10 Kingdom Laws for Business Success

In a recent overseas mission trip, I have the opportunities to share the "10 Kingdom Laws for Success" to many young professional and entrepreneurs that are believers on 3 separate meetings. The original posting Kingdom Laws & Principles is too much to share in a 1-2 hour session. A shortened version in Chinese is shared and it is available here.

This post is the English version of the "10 Kingdom Laws for Business Success".

Understanding Work is a Ordained & Not a Curse

1. Work is Ordained by God. Gen 1:28, 2:15
2. Work happened before Sin & Curse. Gen 1:28,2:15 comes before the Curse in Gen 3:17-19.
3. Work is Worship. Hebrew Avodah = Work = Worship =Serving
4. Work is Our Calling Eph 2:10
5. The Curse of Work has been removed by Jesus. Work is stress-free & joyful. Gal 3:13, Col 1:20.
6. Work is not Worry. God provides when we sleep.
   Ps 127:2 . Just following the Kingdom Principles and have worry free & fruitful work.

The 10 Laws are:

1.   The Golden Law - Righteousness brings success
2.   Law of Parallel Universes - Begins in Spirit
3.   Law of Execution - Walk the Talk
4.   Law of Harvests- Sowing and Reaping
5.   Law of Seasons -  Watch & Ride the Cycle
6.   Law of Reciprocation Change begins with you
7.   Law of Greatness - Servant Leadership
8.   Law of Perseverance To Mission & Values
9.   Law of Amplification Growth with Care for Details
10.   Law of Humility - Learning & Renewal

1  The Golden Law - Righteousness brings success
    Spiritual Health brings True & Total Success.  Mat 6:33
    God is in charge - Righteousness is Gain. Quality in Character & Quality in Offering (competence and performance) are both important. Between the two, Character comes first; Character over Competence. Venture Capitalists invest in people of Character.
    Prov 23:5 Chase Money and it will fly away. This is the negative way of expressing the Golden Business Rule.

2  Law of Parallel Universes - Begins in Spirit

•     What is seen is influenced by the things unseen Heb 11:3.
•     Things seen is originated in the Unseen - From the Dream / Vision
•     Get your calling and vision from God
•     Inside determines outside
•     Intrinsic Motivation is better than Extrinsic Motivation
•     Have a Mission & Vision - Unique Customer Value Proposition

3  Law of Execution - Walk the Talk

•     Doing realize the Vision. Mere talk does not. Remember to execute your plan.
•     The Wise and the Foolish Builders - Matthew 7:24–27
•     Hear + Do build strong & lasting thing
•     Pro 14:23  Work brings profit, but mere talk leads to poverty!
•     Joh 13:17  If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them
•     We must close the gap between knowing and doing.

4 Law of Harvests- Sowing and Reaping.

•     Invest to Gain -     Luk 6:38; 2Co 9:6-8
•     You sow what you have; You get what you sow
•     Hence, You sow what you need
•     Invest in
•       tithes & offering to the Lord
•       people in needs;e.g. widow, poor, etc.
•       business
•       See the values of generosity
•     It is also know as the Law of Proportional Returns: the more you give the more you get

5  Law of Seasons -  Watch & Ride the Cycle

•     Watch the Opportunity & Timing - Ride the Trends - Ecc 3:1-8
•     Be watchful - Observe the changes and trends
•       Strike at the Right Time
•       Be at the leading edge and not the 1st mover bleeding edge
•     Be Agile & Ready to act
•     God provides the Growth and Set the Timing & Man does the Following of the laws of nature, the seasons & timing  established by God.

