Slay Fear and Be Bold In Business [4 Biblical Steps]
Updated: Oct 9, 2021
What would happen if you set the alarm on your phone every morning before your business day starts, and you take a few moments and say
“God, make me bold in my business today. May I have the faith to believe that no matter my financial circumstances or people issues, you will show up and do what only you can do? Make me bold in business. Give me unshakable spiritual convictions in decision making; that have the courage and the faith to obey you no matter what the personal cost. God, even though it might be painful, make me bold in business”.
I'm encouraging you today to step out and be bold enough to follow the leadership of God in your business. It never ceases to amaze me what God enables an entrepreneur to do if they will just step out.
Here's a question: How amazed are people by your boldness in business? When your employees or clients look at you, would they say: “Oh, undoubtedly, beyond a shadow of a doubt, you are a disciple and follower of Jesus." Or would they say, "You're Christian? Really?”
There are innumerable ways the Holy Spirit prompts you to be bold in your business.
VENDOR CONVERSATION: You may just be in a conversation with a vendor, and suddenly you feel the urge to ask him or her: “Do you mind if I pray for you?” Mind you, you are NEVER comfortable with praying out loud, but next thing you know, you’re calling heaven down and believing by faith that the power of God will touch this hurting person right in front of you.
EMPLOYEE MEETING: You might be in an employee meeting, and someone says something inappropriate, and you very lovingly and appropriately say, “Let's not do that. We can be better than that."
CLIENT CATCH-UP: You might be bold when a client starts gossiping against a competitor, trash-talking, and you don't participate or even be as bold as to say, “come on, let’s be better people than that."
ANOTHER GODPRENEUR: You might see an entrepreneur friend on social media (not necessarily Christian) that is just hurting, and you write them and say, “Hey, I am going to bring you to church this week. I´m not just inviting. I’m bringing."
There are so many different ways that God might manifest himself along your entrepreneurial journey through the power of the Holy Spirit. However, it takes 4 key elements that I believe if we entrepreneurs all put into practice, we could slay fear, be bold in business, and be the leader God wants us to be in our respective marketplaces.
IT TAKES BOLD FAITH
It takes bold faith to be a Jesus person these days in the marketplace, but I want to encourage you to be known in your circle of influence - with your clients and in your industry - that you’re with Jesus. They need to know entrepreneurs like you who love Jesus and put God first in their business.
Bold faith in business is a faith that says on a daily basis, "I want to do my best to make choices in my company that honor Jesus of Nazareth. I´m for him, and I would encourage you to be for him. He's made my business better. Jesus doesn’t diminish my brand. He expands my quality of life as an entrepreneur. He expands the contentment I feel in life when I do business."
IT TAKES BOLD COURAGE
God wants us to be wildly successful business owners. He wants us Godpreneurs to be courageous and bold in whatever we face in business. He has made promises to make it possible for us to face anything and everything and still be standing when the battle is over!
Some of you are at a certain point in your business where you're facing something new. Maybe something in your company has come to a close, and now you’re facing something new - a new industry to go after, a new niche to pursue, a pivot in a new direction. Fear always comes against us entrepreneurs when we face new things. You’re not the only one. Every time you try to make any kind of progress, you can be assured that satan will try to frighten you. That’s the way the enemy keeps people from going forward into the unknown where God is calling us to.
Bold courage along your entrepreneurial journey often triggers spiritual opposition. There is spiritual opposition, and the bottom line is this: if you are not ready to face opposition for your obedience to what God is calling you to do in business, you’re not ready to be used by God.
Entrepreneurial courage is not the absence of fear. Fear is a God-given emotion. Courage is actually forward motion in the presence of fear. You're a courageous business owner when you´re not afraid to step into the unknown.
By the way, you’re not a coward because you feel fear. However, we´re cowardly when we let fear control us rather than continuing to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit. God will lead us through fear and into his perfect will for our entrepreneurial life.
