There’s more to faithful-preneurship than making money.

You are a steward of something bigger than yourself and your own ego.

A steward understands that they are someone who has been entrusted with another’s wealth and charged with the responsibility of managing it in the owner’s best interest.

I love what Randy Alcorn says in his excellent book, Money, Possessions & Eternity, “Stewardship isn’t a subcategory of the Christian life. Stewardship IS the Christian life.”

All of our life, talents, gifts, possessions, and property, right down to the very body we walk in, belongs to Another:

“What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19 KJV)

Yet how often do we look upon our tiny kingdoms as if we were the ones with final jurisdiction over them? Or that it is by our own strength and wisdom that they have been blessed and built.

I don’t believe that Isaac thought this, however. The tests and trials along the way had taught him one lesson well, dependence on God is not optional!

Knowing God, and following Him is the one essential for every entrepreneur who wants to please His Master. In marketplace ministry, there can be great pressure to capitulate to the crowd and follow the trends – running down to Egypt at every opportunity.

Our stewardship demands otherwise. Ultimately, it is not men we are seeking to please, it’s the Master of our soul and destiny, Jesus Christ. In life, in business, He is the only one worthy of our devoted service, and all that He places in our hands is His to do with as He pleases.

While the world plays the celebrity card, we walk a different path.

“Now am I trying to win the favor of men, or of God? Do I seek to please men? If I were still seeking popularity with men, I should not be a bondservant of Christ (the Messiah).” (Galatians 1:10 AMP)

God of course does give authority to His stewards, and richly rewards them, but does so on the premise that their attachment is to Him, not to the things He entrusts them with:

“Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17 KJV)

It is interesting to me that Isaac did not stay and root down in Reheboth.

Reheboth means “a broad and wide place or market”.

Is not that the goal? A broad, lucrative market? A golden goose niche wide enough to build our empire?

Instead,

“Isaac went up from thence to Beersheba.” (Genesis 26:23 KJV)

Isaac knew that prosperity alone is not the final destination.

My friend Ray Edwards talks about prosperity with purpose. Isaac headed up, to a higher place of purpose and perspective. Not caught in endless accumulation and building bigger barns, He sought something the world couldn’t offer.

Beersheba is known as the “well of seven” or “the well of the oath”.

To me, as I sat with the Holy Ghost pondering this chapter, I remembered that seven often denotes perfection throughout the Scriptures, and an oath speaks of covenant agreement.

Here at the Beersheba well, our prosperity aligns perfectly with God’s covenant purpose for our lives. Life and work dovetail into 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 Master’s leading.

It is the place of alignment.

A well so full and overflowing, springing up with us, teeming with the lively nature of the One who lives within us.

Our business and creative output become an outshining of His indwelling.

No more striving and fighting to be heard, because you have stepped into the rest of faith. You have ceased from your own works and entered into His.

You know that you are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:10 KJV), and the works He has shaped you for fit like a glove.

No contention, no friction, no argument or comparisons remain.

You know your stewardly duty, “to establish His covenant” wherever you go.

To be His hands and feet.

To lend your lips to speak His words.