Friday, March 19, 2010

Day 19: Child Development Center (Proverbs 22:6)

• God's direction and guidance
• Staff and their families
• Increase in enrollment

We each have things that are difficult for us to trust God in. We are not perfect in our faith and dependence on God. I like to share with you a current testimony of how God is working on one of my weak areas. Now I struggle in many areas but God has really been dealing with me in my business lately. In particular with the compromise that I have been making with myself every Sunday since I was saved 4 years ago. Sunday, the Sabbath is a working day for people who sell real estate- which is what I do for a living. The Holy Spirit has been stirring inside of me about trusting God and obeying the Sabbath and not letting the world dictate this as a working day for me. To be fair other Christians have shared with me over the years that the New Testament allows us to have a day different from Sunday to honor God and obey as the Sabbath but I don’t think that is what God has in store for me. My business is real estate and people expect me to be available on Sundays for appointments, showings and open houses. Many Sundays I would find myself going to church and during worship starting to wonder away from God and start thinking about my appointments. After much prayer and confession God laid on my heart through scripture the story of Joshua and Achan. To summarize Joshua chapter 6 and 7 it boils down to how the sin of one man affected the entire nation of Israel. Achan had sinned and it says in Joshua 7:1 that “the Lord’s anger burned against Israel.” What became clear to me was God wants to bless me but when I continually and deliberately disobey one of His commandments His anger will be directed towards me and the people that I lead. I also believe that God wants to bless me and my team so that we may glorify God and show others in our industry that we can honor and obey God and have a successful business.

Faith with action – So last November I came to my normal Monday team meeting and for the first time read scripture and shared what God had lain on my heart. I told each of them that from that day forward we will not be working on real estate on Sunday and I was so convicted about it that if anyone worked it was grounds to be fired. I had to clarify this for the team because in Joshua they stoned and burned Achan and I could tell they were a little nervous (that firing doesn’t sound so bad now).

God steps in to encourage me immediately- my team sat there stunned but each of them smiled and said that they loved the idea and they were in full support of me and more importantly of God’s commandment. Since that Monday in November I have been tracking my business and it has grown year over year and month over month and we are doing more business in less time. More business allows me to glorify God to other members of my industry and to provide more financial resources to His kingdom.

By honoring God and giving Him what was already His he has blessed me, my team, their families and our clients. I am reminded in Matthew 6:33 of God’s promise – “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

~Chris Dyer