You pray for your business, right?
You ask God to bless it, find the best employees for you, steer customers your way, and help you be the best leader in the world.
Consider for a moment your favorite prayer partner: that go-to believer you run to whenever you need someone to agree with you in prayer.
You trust the strength of their relationship with God so much that you allow them to know some of your most intimate needs and ask them to approach the throne of glory on your behalf.
Perhaps you gain a certain hope in the Lord knowing the deep faith this prayer warrior has developed. That hope can even bring with it the gift of the peace of Christ the world cannot even understand. We all find comfort knowing we have our most cherished prayer partner whenever we need them.
Now consider this passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 8, vs 34: “ . . . Christ Jesus, the one who died, or rather is raised, (is the one) who stands at the right hand of God and makes intercession for us?” Yes, you read that correctly. Jesus is standing at the right hand of God the father making intercession just for you. Talk about a prayer partner. Which explains the question Paul asks in verse 31: “ . . . If God is for us, who can be against us?”
Taken in context, Paul is giving us a mental picture of our final judgment. He implies that while God did not require Abraham, in the end, to sacrifice his own son, he did require of himself exactly that. Because of this act of love, Paul asks who will bring accusation against us? Who will condemn? The obvious answer is that it doesn’t matter if an enemy accuses or condemns us.
After sacrificing his own son, God is certainly prepared to carry out his divine plan of salvation for all of us. And Jesus, for his part, after dying and rising for our salvation, is now in continuous intercession on our behalf. Talk about hope! The God of the universe is for us because he loves us so much he even gave up his only son.
Because Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8), I’m confident that he not only pleads for us at our final judgment, he loves us enough to intercede on our behalf at all times.
The more we develop our relationship with him we realize he is our ultimate prayer partner before the father.
Let’s never forget that our business is a gift from God. Our role is to be good stewards of our work. Those desires in our hearts to live our faith within our work come from God himself. He is constantly equipping us with the skills, competencies, and resources to take advantage of the opportunities he creates for us. And then, in addition to all that, Jesus stands at his right hand interceding for us. We are immersed in God’s recipe for success. All we have to do is allow him to be engaged in every facet of the business with us.
Carve out some time each day and imagine the savior of the world having an intimate conversation with his father about you:
- your dreams
- your business
- your customers
- your employees
- your vendors and suppliers
- the market
- the deepest desires he has put on your heart
Then, begin to include Jesus with your earthly prayer partners whenever you approach the throne of grace. You will be filled with the hope, filled with the great expectation of answered prayer. If God is for us, who can be against us?
About Mike Van Vranken
Mike Van Vranken, a lifelong Catholic, is a writer, speaker, retreat leader, and teacher. Following forty years of leading, coaching, and developing business owners, Mike founded Mike Van Vranken Ministries to fulfill his passion to bring Jesus to the world around him. He brings his experiences as a mentor, leader, speaker, coach, and entrepreneur to provide teaching and spiritual leadership to all who are interested. His dream is to deliver the teachings of Jesus to women and men, old and young, poor and rich, people of every background and diversity – to the entire body of Christ.
Mike is co-author of the brand new book: Faith Positive in a Negative World. In paperback and on Kindle now at amazon.com. He and Barbara, his wife of 42 years, live in Shreveport, LA. Discover more about Mike at www.mikevanvrankenministries.org as well as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, and Google.
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