As faithful stewards of the gifts God has given you, your business and creative output becomes an outshining of His indwelling.

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So let’s just clear something up here. There is more to faithfulpreneurship or entrepreneurship than making money. Now. You are actually a steward of something bigger than yourself and your own Empire or your own ego. There is something bigger at work, and part of our journey of discovery is discovering that there is a bigger purpose at work than just what we see in front of our eyes. And that when we are serving, when we are sewing, we are sowing to something bigger than ourselves. And as I say, our own Empire building, whatever that may look like. And that is because we are not owners but stewards. And a steward understands that they are someone who’s been entrusted with another’s wealth and charged with the responsibility of managing it in the owner’s best interest. Randy Alcorn, in his excellent book Money, Possessions, and Eternity, definitely encourage you to pick that one up and read. It says, this stewardship is not a subcategory of the Christian life. Stewardship is the Christian life. All of our life. Our talents, our gifts, possessions and property, right down to the very body we walk in, belongs to another one. Corinthians 6:19 says, what do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which you have of God, and that you are not your own?

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I mean, you can’t get any closer than that. You do not even have full ownership of your own body. You’ve been purchased with a price. Yet how often do we look upon their tiny kingdoms as if we were the ones with the final jurisdiction over them? Or that it’s by our own strength and wisdom that they’ve been built and that they’re blessed? I don’t believe that Isaac thought that way. However, the tests and the trials along the way had taught him one lesson really well. Dependence on God is not optional. Whether you are on the peak of the mountain or down in the bowels of the Valley, we need God and all the more so when we’re out in the marketplace, all the more so when we’re seeking to express our creative heart out in the world. Knowing God and following Him is the one essential for every entrepreneur who wants to please the Master. It’s no good running out there doing our own thing and then coming back and asking our Father or showing our Father, look at what I’ve done, look at what I’ve built. And he kind of looks at us and says, yeah, but I actually told you to go in this direction.

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I told you to build something entirely different. We really do not want to find ourselves in that embarrassing and somewhat terrifying position. We want to be those who come to the Master first and as stewards of his resources, say, Lord, what would you have me do? What direction would you have me go in? Marketplace Ministry, there’s so much pressure to capitulate to the crowd and follow the trends, running down to Egypt at every opportunity, being swayed and moved by every wind of this latest thing, this latest product, this latest trend. But let’s stay true to who we are, and let’s stay true to the things that God has spoken to us. Like we saw with Isaac right at the beginning of our series, he was in a land of famine, and everyone was streaming down to Egypt where there was better circumstances. But he stayed. And sowed in that land of famine and reaped 100 fold. Why did he reap? Because he sewed in a land of famine? No, not necessarily. Maybe God could have told him to go down to Egypt and so but he reaped because he obeyed the leading of the Holy Spirit.

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And we need to understand that, that sometimes God may direct us in a particular direction. He may cause us to kind of ride a wave in the marketplace. He will give us wisdom to know how to harness the times in which we live and prosper in them. But bless the Lord Jesus for all of his goodness. It’s going to be a result of our obedience to his leading, not because we were so clever or wise or understanding. And we need to understand that, as with Isaac, sometimes he will lead us into places that are less than comfortable and even allow us to go through certain seeming failures in order to develop character and sift out maybe some of the wrong motives in our heart, you know, as stewardship demands that we follow Him, not follow everyone else, and sometimes, many times, perhaps not follow our own desires. Ultimately, it’s not men that we are seeking to please. It’s the master of our soul and our destiny. Jesus Christ in life and in business, he is the only one ultimately worthy of our devoted service. And all that he places in our hand is his to do with as he pleases.

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While the world keeps playing the celebrity card, we want to walk a different path. In Galatians 1:10 in the Amplified says, now, am I trying to win the favour of men or of God? Do I seek to please men? If I was still seeking popularity with men, I should not be a bond servant of Christ the Messiah. Now there’s a challenging statement for you. If we are seeking popularity with men, we may find that we are not very popular where it really matters. God, of course, does give authority to his servants, and sometimes he will lift up and sometimes he will pull down. He does richly reward us, but he does so on the premise of our attachment to Him, not to the things that he entrusts us with. 1 Timothy 6:17 is a timely reminder. If you are seeing success in the things that you’re putting your hand to, particularly in a financial manner, he says, charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high minded nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God who gives us richly all things to enjoy. And it’s interesting to me that Isaac chose not to stay and route himself down in rehaboth.

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We spoke about this well called rehaboth, which means a wide open place or market. It means, literally a broad and wide place or market. Is that not for many of us, the goal? A broad, lucrative market, some golden goose niche wide enough to build our kingdoms and our empires. But instead we find Isaac went up from there to be a Sheba Genesis. We need to learn this lesson well, also that prosperity alone is not the final destination should the Lord be pleased to prosper us. It is a means to an end, not an end in itself. My good friend Ray Edwards talks about prosperity with purpose, and I think that that’s a powerful way to look at this subject. Isaac headed up to a higher place of purpose and perspective, not caught in endless accumulation and building bigger barns. He sought something that the world couldn’t offer him. Now, Beersheba, the actual name of that well that he went to next is known as the well of Seven, or the well of the Oath. And to me, as I was sat with the Holy Ghost pondering this chapter, I remember that seven often denotes perfection.

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Numbers have meaning in the scripture. In fact, everything has meaning in the scripture, and oftentimes seven is kind of coupled with this idea of perfection or completion. And of course, as the well of the Oath, an oath speaks of a Covenant agreement. And I really believe here at Beersheba, within the context of our discussion of faithful prayership, we see our prosperity aligning perfectly with God’s Covenant purpose for our lives, life and work dovetail into a purposeful stewardship where your gifts and personality flourish as you serve others in his name, and your prosperous rewards are distributed in obedience to the Masters leading. It really is a place of alignment. A well so full and overflowing springing up within us, teeming with the lively nature of the one who lives in us. Our business and our creative output become an outshining of his indwelling. There’s no more striving and fighting to be heard because we’ve stepped into what the Bible calls the rest of faith. We’ve ceased from our own works, and we’ve entered into his finished work as his workmanship were created for good works. Yeah, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which he has before ordained that we should walk in them.

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Ephesians 2:10. And those works that he shaped us for fit like a glove. They are comfortable. There’s no striving. There’s no trying to be or become someone we turn up as ourselves and allow him to have full reign over our life. Truly, we become stewards of this life out in the marketplace, in the Church in our family. In our parenting you name the realm we turn up and we are present 100% as God’s distributor a Minister. The Bible says of the spirit and you know your stewardly duty. Our stewardly duty, we’re told in Deuteronomy 8:18, is to establish his Covenant wherever we go to be his hands and his feet and to lend our lips to speak his words and to sing his songs. Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray God whatever challenges my brothers and sisters are facing today I pray God that like Isaac, you would help us to walk through every part of this journey and bring us, Lord, to our place of perfect alignment with your purposes where we can truly become stewards of the great gifts and the anointing and the love and the Grace and the goodness that you have planted within our hearts that we would fulfil those works that you have shaped us for in Jesus name.

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Amen.

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Thanks for listening to today’s episode. Hopefully it was a blessing to you. If it was do please consider leaving a rating and a review on whatever platform you are listening on. I also would love to encourage you to cheque out my new book Faithful creative. We’ve got a package of resources designed specifically to encourage you in your Christian creative call. You can cheque that out at faithfulcreativebook.com and if you choose to pick it up, use the promo code podcast for 50% off so you’ll get it for half price.

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Have a great rest of your day.

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Bye and God bless Jesus first. Everything else follows.