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Covering a difficult topic: pretty sure I am going to step on some toes. Like the conversation I had earlier today on the phone with my wife; I had hoped she was going to tell me that I was right. Instead, she said, “you’re wrong.” She didn’t tell me what I wanted to hear and she helped me to see things I wasn’t seeing clearly. And she did it with so much love and so much grace. I was able to receive that. And that is what I am writing about, this might step on your toes but I am telling you these things because I want you to live to your fullest potential, I am telling you these things because I love you!
Some of you may not know but I’ve been a pastor for 20 plus years and my faith is a big part of my life. So I have a lot of conversations that start out like this, “Mark, I am a Christian, I am doing all the stuff. I go to church, I serve, I tithe in my offering. I don’t understand, why isn’t God blessing my business? What isn’t my business growing? Why am I not prosperous? If I am doing all the stuff that people told me I am supposed to do: the Bible, the pastors, and the books… why isn’t my business blessed more?”
There could be a lot of answers to that question, but I’m going to tell you three that I don’t hear people talk about enough. I am going to be honest, I don’t think God’s not blessing you because you’re living in sin (typically). There’s three things that in my experience that people often overlook as to why God isn’t blessing them.
The first one is by far the biggest one, this is the most common reason God’s not blessing your business. You have not made the shift from a scarcity, lack poverty mentality, to a Biblical mindset of abundance from scarcity to abundance, from poverty to abundance, from lack to abundance, to overflow. And until you make that shift, God is limited in the blessing that He can pour onto your business and into your life.
Now, most of us have not made that shift because we have physiological and experiential hangups about scarcity, poverty and abundance. Let me just drop a few scriptures in here to remind you that God created you for ABUNDANCE.
John 10:10 says The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life. The thief, that the devil. In another translation it says, Our enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. But Jesus said, I have come that they might have life and life more abundantly. Other translation says life overflowing to the fullest.
God created you and me for abundance. He’s an abundant God. That is His character. Matthew 6:33,Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. Put the Kingdom first. God is okay with you living in abundance and overflow in your life.
And if you believe that God deems to keep you poor to keep you humble; He will keep you poor. Well, He’s not going to keep you poor. You’re going to stay poor and stay humble if you believe that. So what we believe is going to be reflected in our life. You’re going to need to make a shift from scarcity to abundance.
Based on my experiences, I would highly recommend this book, Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money. It was written by Jewish Rabbi, Daniel Lapin. It has a very Biblical perspective to help expose a lot of the limiting beliefs and unbiblical thinking that I had about money and abundance. The love of money is the root of all evil, money is not the root of all evil. But a lot of Christians believe that money is the root of all evil and that’s not.
It is a love of money that displaces Jesus at the center of your heart. That’s the root of evil. You can have abundance and God created you to have the power to create wealth. In Deuteronomy it says that He gave that to you. He gave that to me, but too many believers are not activating that power. I heard somewhere that we need to take back our power; I think you should do it in this area. If you want God to bless your business, begin to shift from scarcity to abundance, to overflow and realize that God can help you generate wealth. He didn’t just bless Abraham. He blessed Abraham to be a blessing. He wants to bless you to be a blessing.
I’ve got a client right now That’s feeling thousands of children’s meals on a daily basis in the Philippines, he’s built hospitals, he’s built churches. And he couldn’t do that without the financial resources to be able to do that. Be blessed to be a blessing.
Faith without works is… DEAD. In fact, in different translations it is said that our faith is proved by our actions. And if you want God to bless your business, it’s not going to fall out of heaven. The leads that you need, they’re not going to fall out of heaven. The systems, processes, structure that you need to put in ,the strategies necessary to scale your business, to impact more people and serve more people and solve more problems. That’s not saying God won’t give you a divine idea, download. That’s awesome. That happens all the time, but guess who’s going to have to activate it. Who’s going to have to put it in action? He’s going to have you do that. Your faith is not a lottery ticket for blessing. It does not manifest without you putting the work and the action behind it. You might need to get a coach. You might need to enroll in some extra training. You might need to learn how to structure your business in abundance, but He can’t bless something without your action.
God does supernatural divine intervention miracles, but if you read the Bible, the bulk of the miracles that take place in the Bible required the partnership of a man or a woman with their God, how are you partnering? How are you coming alongside the supernatural miracle working power of God to do your part? If you are feeling unsure at this point right, you need to ask yourself that question; God, what is my part? What am I missing about my part in blessing my business, growing my business, creating wealth?
And that is a game-changing shift. Now those two weren’t stepping on your toes. Maybe I stepped on some people’s toes, this third point, because I just had this conversation with the client. And I’m this third point as I shared it with them I was like, gosh, I hate that it’s true, but it’s true. Why is God not blessing a lot of Christian businesses? Because those Christian business owners lack integrity.
Whether you are saved or not, that many of you have done business Christians and had a bad taste left in your mouth because they didn’t do what they said they were going to do. They did not follow through. They did not perform at the level they promised. I’ve worked with Christians and I’ve had a bad taste left in my mouth because they lacked integrity, honesty, and character to do what they said they were going to do.
As a Christian business leader; ff you are praying, you’ve got Bible verses posted on your wall, you got the little fish on your logo even, but you lack integrity to do business the way that God almighty is honored, God can’t bless that mess.
I’m keeping this one a little plain today, I’m not judging you. I have to judge my own heart and say, Okay, are there ways that I’m lacking integrity? In fact, there wasn’t too long ago that I was having this conversation with myself. And I saw some areas of my business that I was not following through to the degree I needed to on commitments I made to my clients. I had to ask myself, how, can your business operate with more integrity? So, I’m not judging you. I’m not being harsh to you, but the quickest way to change is to face reality. So ask yourself the question, are there areas in my business (you don’t own a business, so maybe areas in my life) where I lack integrity? I know most of you are honest people, but maybe areas where it’s creeped in.
And you’re not even aware of until you ask yourself a question to turn the lights on and see what’s happening there because God wants to bless. He wants to bless you to be a blessing, but He needs to make sure that your integrity is going to protect that blessing. If He blesses us in the middle of our mess, our jacked up lack of integrity mess, or our scarcity mindset and see if you want millions of revenue or millions and income… you could lose it all. Picture God dropping that blessing out of heaven. But you didn’t make the shift from scarcity to abundance. You lose it all because your financial thermostat isn’t up here where you want it to be.
Maybe it’s because you haven’t made the shift in your mindset from scarcity to abundance. Maybe it’s because you haven’t taken the right actions and been willing to get on the edge of courage and action. Be courageous, be bold, move. And then number three, is there an area where you’re lacking integrity and God can’t bless. This last one might’ve stung a little bit, but the reason why I’m sharing this is because I want you to be blessed. I believe that God desires to bless believers, Christian businessmen and women, so that we can be an example of the goodness of God on the earth.
And then when people look at my life, they say, wow, that couldn’t be Mark. Mark is not that good. That had to be God. That’s what I want people to say for you and me. I want to leverage my life for God’s glory. I want to make Jesus famous throughout my life. And if I can do that by being a blessing to others, then I will make myself available to Jesus to do exactly that. So I hope you find this encouraging.
I hope this was helpful to you. I love you people. So you should go out there and give your greatness to the world because somebody needs what’s on the inside of you.
