How To Conquer, In Love

As I suspected, my article “Priests Pray, Kings Conquer” has lent itself to a number of comments. Some encouraging, others not so encouraging.

The great thing about this blog is it’s not written for public approval or for theological correctness. Frankly, I could care less. (Bob cares more than I do, for the record.) My goal is get you all to think, by sharing my personal journey of being a believer and running/owning a business.

Over the years, many have asked for principles or step by step to implement running a Christian business. Instead of principles, I find it better to share examples, allowing you to form your own processes. Let me explain what I mean.

In case you didn’t know this, our special forces in the US Military are the tip of the spear. The Navy SEALS, US Rangers, Green Beret, etc are on the front lines of the battle for our countries freedom.

If you’ve ever read any of the books (Chosen Solider, Lone Survivor) you would realize the overwhelming majority of our Special Forces soliders are believers. They are highly trained in numerous different skills. They can fire any gun, create bombs, survive the in the wilderness and are very smart. In many cases these young men are highly intelligent, many attending some of our best Universities.

When we insert special forces into say.. Afghanistan, it’s not how you would think. The members of the special forces grow beards like the locals, dress in the garb of the locals, eat their foods, speak their language, observe their customs.  They do not come in like in the movies and blow the crap out of everything. They assimilate into the society and become one of the locals. Building trust, helping out the locals and being of value to the community.  All with a gun by their side just in case.

They conquer in love.

Occasionally they will get into fire fights. They will be attacked. Guess what they do… they fight back. If shot at, they fire back, they kill their enemy. And if the enemy is wounded and when the fire fight is done, they offer medical services to the wounded enemy.

In WW II in the European theater, this was a common approach. The US Military would engage the enemy and after we won, we would then start helping their wounded survive, by offering medical treatment. One minute the solider was trying to kill the man, then next minute trying to save their life.

You see, we all want a set of principles and list of things to do as business owners. How much debt, if any should I have. What kind of compensation, what to do if a fellow believer does wrong, should we go public or not go public, how to handle unruly customers, blah, blah, blah.

Here’s my advice. If you are doing  business with a company that doesn’t even remotely know God. Maybe they have orgies in the office. Instead of not doing business with them, why not engage them in business. Why not come in and become special forces for the Kingdom of God. It’s what Paul, John, Peter and others did.  Just don’t engage in the orgies.

Don’t invite them to a Bible study. Just love them in the process they are in. Win their trust, do business with the company. Get to know the people you are in contact with at the company. Don’t have an agenda, just engage them in a conversation. Bring the Kingdom in that fashion.

If you are buying out an evil company, just take dominion. Do the deal, then gently over time, expose them to the teachings. Don’t use “Jesus said… or in John 12:3 -10… Just love them well.”

Some of you may say, I’m denying Christ. I’m not. I just have found it’s a whole lot easier to make in roads with people when you have their trust and aren’t playing the Jesus card.

Think of the special forces. Love these people. That’s Jesus called us to do. Love our neighbor as ourselves. Your neighbor can be the guy who is cheating on his wife, surfing porn and cheating the company finances. He may be your contact and direct person. Just love him well.

That’s just one way to conquer.

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Priests Pray, Kings Conquer

A few years back, I kept hearing stories of business men and women who had supernatural encounters with God. In turn, God showing them supernatural things of the business world. New business ideas, the right land to buy in real estate, inventions and more.

My heart longed for that kind of interaction with God. So, I started doing the things they were doing. At this same point in my life, there were a number of instances where ‘words’ were spoken over me and sent to me that confirmed the desires of my heart that I was to move billions for the kingdom.

I was psyched.

I started praying more, fasting more, I put a prayer room in my office, hired intercessors, tithed and gave more, prayed three times a day like Daniel. All in an effort to open the heavenlies and for God to pour out his blessing and abundance on me and my business.

The complete opposite happened. My business got worse, my bank account dried up, my wife and I ‘took a break from each other’, I fell behind on my mortgage, payments to my investors. To the point where I had to close my office, shut down my prayer room and let the intercessors go.

It was about this on a late Friday night, while I was attending a prayer meeting at Mahesh and Bonnie Chavdas church, that a piece of the puzzle was put into place for me. I didn’t realize it at the time, the revelation coming a few days ago, a full two years, after the fact.

