Week 2: Identity in Christ, and Stewardship vs. Ownership

We want to see that happen in the lives of entrepreneurs all around the world.?This is the mission that gets us out of bed each morning and it has motivated

this training.

So what are the defining characteristics of a Faith Driven entrepreneur? They are the values, habits, faith, and traits that allow people to successfully build a business and faithfully pursue a loving relationship with God. That is what this training is. It is an outline of those characteristics, stories that display what they

look like, and encouragement for how you can see them in your own life in business.

At the end of each entry we’ve included a PDF of discussion guide that will help you dive deeper into these ideas with others. Because despite what you may have felt in the past, you don’t have to go this alone.

This training is the starting line. It is not meant to be comprehensive or the final word on the subject. It’s just the start Dash for me, for you, and for the entire faith driven entrepreneurial movement. Start realizing that God has a plan for every entrepreneur, and he’s inviting you into it. Will you join?

Are called to create. Does god call people into certain jobs and professions? Is your calling a special spiritual experience? Are some people called and other people not? Theologians have for decades been debating about what Colin really means and how he can discern our own, the real harm in our conversations around calling is found in the spiritual caste system it has created

between secular and sacred callings.

Being quotation mark called end quotation mark into ministry seems like a special, more elite, and more personal path than having a career in other professions. Christians often consider those called to vocational ministry a special ops group that only certain people are qualified for. We often believe that there are regular believers on one side and preachers, teachers, and

missionaries on the other. Well we cannot all be missionaries and preachers, it’s easy to feel like those people have received something special from God that we have not. Why can’t an entrepreneurial venture, lived and pursued faithfully, be God‘s desire for your life? I think it Can be.

Entrepreneurs have a unique opportunity to step into a purpose that is aligned with who God is and how God has made them. Just as pastors are taking the gifts God has given them and given those gifts back to others, entrepreneurs can take the creative problem-solving energy within them and pour that back out into society in a way that is beneficial to those who receive it and glorifying to the God who instilled it in them in the first place.

As an entrepreneur, you have felt the life-giving energy that comes through serving your customers, vendors, and investors. You get fired up when you find solutions to problems. You cannot wait to see the fruit of the work of your hands. Why? Because you are created in the image of a creative, entrepreneurial God. God created humans in his image. And in his image, we can see a God

who worked six days and created something out of nothing. That’s who we are.

That’s what an entrepreneur does!

When you solve problems from scratch, that is an opportunity to commune with the living God who has helped people solve problems from the beginning of time. When you provide a new idea, a new resource, a new training, or a new product, that is a chance to bear witness to a God who is the ultimate provider.

When you pray, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, end” God is answering that prayer with a resounding yes, and he is running toward you, eagerly inviting you to come under his power and his protection to join him in doing the work to make that happen. Leave your feelings of inadequacy at the door. You were made for this. God has something incredible in store for the faith driven entrepreneur.

If we want to learn what it means to be a Faith Driven entrepreneur, the first place we can look to is the garden. Because you, entrepreneur – whether you’re calling yourself that yet or not – or a gardener. But you’re not the first. God is the original entrepreneur. We can see that from the very beginning he has created us to share in his entrepreneurial process: (Genesis 2:15).

God invited Adam into the work of Caring For and cultivating the garden right away. He did not just sit Adam down in Eden and tell him to enjoy himself. Adam had roles and responsibilities.

So often, we think of work as a curse -as something God made us do after we got kicked out of the garden. But what if work is actually a part of bearing his image? What if work is an invitation to create and build alongside the ultimate entrepreneur? What if work is something God gave us as a vehicle through which we can enjoy his presence?

The garden of Eden and all the plants and animals in it were shared between God and man. That’s the perfect vision of entrepreneurship Dash that we can be united in purpose, passion, and pursuit with God. God wants to work with us. He wants to create with us. He wants to start, share, and complete new projects

and ideas with us. He does not ask us to work in isolation.

God uses us to bring about his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Our creations and Services can bring order out of chaos, solve problems, rally against injustice, and create dignity an opportunity for those who interact with our creations. These truths should empower us. It should give us the ability to move forward confidently as we create and lead our businesses, as we propose

solutions to societal problems, and as we step out in faith into the

entrepreneurial venture God has drawn us to.

As an entrepreneur you want to break out of whatever societal box makes you feel trapped, and you want to move and shake and do and work and make something. That’s the entrepreneurial dream. And since you’re part of this training about being a Faith Driven entrepreneur, my guess is you are serious about your Christian faith as well. Entrepreneurial ship provides a place where

you get to commune with God through the creative processes. It provides a way through which we can love God and love others. And so my hope is that as you study through this training in the next seven weeks – these marks of a Faith Driven entrepreneur Dash you will feel empowered to do what you’re doing and to do it well.

Entrepreneurship is a legitimate pursuit that, when done well, brings honor and glory to our entrepreneurial God. You can speak confidently about what you do, because God is in you and with you.