6   Law of Reciprocation Change begins with you

•     You changed 1st to cause others to change     Luk 6:37
•     Law of Empathy- Do on to others what you want to receive.
•     Reaction is a multiple of the Action
•       Newton's Law is Reaction = Action
•       Kingdom Law is Do good and Receive Better

7  Law of Greatness - Servant Leadership

•     Lead by Serving - Mat 20:26
•     Serve your staff to serve your customers who repay you with $$$
•     People follow your actions rather than your words
•     How to become Great in influence
•     Leadership is about
•       1 lead at the front with shared mission and vision
•       2 serve from the back with as example and support
•       3 coach in the middle with encouragement & correction

8 Law of Perseverance To Mission & Values

•     Perseverance in righteousness Law#1 ; Luke 18:1–8
•       Don't take short-cut, cut-corners due to pressure
•       Plans/Methods can and should change,
•       but the Purpose-Mission & Values remains
•     Stick to your Vision to accomplish it
•       Once the goal has been set, it must be pursued with a burning desire. The desire must be maintained and sustained with discipline - Fred Smith

9  Law of Amplification Growth with Care for Details

•     Growth & Scalability
•  Get it right before you scale or multiply
•  take care of the details
•  unless there is character transformation, greater responsibility will show forth greater weakness
•     Faithful in Little leads to faithfulness in large - Luk 16:10
• Warren Buffet, "In looking for someone to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence and energy. But the most important is integrity, because if they don't have that, the other two qualities, intelligence and energy, are going to kill you."
•     Law of Promotion - Luk 16:11-12
•     Strength or Defect get magnified with time and growth
•     Also known as Law of Fidelity or Honesty

10  Law of Humility - Learning&Renewal

•  Glory goes to those that are humble - ever learning & contributing. Mat 5:5
•  Renewal is
•       prepare for the future
•       ride the changes
• Learning
•       New capability building
•  I Ching #15 謙 Humility - means:
• “have it” - resources, ability. If don't have them, there is nothing to be humble about.
• “don’t show it” and
• “use it”. When the situation calls for it and if you have it, humility requires you to use it to help and not to hide it!
• It is not passive but quiet aggressive actions without drawing attention to self.
• 6 stage lines provides additional teachings of:
•         1. develop humility
•         2. let your action do the talking
•         3. accomplished and yet don’t claim credit but give credit
•         4. do more good things
•         5. do corrective actions to remove bad things
•         6. expand humility to others that they may have it too

How to Pass through Dangers?

From my study of I Ching, I have been discovering new perspectives on the key Christian values. I have discussed some of them, like Humility is Forceful Too and Waiting in the mean-time.

Here is another discovery of overcoming danger and temptations. In I-Ching Part 33 29 坎 The Pit /Danger – Be Watchful & Righteous This hexagram represents danger and the pit. The way to prevent us from falling into the pits and to get out of the pits if we ever fall into one, is to stay to the path of righteousness - of honesty and integrity. It is often our own greed that causes us to fall into the pits and dangers. The way to long term successful living, wealth and health is still the golden rule for business Mat 6:33 Seek first the Kingdom and its rules and all the rest, the resources, will follow you. Be the magnet that attracts and not the chaser that chases after the wind Proverb 23:5.

The teaching is:  

Eternal Security Arguments again

Some friend sent me articles that "exposed the errors of famous so and so" and asked me my views. 

Here is my respond.

The articles are just some of many many that debate between the "Eternal Security - One saved always saved" doctrine of Calvinist vs. the "Conditional Security - You could loose your salvation if you continue in sin" doctrine of the Armenians.

Conditional Security followers argues that Eternal Security people give people a license to sin since there is not more punishment for sins. This argument implies that people don't sin because of fear of punishment. If you remove the punishment, people will sin. In this case, sinful nature is still with the people. It is the punishment that keep them from not sinning. If the sinful nature stills remain with them, that would mean they are not saved. Christ's death is to pay for the punishments of our sins and Christ's resurrection and sending of the Holy Spirit is to give us a new nature (God's sinless nature) that we will not only don't sin but will love to do good things because love is in our new nature of God - the Zoe Life in us (Christ's life in us).

How then can we explain a saved and born again with God's nature Christian still commit sin? We then have to understand the tripartite nature of man. Man is of the spirit, soul and body. Before salvation, our spirit is separated(dead) from God. After salvation, our spirit is rebirth and connected to God with the Holy Spirit coming into our spirit. However, our soul (mind) and body remains unchanged (our body will be changed, new heavenly body when Christ come again ). The unchanged mind and body with our passions in them still remain unchanged. Hence, there is a process of growth, called Sanctification, where our mind is to be renewed with the Word and Spirit of God, to rule over our body so that our body can be instruments for righteousness rather and sin. The process of Sanctification, where the inner man grows up to rule the mind and body requires discipline or training or exercises in the Word and Spirit and Action or work of faith by the body.

