Photo: Creative Commons vaXzine
Perhaps because my husband, Tony, is a businessman, we regularly have Christians approach us: "God gave me this idea for a business. What do you think?" Sometimes it's a product they think everyone will buy. Sometimes a technology or a service.
So we ask them some apparently non-spiritual questions?
- Do you have any experience within this industry (whatever industry their idea fits within)?
- Do you have a business plan?
- How will you market it?
- Where is the capital going to come from?
- Do you know others with the expertise to help you?
Usually the import of their answer is something like this: "God gave me this idea. Therefore it will succeed." We often come away with the impression they think it will bring in a large amount of money for a minimum amount of effort, because, after all, God is in it.
In one sense, we have every sympathy with them. Jesus gave us an idea for a business out of the blue, and it has succeeded to the place where we have a team of people working for us leaving us free to do anything God asks us to do within the Kingdom. So we are convinced God is looking to give people an idea to "create wealth that he might establish his covenant" (Deut 8:18– a verse we prayed for many months). He is looking to free people financially through business to work in the Kingdom. We know many people for whom he has done this.
However, we had to learn from painful experience that a business will not succeed without good business practices and principles.
God doesn't often give us shortcuts. He expects us to be diligent to learn, put in long hours where necessary, use good business practices, bring in expertise (like lawyers and accountants) where needed. God isn't into "get rich quick" schemes.
And he delights to bless.
13 replies on ““God gave me this idea for a business…””
AWESOME article, because we belong to God, every idea comes from God, however we must discover the purpose of this idea. Once we have connected the idea with the purpose, will be as how to connect heaven to earth and then … God will prosper as their purpose is fulfilled through the revealed idea. All purposes (including business) converges in salvation. God bless you Tony and Felicity.
Julio, I agree. There should be no dividing line between sacred and secular.
Forgive me for not being more aware of what I suppose is obvious to most of your long time readers, but I’m sorta out of the loop – what type of business do you have? I’m curious what the idea is that God gave you 🙂
I am not sure what Julio means when he says, “because we belong to God, every idea comes from God”.
This is plainly not true, and provably so. If it was true, then there would never be any heresy because if “every idea comes from God”, it must only be true doctrine!
I am sure that Julio didn’t mean what appears written in his first sentence above. Or maybe I have got hold of the wrong end of the stick?
God speaks to us in many ways. Unfortunately there is a competition between what we hear from God -the Tree of Life, and what we dream up ourselves from our own personal Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (right or wrong, clever or foolish, cheap or costly, fast or slow, beautiful or ugly, etc.) Added to all this, is the voice of Satan whispering in our ear and doing his best to misdirect us, or snatch away the whisper of God.
Above all, as believers we need to cultivate discernment to know who the author of any idea is, and wisdom as to what to do with it.
Like a good father, God does not despise the ideas of his children. From my experience it is a great joy to work on a project alongside my heavenly Dad, where His ideas and my ideas meld into one result. I do not believe my personal tree of knowledge is offensive to him, provided it is kept in subservience. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. This principle applies in business just as much as in church.
I speak as one who has walked with God in business for 28 years, making mistakes and making profit in following the voice of God.
Heather, we run a patient advocacy business. It’s a niche in the healthcare world. Our core skill is helping those who have more medical bill than they have money. Thankfully, it has now grown to the point where, with 17 employees, we are free to do whatever the Lord asks of us in the Kingdom.
Frank, you are right. In fact I’ve just written an e-book on this very subject (http://bit.ly/qz2ipN)
In the early 80s, whilst out working, God clearly gave me a revelation for a business.
The idea was totally novel, we found that there was no one else doing such a business model in the UK.
The idea was to offer a particular household product and its installation at a fixed advertised price. The product was widely available as a DIY article, and indeed I had installed several recently, which is when God spoke to me about the business model.
I approached several manufacturers of the product, but none were willing to supply direct to an installer. They always directed me back to the builders merchants or diy chains for their correct supply route. The manufacturers could not see my idea as interesting to them. Later experience proved them very wrong indeed.
