intelligence that we do not produce we just have the benefit of understanding it. When creative minds like Thomas Edison and George Washington Carver and modern-day Bill Gates, Elon Musks, or Steve Jobs create, they are tapping into wisdom and knowledge that already exists within God’s created world. These people persistently, seek, knock, and ask by trial and error experimentation, study, and thinking, etc,. If you do not get the answer to your problem, be persistent in your quest for wisdom.
If you were starving for food you would not stop until you were nourish with food. This is also the case with our pursuit of wisdom. We should not stop until we have succeeded in attaining it. This is one of the interesting mysteries of life in that wisdom is something that is not so easily found and yet it is waiting for us to find it and is usually within our reach.
Set goals, plan and be diligent
Goal setting is an important aspect to life that is often overlooked. In order to get to our destination, we have to know where we are going. We have to have a goal in mind. Everytime we get in the car or start walking we have a destination in mind and we are moving with a purpose. When we have a firm goal and we match our goal with good planning and hard work, the Bible tells us we will succeed. This is the best business strategy according to the Bible.
Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity,
but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.
Proverbs 21:5 NLT
This is one of the most important verses for understanding how to come up with the best business strategy according to the Bible. Good planning is a product of having good knowledge and demonstrating wisdom. Knowledge and wisdom work together to produce good planning. When our goals are matched with good planning and diligence we will succeed.
An interesting counter-example is given in proverbs. The Bible tells us that hasty shortcuts lead to poverty. We may ask, what are shortcuts? If we look at the first half of this verse, we see that shortcuts or any attempts to gain prosperity that is a result of bad planning and easy work. This is a crucial point that we need to take a closer look at.
Any opportunity that looks easy and does not require good planning will lead to poverty. The Bible is clear on this. Our world has been designed by God in such a way that we can expect to get something from nothing. In other words, we cannot expect to get a disproportionate outcome out of life when we have not put in the necessary work to get that outcome.
How to build your business on faith
It is important that we understand that faith by itself will not produce results. Our faith has to be backed by action because faith without action is not really faith. Our belief has to be backed by action. The bible tells us faith without action is no faith at all.
What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone?
James 2:14 NLT
It is a given that we will encounter difficult times and hardships in our business. It is important that we understand that we need to stick with our principles and continue to do things God’s way. When difficult times come, we should not lose heart and give up. On the contrary, we need to have stronger faith and realize that God is with us, and because we have good planning and hard work it is only a matter of time before we are successful. God cannot lie His word has to be true.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart;
do not depend on your own understanding.
Seek his will in all you do,
and he will show you which path to take.
Proverbs 3:5-6 NLT
When our actions are a result of sound knowledge and wisdom, we have to trust God that we are doing things the right way and that in due time our plans and actions will yield results. We need to continue to pray to remain sensitive to God’s direction.
Serve people
As I mentioned earlier, the most important thing to remember is that we are in business to serve people. When we focus on serving people the money will follow. We have to get that correct. Serve first and then the money or rewards will follow.
The objective of a business is really to add value to someone’s life. The way you add value to someone’s life is to serve them by meeting their need. This means we have to think about our customers’ needs before our own needs. Our objective should be to improve the lives of our customers. If our product or service cannot improve the lives of our customers, pretty soon we will be out of business.
Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.
1 John 3:18 NLT
The best business Success focuses on serving people by adding value to their life by meeting a need they have. If our business focuses on serving first it will be very successful.