If you ever really want to run a God-first business led by the Holy Spirit, you have to understand that God never calls people that are "qualified" or who feel "ready" to do what they’re being asked to do; that’s why it takes faith to do it. Faith in entrepreneurship means that you step out based on what’s in your heart, not based on what’s in your circumstances.
In difficult times in business or uncertain times in the marketplace, we don’t look around us. Instead, we look up! Up is where we get courage and strength. Looking up means we’re willing to trust God, be fearless, and be bold no matter what God requires of us.
IT TAKES BOLD OBEDIENCE
Instead of being afraid of new things, Kingdom-minded business owners should be excited about new things. Honestly, if you would just have the courage to follow God's calling for your business life, you would have an outrageously extraordinary entrepreneurial career!
Your employees might not like where God is calling you to take your business. Your partners might disapprove of the new direction. You might not get a lot of encouragement from clients and handclaps on social media when you begin down the road God wants you on. Ignore the peanut gallery and stay boldly excited about the vision - God will prove himself to you!
Myself included, I regularly come to places in my business that I haven't been, I haven't done that, I have no experience with that, and so I have a tendency to want to start backing off from it and just stay in my little boat of safety.
But I've learned that boldness often releases God's miracles in our businesses. In other words, when you run your entrepreneurial race with bold faith, you´ll often see the hand of God move miraculously in and around your ventures. You won’t be surprised by the miracles of God when you’re operating in obedience to God.
Bold entrepreneurial obedience often triggers the faithfulness and miraculous power of God in our businesses. He wants us to be bold, courageous, strong, and not afraid to try offering new services and products, pivot into new industries, and launch into new marketplaces.
I think many of the reasons why some business owners don't step out and try new things is they already think before they even try about all the things that might happen if they fail. I think that if you understand how much God loves you and is for your success, then you can operate without that fear of failure. That’ll immediately set you free to try things, take more risks, and stand up for more things you're passionate about.
If you do the best you can when you step out into a new direction in your business, then God will promote you over time. Often we look at the way we think it needs to be in its perfection, and if we can't do that yet, then we won’t even step out and do anything. I can tell you when I first gave my entrepreneurial walk to the Lord, it was pitiful, but I was following God's calling for me.
IT TAKES BOLD FOLLOWING
It's not that you need to be bolder, have more faith, or stop being critical or hard on yourself. Boldness in business comes from a passion for Jesus that, when following Him, everything is influenced in a positive direction.
In Joshua:1, we see that when God sent Joshua to take Moses’s place in guiding the Israelites across the wilderness into the Promised Land, he said, “There’s only one thing that you have to do, fear not and be bold.” God can’t work through fearful entrepreneurs; he works through faith-filled Godpreneurs.
Fear in business opens the front door to the enemy and lets him right into the office. On the other hand, faith opens the flood gates for God to work in and through our business ventures. Fear comes out of your flesh - out of your financial, strategic, or personal circumstances - out of what you think and feel.
However, faith comes out of your heart. God wants us Godpreneurs to follow our hearts. You have to keep your heart safe and free, and if you’re not following the leadership of God for you, then your heart is not going to be free. It’s going to be burdened.
I think even if you step out to launch something you believe is God's calling, and you don’t make it all the way, God likes that spirit of aggression and that boldness that says, "I’m going to step out and launch it. I´m not going to live in fear."
A BOLD CONCLUSION
We have the choice to face the difficulties we face in business in one of two ways. We can
do it courageously or,
we can do it fearfully
God doesn't want his marketplace mavericks living fearfully. He says,
“I have not given you the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of sound mind." (2 Timothy 1:7)
God is ready to give you and your business the best. The question is: are you ready to trust him for it?
If you have the bold faith to stop letting other people make your decisions, the bold courage to step into the unknown, the bold obedience to launch into God's calling for you, and the boldness to publicly follow Jesus, you'll find God's destiny for your business and personal life. You’ll discover what’s going to fulfill you and what you’re meant to do and be, but you´ve got to be bold. You have to be bold enough in business to step out and find out.