It took 2 years of searching and prayer for a way to advance the vision. Suddenly the door opened. We had supplies. We equipped and painted a van with our new logo and started advertising for installations on the local radio and in local papers.
Three days later we had to postpone all advertising, as we had an avalanche of over three months work, at several installations a day, working till 10 or 11pm!, We were inundated with phone calls day and night.
Thankfully God brought another believer to help with the installations, another installer followed later.
Within the first year, we were buying more of these items direct from the manufacturer than all the purchases of the largest diy chain in Britain.
I cannot speak highly enough for the idea of working for God, but for me, it was never about making money so I could be a heroic contributor for the church missions. It was all about Jesus being Lord of ALL of me and ALL of mine.
Ever since I had come to know the Lord in the 70s, I was distressed that the value of scriptural truth was being lost because believers seemed to only understand it, and interpret it within the context of church meetings or evangelism. When they were away from church, their direction in life was really no different to non Christians.
I personally held that any scripture should prove itself in the market place, and everywhere else, if it was a truth. Limiting it to church was to my mind, robbery.
I had asked God to lead me out of my full time employment so I could work for Him as my boss. He did just that. He proved the veracity of scriptural truth, well away from any church context. It gave me an amazing testimony which was illustrated by facts on the ground, not empty theology.
They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery. Gradually other businesses started to copy our model. We then diverted into other products and the original plan became a small part of a bigger business. However what we had learned was crucial to how we ran all of our future business.
Ever since I set out to “demonstrate” what I thought was God’s view of the working life, He has revealed himself in countless crazy circumstances, through dreams visions and prophetic words. That is how my business grew. He even led me to invent a simple product and patent it.
My boast is in God, and in his desire to bless those who will listen. I am really a most useless businessman with very little comprehension of proper business practices. God just brought the right people along when they were needed.
What an interesting message. I don’t know if I feel encouraged or discouraged and I am not sure if I agree with any of this. God is into blessing his people. Especially the chosen ones who do what he says. God has blessed me with 2 business that I get to bleed into the kingdom and be a blessing in more ways than money. I get to encourage others to pursue their dreams. Demons will do all they can to stop you, but no weapon formed against you will be able to prosper. I was stomped on and left out to die by humanity. I had everyone I know speak doom over my life including both parents and my entire family. Even Hell knew I was destined for purpose. I am the CEO and owner of 2 multimillion dollar corporations. God Blesses those can trust. Period. A business CAN AND WILL succeed with nothing but passion and motivation. No help, no experience, no education. God needs absolutely none of that to open up doors for you that no one can shut and no one will understand. Keep praising him and watch what he does in your life. Glory to God!!! He will lift you out of a financial crisis just like he awakened you to his amazing presence. Trust him and watch what he does next!
Praise God for what he has done in your life and through your businesses. We’ve seen much the same ourselves.
I agree with you that God is into blessing us. I know from experience the spiritual warfare that goes into seeing the Lord prosper and bless a business. I guess the post was written because we’ve seen too many Christians tell us that they know that God is behind their latest idea, only to find out a few months later that it never worked. So you have to ask why. Were they being presumptuous? Did they not put in the work? Were they not moving in faith? I don’t know.
Great. I understand your point. I have learned that God gives us the ideas, but he expects us to do our best to become great and successful.
I needed to read this, tks so much
Great. Thanks. I have learned that God gives us the ideas, but he expects us to do our best to become great and successful.
Your words are encouraging, but I’m still not sure what to do with a product He(God) gave me back in 2018. It’s a cute pillow in the shape of a teddy bear without legs. At first I thought, this is great. I needed a hug so I assumed everyone would too and it wouldn’t be hard to get it to market. Wrong, 5 years later I still have the product trademarked and all but no sales. They sit in boxes with me not knowing what to do with them. I am truly at a loss not knowing how to get them out without money, advertising or anything else.