While attending the church and minding my own business, I noticed this lady across the room. She kept staring at me. Everytime I looked up, she was staring at me. I’ve been around prophetic people who hear the Lord and know that look. This went on for about 45 minutes.

Then she started walking over to me and it was like the room was parting. I was kind of like ‘oh crap, here comes one of those prophetic people’ She came up to me and shared this with me;

“I’ve been watching you tonight and every time I looked over at you, I see this huge crown on your head. It is that of King. That’s not all, I see a scepter in your hand. The Lord wants you to know you are a King and like a King you can decree things and they will be.”

Then she laid hands on me and I went down. The rest of the night she had nothing else to say, no more eye contact. It was one of the weirdest experiences I’ve ever encountered. I’m used to these ‘words’ taking 15 minutes, this took less than one minute, if 30 seconds.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but God put something in me that night. I certainly didn’t feel like a King. Nothing I seemed to decree came to be law or true. In fact, things kind of drifted along.

This week, this piece of the puzzle came clearly into view for me. And it has to do with this debate or discussion of Kings and Priests.

I have to admit, all this talk of Kings and Priests seemed like psycho babble to me. Some of that complex religious stuff reserved for Theologians who had nothing better to do than come up with more complex stuff to keep us normal folks feeling like we didn’t really get ‘it’.

Then it hit me. A Priest can’t conquer. A Priest can only pray.  Kings normally can’t pray, they have to go to the Priests. Kings can only conquer. Until King David.

He was the first one who knew he could pray and conquer. The veil was lifted, the access was granted to us all. (Only to be returned completely and forever to us, with Christs’ death on the cross.)

In my desire to hear the Lord more, to gain supernatural access, I abandoned my Kingly role. I stopped conquering and started looking to God to do all the conquering. That is called being lazy.

Let me show you how this is the case through David.

David was given a special anointing the same one that all of us in business who call Christ our savior possess. That is, one of Priest and King.

I’ll keep this simple for you. Remember, I’m not a theologian, I’ve never been to seminary, I know no Greek, I failed Latin and never took Hebrew. I’m just a business guy flailing away in the trenches of business just like you.

Remember this, Kings conquer, Priest pray.

David knew how to pray. This was developed in his time in the wilderness. It’s where he forged his deep relationship with the Lord. It didn’t happen in the palace with Saul.

Yet, David knew he was a King. After all, Samuel did anoint him. But he knew how to pray and spend time with Daddy.

David would slip between the two worlds, back and forth between the veil that he removed. He would pray, then he would ACT in a Kingly fashion.

Look Kings don’t walk around all meek. They conquer for gosh sakes. They rule, they aren’t mamby pampby, cause if they are, they get conquered. HELLO!

When David was given the okay to go into battle and conquer, he got his hands bloody. He stuck his sword in guys throats. He cut off heads, limbs and genitalia. He conquered land by vanquishing his enemies. Conquering in blood business.

In  the fields of battle, when guy is cut open all his blood pours out, he loses control of his bowels, he pees himself. This flows onto the battle field. In the end the conquering party is standing in blood, crap and piss. Plus dead bodies.

Conquering is not always pretty. In fact, it’s usually messy.

Then David would rule as a King. He would decree new laws, set up new structures, assimilate the new people into his Kingdom. David decreed things and they were to be. No argument.

In today’s world. Kingdom business men and women don’t know how to rule and act as Kings. They act as priests. No offense, but priest for generations are not business people. They are priest for goodness sakes. It’s why churches aren’t run very well. They’re run by priests.

It’s why priests don’t know a thing about our troubles and tribulations of being in business. They can’t relate. They don’t understand, because they don’t know how to conquer. We do.

They don’t understand that business is messy. To conquer a market, is hard, troublesome, nasty work. But needed.

Hey if David doesn’t get the blood on his hands, then the temple isn’t built. David did the work. Some call it dirty, I call it noble.

I want each one of you who read this to understand you are a King. Your business is your Kingdom that you’ve been entrusted to use to take dominion and conquer new territories. Not to lay down and be all wishy washy, just ‘loving Jesus’, praying and fasting.

