Are You Limiting God in Your Business / Career? by Dave Kahle

Mark Virkler's picture

This must be one of the saddest of all situations; You have a business or a career for which God has great plans, but those plans are never realized because you limited God’s involvement in them.  You end your career with just a fraction of the impact you could have had.  I believe that situation is the rule, not the exception for most Christians in the marketplace.  If we could change that, we could change the world in one generation. While God has great plans for our careers and our businesses, we all too often limit his intervention in our lives by the things that we do. 


While there are lots of ways that we can limit God’s involvement with us, here are three of the most common.

Ignorance.

           In this scenario, we just don’t know how intensely God is interested in our business and our marketplace lives.  We are ignorant of it because we’ve never really looked into it.  Our attention has been directed elsewhere.  Typically, that is either the institutional church system or the worldly success culture.

           The institutional church system (that is my term for the conglomerate of church buildings, pastors, workshop services, denominations, seminars, etc. that make up one of the largest industries in the world) promotes itself, and thereby denigrates other areas of Christian growth.  For example, you may be encouraged to attend every function of the institutional church and find yourself busy several days and nights a week.  Since this is promoted as the example of a ‘good’ Christian, everything else is therefore, ‘non-good.”  So, you can be very involved in the institutional church system, and not have time to even consider that your career may be a ministry of its own.

           In the introduction to The Good Book on Business. I observed that the reason why no one has discovered how big a role business plays in the Bible narrative is because no one looked for it. It had been there all along, but no one found it because no one was looking for it.  We were content to believe the pronunciations of the Institutional church system that advocates for involvement in their programs as a way to get closer to God.

           The other common reason for our ignorance of the role that God wants to play in our careers and businesses is our overreliance on the world’s success culture.  There is a huge industry that promotes worldly success.  Books, seminars, training programs webinars, blog posts, podcasts, etc. promote success by various strategies and tactics.

           If we chose to, we could immerse ourselves in that culture and mindset to such a degree that there is no room in our psyche for anything else. We never realize that God wants to be a part of our careers and business because we are too busy pursuing worldly success. We, therefore, remain ignorant of his desires for our careers and our businesses.

Inertia

It may be that we have, intellectually, an understanding of our careers and businesses as ministries.  We’ve read people like me who have presented that message.  We’ve rubbed solders with other Christian businesspeople and absorbed some of their commitment to Christ in the marketplace.

           But we haven’t translated those ideas into action.  We just haven’t yet asked if we could pray for a troubled colleague.  We haven’t yet given verbal credit to God for our successes.  We haven’t yet acknowledged the opportunities and gifts He has given us.

           We know that there are routines and disciplines in the life of a Christian, and there are routines and actions that invite God into our lives.  But we don’t take the necessary steps to implement them.

           So, our inertia holds us back. We understand that God wants to be a part of our lives and business, but our inertia prevents us from acting.

Comfort

           Some of us have achieved a degree of success in our professions/businesses.  We’re comfortable.  We have become afraid to jeopardize that comfortable condition by doing something different. We don’t want to start a meeting with a prayer, for example, but that would be uncomfortable.  We don’t want to ask a colleague if we can pray for him/her, because that would be uncomfortable.  We don’t acknowledge our Christian commitment when an opportunity presents itself, because that would be uncomfortable. We don’t want to ask the Holy Spirit to influence our plans and open opportunities for us, because we’re afraid of what might happen.

           Our attachment to our comfortable lives prevents God from entering into our careers and business in a bigger way.

           If we could eliminate these three obstacles, we could change the world in a generation, create powerful businesses and live a more fulfilled and purposeful life.


Free Video Event: July 15-23, 2025
  Take Charge of Your Health
Register now

Bonus Live Zoom Session: Register Here

CLU Course of the Month:
HEA102 Take Charge of Your Health

Request 40% tuition discount until July 31st when ordering here.

Add any second course for 40% tuition discount

What if you already own the “Course of the Month”?

Order ANY COMBO of two courses for 40% tuition discount on each!

Payment plans are available and start dates are flexible.

Master the Bible and Spirit-filled living.
What are you waiting for? Enroll in CLU today.


Share keys to vibrant living by sharing this blog with your friends on social media!


 

Add new comment

Add new comment

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

Results

Results 481 - 487 of 487

Pages

Give a "Thank You" Gift to Mark and Patti Virkler: One-Time Donation

If you or your friends or family have been blessed by Mark and Patti's ministry, this is an opportunity to say "thank you" by blessing them with a financial gift. 

Checks can be made out to Communion With God Ministries with a notation that they are a gift for Mark & Patti Virkler, 11918 Lazio Ln., Orlando, FL. 32827. For electronic giving, adjust your contribution by typing any amount into the white box below.

Hear God Through Your Dreams PowerPoint Download

by Mark Virkler

If you are teaching the course Hear God Through Your Dreams, then these 18 PowerPoint slides will make your classroom presentation powerful and attractive. 

 

Price: $9.95
Naturally Supernatural PowerPoint Download

Naturally Supernatural PowerPoint Download

by Mark Virkler | 178 Slides

Revised & Expanded 30th Anniversary Edition. If you are teaching the course Naturally Supernatural, then these 178 PowerPoint slides will make your classroom presentation powerful and attractive. If you are going to use the DVDs to teach this course, then the PowerPoint is already interwoven into the DVDs.

Price: $24.95
Overflow of the Spirit Teacher's Guide

Overflow of the Spirit Teacher's Guide PDF eBook

40 Pages | by Mark Virkler and Charity Kayembe

This 40-page Teacher's Guide makes it easy for you to teach the principles of the book Overflow of the Spirit. This is complemented with other Overflow of the Spirit resources: LEARN workbook, PowerPoint, textbook. If you choose to have Mark and Charity be the teachers and you function as the coach, then you may add in the video training. Descriptions of each product follow.

Price: $14.95

Rivers of Grace PowerPoint Download

185 slides

If you are teaching the course Rivers of Grace, these 185 PowerPoint slides will make your classroom presentation powerful and attractive. You will want each of your students to have a copy of the LEARN notebook, and each family should have a copy of the full textbook

Price: $24.95
Through the Bible Handbook of Answers eBook

Through the Bible Handbook of Answers eBook

by Mark and Patti Virkler | 246 Pages

This book provides suggested partial answers for the discussion questions in the Through the Bible text. This can be used by a student to compare his answers to ours, or by a teacher who is grading the student's workbook.

Price: $24.95
Through the Bible Teacher's Guide eBook

Through the Bible Teacher's Guide eBook

by Mark and Patti Virkler | 248 Pages

Make Bible survey relevant, enjoyable and life-changing by allowing God to speak directly to each student each week. This book provides a host of suggestions for the teacher so that class time can be a fun, interactive application of the portion of Scripture that the student has worked through during the previous week.

Price: $17.95

Pages