The typical error in the "Eternal Security" camp is the ignoring of this process of growth. They claimed they are mature already in Christ when they are first born! They misinterpreted Bible verses about "we are complete in Christ" and hence there is no need to grow. An apple seed is a complete seed in Apple. If you plant it, it will grow up into an apple tree and produces lot of apples. If the apple seed is incomplete, then either it cannot grow, die prematurely, or don't produce apples. A fertilized egg is complete as a chicken. Given a right temperature and incubation period of 21 days, it will become a chick. An unfertilized egg is incomplete and even given the right temperature and time, it will never become a chick.

Both camps at least agree on the starting point - One need to believe and receive Jesus Christ as Savior in order to be saved. Jesus is the only way to salvation.

They differs in the process of growth. Common errors committed by believers are:

1. Relying on Jesus for salvation and then rely on self-effort for Christian Growth. They only appropriate the Grace of God for salvation. The truth is that God's Grace (God's power for living the lives we should) is not just for salvation but for sanctification (make holy) as well.

2. Relying on God to do everything and then just don't do anything or do your own thing waiting for God to lead. They called the people is group 1 as legalistic and work of the flesh. But the truth is God and Man has their part to play. God initiatives and Man follows.  see Fleshy Work & Spiritual Work and God Initiates & Man Follows and Let Go & Let God - Spiritual or Just Plain Lazy?

Work could be of the flesh, but Work could of Faith as well. Read James - Faith without Work is dead! see Bible Study - James 2:14-2:24 Work Actualizes the Inner Faith . In 1Th 1:3  remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

We rely on the Grace of God to live out God's unique calling of life. We are saved for God glorying work. Read Eph 2:8-10 Saved by Grace for walking out God's good workmanship in Christ.

Always have a balanced view of things and hold both extremes in view. God is both LOVE and JUST. Either extremes is wrong.

Lastly, on the security of our salvation, on whom do you place your trust in maintaining your salvation ? On God or yourself?

John 10:29  My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

Tough Decision Making - Loyalty vs Righteousness

Right or wrong decision is easier to make when the issue does not involve your friends.

For friendship, do we hide or bend the truth?
Even God faces this issue. God is all love and God is all just.
How does God solve the issue of man's sin?
For justice and truth, God has to punish man for his sin.
For love, God has save man from his sin.

God maintains the truth and justice with love by sending His own son to die for man's sin. This give us the clue to solve this balance of Truth and Love.

The rule is starts with truth and ends with love or

to package truth in love. 

Truth should always be the foundation of decision making.

However, the way we go about presenting it have to be done in love.
Love should incorporates truth for truth is the eternal thing. Truth has to incorporate love because love the binding force for any relationship.

For the love of my friend, I need to show him the reality and yet I must do it in such a way that he accepts and changes. So while the first intention is to show him the truth, I need to approach him with love and gain his trust to hear the truth from me. He must be sure that my concern is for him and not to condemn him.

We tend to be too fast to point out someone's error before we gain his respect and trust. So we normally get a defensive reaction and a rejection instead. This defeats the very purpose of sharing the truth which is for his benefits.

Without the trust, the good intention is misinterpreted as an attack.

Is Telling the Truth a Betrayal?
Coming back to address the issue of loyalty and betrayal. When we are exposing the wrong doings of our friends, are we betraying our friends? What are the criteria of judging? I think there are two criteria?

1. At whose benefits? My, Friends or Others.
2. Truth or Lie?

We then have the following combination:

1. truth that benefits me (at friend's expense)..Betrayal (Juda's betrayal of Jesus)
2. truth that benefits my friend.......................true friend (must do in love)
3. truth that benefits others...........................justice (e.g. injury of others caused by your friend. There must be wrong-doing by your friend)
4. lies that benefit me (at friend's expense)......betrayal of friend
5. lies that benefit my friend...........................still call lies and is wrong.
6. lies that benefit others...............................Contradiction 

 The above classification is a start. I think I need to reflect on it to get greater clarity.

See also Kindness 1st then Truth 2nd