Look I LOVE the Lord. Make no mistake, He is my savior. Period. But he has entrusted me to conquer territory for His Kingdom through my business. To take the kingdom through the boardrooms, business halls and balance sheets.

I have supernatural connections. I know how to pray, seek the Lord and then go apply that by no fear of getting my hands dirty.

That is what it means to be a King.

Now where’s my scepter.

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The Need to Fire Employees by Phil Cooke

I read this post on Phil Cooke’s blog at http://www.philcooke.com/firing.  This is very instructive for business owners, especially Christian Business owners.  I’ll post my comments at the end of the guest post.

Ever struggled with firing someone? I was teaching media professionals in Santiago, Chile a few years ago, and found this post I had written shortly after the visit. One morning before class, I was reading in the last section of Acts 15 and the beginning of the next chapter from the New Testament. It was about a division that arose over a potential partner in ministry:

36- “Then after some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us now go back and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they are doing.” 37 Now Barnabas was determined to take with them John called Mark. 38 But Paul insisted that they should not take with them the one who had departed from them in Pamphylia, and had not gone with them to the work. 39 Then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus; 40 but Paul chose Silas and departed, being commended by the brethren to the grace of God. 41 And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.”
(NKJV)

It’s interesting that Paul and Barnabas were a team up to that point, but for their next journey, Barnabas wanted to include someone named John (called Mark). But Paul knew that John had left them once before – in other words, (and for whatever reason), he just couldn’t cut it at the level they were working.

I’m sure Barnabas wanted to be sensitive an give him more chances. He probably said something like “But he has a good heart, he loves God, and should go with us.” But Paul absolutely stood his ground – not willing to take someone who had quit on them or not produced in the past. So they decided to go two different ways. Paul chose Silas – someone with a proven past – and Barnabas took John called Mark with him.

Then I did a search, and discovered that that’s the last time you hear anything at all about Barnabas and his work with John (called Mark.) It may have been successful, but considering how much the Bible had mentioned him earlier, if it was successful, I tend to think it would have been recorded in some way. On the other hand, Paul went on to another 12 chapters of journeys, exploits, and success for the Kingdom of God, and yet the trip Barnabas and John called Mark took is never mentioned again.

That’s when I was struck by the gravity of hiring employees, shaping the members of our team, and building departments in the hope of becoming more effective. In the book “Good to Great – Why Some Companies Make the Leap, and Others Don’t” by Jim Collins, he uses the analogy of a school bus. He believes the key to a successful organization is:

1) Getting the right people on the bus
2) Getting them in the right seats
3) And getting the wrong people off the bus

Chances are, what you’re doing in hiring, firing, and developing the team around you is probably more critical and important than even you might realize. I don’t know your particular situation, but as leadership expert John Maxwell would put it, developing the leaders around you is the most important aspect of your job.

My point? In the Christian community, we all tend to be compassionate when it comes to firing people, and as a result, our churches, ministries, and religious media organizations are filled with people who are unqualified, unenthusiastic, and costing us money, time, and momentum. If you encounter an employee who is detrimental to achieving your vision – for whatever reason – by all means help him or her, but first – get them “off the bus” so they stop becoming an obstacle to the forward movement of the organization. Believe me – all the other employees know that person is a problem, and it’s most likely causing great anxiety and resentment. So by all means, get them help if they want it, but first, get them off the team and replace them with someone who values your vision, and is committed to seeing that vision accomplished.

I’d like to hear from anyone who’s experienced anxiety over firing anyone, but who discovered that once it was done, it was the right thing for the organization…

I encourage you to visit Phil’s blog at http://www.philcooke.com/firing and enter your own comments.  Here’s what I commented:

Phil, You’re spot on. I had to fire several people in the past year, both for performance reasons and for financial. Firing someone was the hardest, most emotional thing I ever had to do. I was physically sick about it, but this person was not catching the vision, was mishandling client relationships, and costing me money – but yet I wanted to be gracious. I misunderstood was grace was. That by enabling this person, I was doing damage to her, to my clients, to my other staff, and to me. It had to be done. Doesn’t mean we don’t love the people, it can be done in love, but when it has to be done. It has to be done.

What do you think?

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