Throughout my time in high school and college, I started four businesses. I learned a lot and made some money: It was great. In the eyes of the world, I was successful.
But along the way, I heard the gospel clearly for the first time, and I began to wrestle with my motivations. I was spending all of my time, effort and energy making my name great. I was investing all I had into identifying small problems and creating ultimately meaningless solutions. As I was studying Scripture, I began to understand that, in reality, we have an internal sin problem with a need for an eternal solution.
I was wrestling with my drive, my ambition, and my glory. I was trying to create products and services with the goal of making people’s lives more convenient and comfortable knowing that their eternity would be far from comfortable.
I began to serve in my church and get plugged into some parachurch ministries, and I started to see the eternal significance of gospel proclamation and long-term discipleship. Rather than making people’s lives more convenient, I was learning to make people’s eternity a priority.
I was learning how to make products and services more efficient—how to save someone five minutes, but I wrestled: What is the point if I cannot change their eternity? What is the point if they can heat up their food faster but they are still headed for experiencing the wrath of God for eternity?
My heart was being transformed by the renewal of my mind; I was studying Scripture and it was making my desires more like Christ’s. From Genesis to Revelation, there is a redemptive story of God making his name known, God building his kingdom, and God saving his people from eternal separation from him. Ultimately, God is glorified.
So, my question became, how could I continue doing entrepreneurship in a way that invests in his kingdom rather than my own. What is a way that I can use my skills and abilities to bring the Lord glory?
Over time, I began to see entrepreneurship more as a tool to build relationships, to meet people, and to help address their needs, while pointing them toward a greater need. As an entrepreneur, you’re interviewing people; you’re getting to know the target market; you’re getting to understand your audience and their needs. You want to understand their desires and values, their hopes and goals, their challenges and hardships, and their irritations and inconveniences as deeply as you can. You interview people to get to know them and then you try and help through a product or service.
I wanted to interview people to get to know them so I could try and help through the gospel. As I would interview people to gain a better understanding of their problems, my goal was not simply to sell them on a new product or service that I was developing. My goal was now to help them understand a deeper problem that they had, sin, as well as the greatest solution available, Christ.
As Christians, as believers, as disciples of Christ, we are not just trying to make people’s lives more convenient. We’re trying to wrestle for their eternity; we are trying to persuade their souls.
Paul reminds us we are obligated to fight for the obedience of faith, to plead with non-believers.
The greatest problem on earth is sin and its consequences, death—eternal separation from God.
The greatest solution is Christ. Through repentance of sins and faith in his resurrection from the dead, someone has the opportunity to believe that Christ is both Lord and Savior “and to be restored to a right standing before God.
Entrepreneurship allows for unique relationships with people. The founder has a unique opportunity to share the gospel with their team while leading by example. The entrepreneurial context allows for a unique kind of mentoring and discipling that bridges the gap between work and religion. It allows for the gospel to be shared, it allows for disciples to be made, it allows for churches to be planted, and it allows for leaders to be trained.
Are you interested in entrepreneurship to make an extra buck, so that you can be your own boss? Believer, are you investing in your own kingdom or in the kingdom of God? Are you making his name great or your own? Entrepreneurship is an awesome tool for kingdom impact, but it is also a huge temptation. Pursue accountability with a group of believers in your local church. We want to fight against egotistic, prideful, selfish desires, and we want to honor the Lord in our faithfulness.
The question becomes, are we laboring for our glory or the glory of God?
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