Overcoming Money Fears in Your Christian-owned Business
Updated: Apr 3, 2021
In the first years of starting my company, someone I had done business with approached me interested in investing. We agreed on a percentage, and he deposited $80,000 into my business bank account.
I did what I thought you do with investment money. I purchased computers, we moved into a new office on South Beach, and I hired some employees.
A year later, I was in trouble with the IRS because I wasn’t paying employee taxes. And…the $80,000 were gone, and so was that investor. All of his money was gone, and I had nothing to show for it.
Ever since then I’ve had a fear of borrowing money. I didn’t want to let anyone else down like that first experience. I also developed a fear of hiring employees since I didn’t want to experience problems with the IRS again. These fears have held me down for years, making me believe that I can do everything on my own.
We Godpreneurs all have some kinds of fears that we deal with. Most of us have fears we don’t even know about. I know that I’ve had this fear of financial management in me for over 10 years, and until I realized it, I was financially crippled.
What keeps us entrepreneurs from investing in our business lives? What is it that keeps us from moving into the financial freedom that we know God wants us to experience?
The answer is FEAR.
We see many kinds of fears in the Bible. The one that holds us Godpreneurs back, making us doubt ourselves. We’ve failed in the past, so we don’t try again.
But just because we failed in managing money correctly in our businesses (and in our personal lives) doesn’t mean we don’t try again. We shouldn’t give up because everybody fails – it’s the only way God gets our attention and moves us higher. It’s in the failure that we develop faith and commitment. God uses ordinary Godpreneurs who decide to keep going instead of giving up.
In Jesus’s parable of the talents in Matthew 25, we’re told a story of a master who left his servants a sum of money to watch over and invest. When he comes back, he asks what each did with the money. Here’s what the master said to the guy who had FEARED and didn’t do anything with the money:
“ So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. For whoever has will be give more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them." (Matthew 25:28-29 NIV)
This story isn’t so much a lesson on investing money as it is God telling us that FEAR will disappoint God, and God will just transfer money to someone else that doesn’t have fear, but instead trusts and has faith – someone who will manage the money the way God intended.
Maybe your bank account is close to zero. Maybe you live from client to client, not able to save up money or invest it in yourself and your growth. Could it be that there are FEARS you need to repent from, lay at the Cross, and let Jesus free you to be the best financial manager on the planet!?
Like me, you may have messed up and racked up credit card bills, not paid taxes, and nearly bankrupt. Your financial past may look terrible, but God doesn’t care about our past, He’s given us a chance and hope to get our money management right, tight, and in line with His Word. What matters NOW and TODAY is the direction our new money mindset is headed in.
I’ve put together courses and blogs with financial principles that God guarantees in the Bible. If you do them, God will bless you and your business. But they require you to face the enemy of FEAR and rebuke it in the name of Jesus. It requires faith to look FEAR straight in the eye and scare it away. Don’t be afraid to do things God’s way.
If we Godpreneurs let fear into our businesses, we’ve given the enemy a desk in our office. He will talk our ear off that every financial move we do is terrible and that we’ll fail. The enemy doesn’t want us to follow God’s rules for money management by making us afraid of failing again and instilling doubt in our ability to manage money and be a good steward.
If we’re going to be successful marketplace leaders, we must fight our fears and do the thing we know we’ve needed to do the most – get our money right.
Godpreneur Money Rule #3 – When we remove fear and move forward in faith and follow God’s way of managing money, we experience God’s blessings in our business, and He gives us more resources and responsibility.
The 19 Rules of Money Management for Christian Entrepreneurs
This course will help you develop a better sense of money management in God’s way.
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