This article was originally published here by Joy! Digital. Check out their website for other great media resources!

— Brett Johnson

Business involves faith, and even business leaders whose companies are doing well wonder whether their current business performance can be sustained. What if Scripture showed a possible way to avoid business downturns? The first 13 verses of Leviticus 26 hold the conditions and the promises of sustained business performance. Our challenge is that we read it and think it is Old Testament mambo jumbo, and therefore miss the truth. 

Modernising Scripture
The conditions don’t seem that onerous: No idols of any sort, observe the Sabbath, reverence the sanctuary, follow God’s decrees, and obey His commands. What does this look like if we put the instruction into 21st Century language?

• Idolatry for ancient Israel meant buying into the worldview and religious systems that were not from God. In business, this means basing our business practices on assumptions that are not Biblical.
• “Observe the Sabbath” means shutting down operations one day a week, not as a law, but as an act of faith, trusting that if you take special time for God, He will look after your work. Companies like Chic-fil-A have done it since inception.
• “Reverence the sanctuary” – the physical sanctuary has gone. We are now carriers of God’s presence as His Spirit lives in us. Have you made your workplace a sanctuary yet?
• Decrees – laws and Biblical principles for business. Know them, practice them.
• Commands – the things God speaks to you every day, the law of the Spirit written on your heart, the sayings of God that come from daily relationship with Him.

Take God at His word
The promised outcome of following God in these ways is amazing. “I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit. Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land. You will still be eating last year’s harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new.” – Leviticus 26:4-5 

Your business will grow!
Opposition is normal when you first decide to align your business with God. Business growth is normal when our business is fully aligned with God. Between these two statements lies The Economy of the Desert where we depend on daily miracles. The desert is not God’s ultimate destination for us, however, and He longs that we be in a place where He can bless our work from one season to the next. By implication, God also wants our capital base to grow because this is what happens when last season’s output is still in hand and the next season’s products fill the shelves. Wellbeing and supernatural sustenance is normal in God’s presence. Abiding fruit is the outcome of God’s abiding presence. This is the best business continuation strategy.

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[Special thanks to  M. B. M. on Unsplash for the cover photo]