God's healing for businesses
From a book by David Shadbolt
"Some years ago, a businessman took some time out from his business to seek God. He was determined not to leave this place of prayer until the Lord said something about why his business was not moving forward. As he stilled his heart over the course of those days, into his mind kept coming a picture. It wasn't at all what he was expecting - the picture was of Jesus praying for the business.
"The thought had never occurred to him that Jesus would be praying for a business. Church, yes, Ministry, yes. A person, yes. A people group, yes. But a business?
"As he waited, there came a growing sense of what Jesus was actually saying in his prayers. It was not about more profit, better clients, skilled staff or a cash injection. Jesus was asking the Father to bring healing to his business."
So starts God's Healing for Businesses - a short 60 page book, published by New Wine, authored by David Shadbolt who is a business advisor focusing primarily on spiritual issues affecting businesses.
As well as practical things we need to understand in business e.g. team building, cash flow, budgetting, staffing, marketing, etc., there are also spiritual things we need to be aware of to bring His Kingdom into our business activities. This goes beyond, character, ethics. etc.. It means seeing things through spiritual eyes and hearing things through spiritual ears.
Let's take one of the sections of the book - Healing a business from sinful attitudes. Sin attacks the peace of a business. David gives some examples of this through stories of business people and then helpfully lists some of the ways of thinking and behaving that may indicate an underlying heart attitude that the Holy Spirit would like to speak to us about. Here is a summary list:
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Do you respect your customers? God loves them. Are you just using them to achieve your goals?
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Do you believe in and facilitate every member of staff to achieve their potential?
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Are you doing everything possible to reduce your debt burden? Are you putting trust in bank loans and credit?
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Do you exaggerate or make any knowingly false claims in your company media?
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Do routine business demands encourage or lead to the break up of relationships and families? Frequent long hours, breakfast or after work meetings?
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Are you willing to shut the business, sell it or hand it over if you don't believe it this is your destiny? Are you in the wrong place?
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Has your company lost the human touch? Too busy with goals and deadlines?
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Does your company encourage customers to borrow beyond their ability to repay?
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Are you wasting money that you have borrowed or had invested in the company?
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How are things at home?
Two other sections of the book deal with spiritual sickness which attacks the effectiveness of a business and impacts of curses which will stagnate a business, each with examples through stories of business people.
David hopes that at the very least, you will be inspired to pray more for the business you are involved in and also it will encourage others to pray for businesses and business people too.
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From a book by David Shadbolt, 21/11/2018