Chapter 3 identity in Christ faith driven entrepreneurs live lives that have been transformed by the gospel of Christ. They have excepted the free gift of salvation and now view bringing God glory as their greatest and highest purpose. You might read that and think that’s obvious. Or maybe you think there’s a little extreme. Maybe you can tolerate the idea of God, but making his

glory the core of your life‘s purpose and identity? That sounds crazy. I actually think that is the only way to live. We’ve all lived in acted like this wasn’t true, right? We have lived where our identity was in who we are, what we have done, how much we have accomplished. That does not work. The ultimate satisfaction

you’re looking for in your business, your creation, your ideas, your profits – your whatever Dash it’s simply not there

Our identity is not in our ability to attract investors. It is not in our ability to create a great business. We want those things Dash of course! – But they are not at the core of who we are as a person.

Why? Because we know who we are in God‘s eyes. We know that when God looks at us, he sees his sons and daughters. We know that our brokenness was made hall in Christ’s perfection. We have seen both the valleys and the mountain tops in our businesses. And both are empty when we try to leave God out of the

picture.

We get to experience both success and failure in their fullest forms Dash the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. But we don’t have to experience them alone. And we don’t have to depend on our circumstances to define our personhood.

When we understand that our deepest identity is in gods beloved children, we get to accept the gift of life given to us by Jesus. Life then becomes more about being and less about doing Dash more about who we are in relationship to God and less about what we think we can do on our own. When this reality sinks in, our gratitude for this amazing blessing fuels us to bring all that we are and all that we have to the altar of God as our meaningful act of worship. Romans 12 verses one and two. A relationship with God offers you a way to break out of the vicious, self-serving cycle of independence and isolation that threatens to capture so many entrepreneurs today. Instead he offers you a chance to put your identity in something outside of yourself and to live for another’s glory.

If you want to live the life of a Faith Driven entrepreneur, you can start by asking yourself a simple question: what is most important? This question, in fact, comes from the mouth of someone else – someone who had a chance to ask Jesus this very thing: Mark 12:28 through 31.

Which is the most important? It’s such a great question. It is something we all want to know, right? What’s the most important thing? When it comes to our work in our life, Jesus makes it simple: love God and love others.

As faith driven entrepreneurs, we build our businesses, our lives, and our identities with these two commandments as our foundation. This does not mean that we have to pass out tracks in the office or engrave Bible verses or edgy fish symbols on all our products. But it does mean that our heart posture is aligned

with who God says we are and what he wants from us and for us, and our daily decisions flow from that reality.

It also means that it should be impossible for someone to spend any meaningful time with us and not know that our Christian faith is what guides and drives us. It’s our faith that demands we do us everything we do Dash heart, soul, mind, and strength Dash with love for God and love for others at the forefront.

This is what it looks like when your identity is in Christ: it means that every product, every aspect of the job, every relationship with partners, employees, suppliers, and customers works toward bringing about God‘s redemptive story.

You can choose that path.

Yet we are still here. So, we have to ask ourselves, how am I going to live in the extra time that God has given me? My going to build up stories for myself while also trying to build myself up? Or am I going to realize that it is not about me at all?

We can strive and cling and grab and game and control all day long. However, there is no freedom in that form of ownership. The only way to experience life as an entrepreneur in the way God designed it is to place our entire identity and him interview ourselves as steward of whatever he has put in our hands. New

chapter stewardship versus ownership

When you get a strong impression over and over again, and it lines up with scripture and has something to do with serving and loving other people, it is probably the Holy Spirit.

Generosity is a beautiful word, isn’t it? It rolls off the tongue and conjures up images of joyful, extravagant giving and receiving. Stewardship, sounds heavier and more serious to many people – like obligation and strict limits on spending.

Why? Because Christians in many other groups have historically described stewardship in those narrow terms. However, biblical stewardship is a beautiful thing because it is an amazing privilege that God has given to us.

We are all gods Stewart. And stewardship is a key part of why generosity is so generous. True generosity flows out of an understanding that God owns everything, and I mean everything. We are working with gods goods. We are the cooks in his kitchen. That’s the honest, humbling truth. Even, and perhaps especially, if you started your own business, you are created out of the ingredients God created first.

In God‘s economy, good stewardship is by nature generous and joyful. It directs his resources extravagantly toward his purposes and for his people to deeply enjoy. If we want to understand generosity biblically, we need to see stewardship through new lenses. Les is a reluctant obligation and more as an exciting opportunity.

The Bible makes it clear that God owns everything Psalms 50:12 that no matter how much we may get back to him financially, the rest belongs to him too. Even though we have been taught that truth and intellectually excepted, most of us do not live as that we believe it is true. Instead, we act as owners, like things belong to us. This way of living seems to put control and power in our hands.

That is simply our pride talking. Stewards understand that anything in their hands has been put there by God and his to be used for his glory. Stewardship isn’t just a spiritual exercise or a test of obedience. There is a bigger purpose behind it.

It is one thing to believe everything we have and everything we are belong to God. It is another for the truth to sink down into our hearts where we feel it and grasp it. And when it really sinks down, all the way in to our gut word shapes everything we think and feel and do, our lives are transformed.

We shift from simply having theoretical knowledge to experiencing the genius of generosity. We move from duty to delight; from the rules we keep to an adventure we share. We wake up in the morning wondering what we are going to do with gods time and how we are going to spend his money. We think about how we are going to relate to those that he has entrusted to us or the friends he has placed in our lives.

When we turn ownership over to God, we are freed from the pressures of performance and we experience joy from working alongside God. What could be better than that?

The deeper issue is trust, a relational issue. Stuart must be found trust worthy. God has entrusted to us everything we have for a reason, so we can partner with him to accomplish his purposes and so we can demonstrate where our true priorities lie.

Jesus tells us in Luke 16 that if we are faithful in small things Dash handling money, for example – we will be entrusted with greater things. But if we are not trustworthy in small things, then we will not be trust worthy with greater things. How we handle our money, our talents, our businesses, our relationships, and so on determines, to a large degree, what God blesses us with spiritually and

eternally. Learning to give wisely into Stewart our worldly wealth is foundational.

It is like the ABC’s of faithfulness, a first step. If we do not get that down, we do not move on very far. But if we do, we step into whole new areas of blessings and opportunities. We get true riches, the kind that allow us to play a role in transforming other lives and impacting souls. We receive eternal treasures.

There is a better, smarter way to live, an idea so simple, it’s genius. It is a generous life of stewardship. Faithful stewards are mindful of the one they represent. Not only are they good managers of their masters money and resources, they know who their master is. Good stewards learn how to direct their masters resources entrusted to them. To be that kind of steward; insightful managers growing in an understanding of gods generosity and learning to be

generous like him; we need to ask three questions regularly Dash number one am I using everything entrusted to me in accordance with the owners wishes?

When you look at everything, your checking account, bank statements, investments, and everything else in your financial profile, do you see a clear direction towards fulfilling gods purposes and his agenda? Or do you see them focused on fulfilling your own agenda?

When you look at how you approach your customers, your employees, your vendors, your spouse, your family, are you treating them as objects under your control or as people under gods umbrella of grace and love? God has a plan and purpose for every man, woman, and child. We can see some clear things all

throughout Scripture that tells us this. If your energy is going toward reaching lost people, it is going toward his purposes.

A second key purpose is building up the body of Christ. God wants every believer to grow through spiritual maturity and to fulfill their purpose in him. When we work towards that end, we are using his resources for his purposes.

Third God is passionate about hurting, desperate people. He is compassionate towards those in need. If we put our resources into the acts of compassion and justice for those who have deep physical, emotional, and spiritual needs, are giving is aligned with his purpose. We can know we are being trustworthy in fulfilling gods wishes when we are pouring his resources towards these things.

Number two am I carefully keeping an account of where the owners goods are going?

We’re just as accountable for how we spend the remaining 90% or the remaining 50% as we are forgiving him the first and best to start with. This applies not only to money but to our time and talent as well. We have to keep track of where everything is being spent. Think of it like a budget. It is impossible to be a good steward of someone else’s money if we have not determined where it will go and tracked it along the way.

We need to understand the business God has given us, the people God has put under us, and the customers he has brought to us to serve and view all of these things as budget items for which we are accountable. Where are you spending most of your time and energy? Where are you spending most of your money? Who do these affects and expenditures benefit? These are hard questions to ask, however, they will at least get you started down a path of understanding whether you truly view yourself as an owner or a steward, and they will guide you closer to becoming the latter.

Number three am I becoming best friends with the owner or managing his resources?

Though a lot of faithful stewardship involves sacrifice, do not let that overshadow the joy of fulfilling our fathers wishes and celebrating our fruitfulness with him. We are becoming faithful steward because we want to, not simply because we have a duty or we want God to love us more. He will never love us more than he loves us right now.

Generous giving and faithful stewardship create an opportunity for us to enjoy God‘s blessings and delights. That is part of the genius of generosity: deep ends our relationship with him.

Psalms 24:1, and he loves it when we celebrate with him; guilt free. Stewardship is not about depriving ourselves. It is enjoying God‘s generosity for yourself and then sharing it with others. It is living under the gaze of an infinite being who loves you and says, quotation mark first and foremost, give it and spend it in a

way that is pleasing to me and that acknowledges Ione at all. Manage it well.

Then, let us celebrate. Let us rejoice. I am your father. I love you. Every good and perfect gift comes from my hand to bless and encourage you. Let me delight over you and your faithfulness.“

That is what stewardship is a bell. Your life will be drastically transformed when you realize, deep down, that everything belongs to God and he trusts you to use it well.

Wake up every day asking, Lord, what do you want me to do with this time, talent, and treasure you have given me? What would make you happiest and give me the most bang for my buck spiritually? What can I do to become better friends with you through this process, to get to the place where we can have

extravagant lunches and celebrate your goodness, and where I can feel your pressure pleasure over me?

Thanking like a faithful and generous steward will produce great joy and fruitfulness in your life. Enjoy God‘s generosity to you, then share it with others so you can all enjoy him together.