I recently listened to a very fresh and interesting talk by a friend in Australia by the name of Brett Marks, likening the way God created the world, to how we should start a new business. He drew fascinating parallels and lessons from the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis, and with his permission, I would like to share some of his thoughts with the readers of Breakthrough Word.

One of the things I like best about Brett is that he is a consummate "marketplace minister." While running the Noah Group—a large property and investment company that he founded—he also finds the time to teach and preach to Christian business groups, to support and actively participate in school and orphanage projects in Thailand, and to feed large numbers of street kids and homeless people both in his home and abroad.

He also is a man of many pithy aphorisms; some of his better ones include:

• A rut is a grave with the ends kicked out—get out of your rut.
• Money does not bring faith—faith brings money.
• With great success comes great sacrifice—just look at the example of Jesus and His disciples.
• Life is a grindstone—it can grind us down, or polish us up.
• The difference between defeat and victory is action.
• Failure is an event, not a lifestyle or destiny.
• The first million you ever make is the hardest.

But the message I heard that impressed me was the one he entitled, "God in the Beginning, and You in the Beginning of Your Business." He has gone to the Book of Genesis—the book of beginnings—and drawn telling lessons for business people from God’s vision for creating the world.

Lessons From Genesis

Day One (Gen. 1:1-5)—God had a dream and a vision for the creation of the world, and as God created us in His image, we too can dream and visualize the creation of a business enterprise. The ability to dream and create is put within us by our Father.

We can visualize and create a product or service, and set our goals within a realistic timeframe. We put strategies and procedures in place, and we keep learning (because ignorance causes poverty).

Day Two (Gen. 1:6-8)—God created the foundations of the world, He made the “expanse and separated the water under from the water above it.” Likewise, we must lay the foundations of our business properly by understanding our market, and strategically identifying our demographics.

We must identify who our customers or clients are and what our geographical territory is. If we don’t set solid and sound foundations, cracks will start to appear later when pressures come.

Day Three (Gen. 1:9-13)—We must set up our product or service in such a way that it can replicate itself and multiply itself like seed and fruit. God created seed-bearing plants and trees that bear fruit with seed.

Have a customer service and loyalty program. Excellent service and value is the key to repeat business. Customers want to come back, because they receive good value and good service. There is a built-in multiplication factor, like good seed within the fruit.

Day Four (Gen. 1:14–19)—God created lights in the heaven, lights for both the day and the night. The lesson for us is that we must now develop good advertising and signage—we have to display ourselves to the public, so our customers know how and where to find us and what we offer them.

Key issues here include branding, brand awareness and signage, using trademarks and logos. You have only to look to Coca-Cola, McDonalds, iPod and Apple to see what good branding and signage can do for a product.

Day Five (Gen. 1:20-23)—God created living creatures in the sea and birds in the air, and put within them the capacity to be fruitful and multiply. God had a “management plan” for His creation—and so must we.

We must set up a management plan that makes our enterprise self-managing and self-multiplying. Our business must reproduce, be it through factories and assembly lines, or other techniques that multiply and focus our effort.

We then have to have a set of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)—detailed instructions so that whoever comes in to the business can operate and multiply successfully and know what the job is, and how to do it—and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) so people know what is expected of them, what their targets are, and whether they are reaching them. We all must have targets and so the business must have KPIs.

Day Six (Gen. 1: 24-31)—God created livestock, wild animals, creatures that move along the ground, and then Man (and as Brett jokingly says, “there goes the neighborhood”). God created man in His own image, and blessed him, and commanded him to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. He told man to “Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground”.

Being made in the image of God, and having been given dominion over the rest of creation, man has a unique and awesome responsibility. We have an obligation to care for God’s creation—and this is where “the rubber meets the road” for business starters.

We now move into the stage of production and bringing our business out into the world. We start to sell; we start to see customers coming in. And now our problems really start. Customers are the key to our business. But customers are people, and people are difficult to please. They are selfish. They are short-tempered. They are unreasonable. They want to feel in control, get the most for their money, keep changing their minds, and are just plain, well, human.

Day Seven (Gen 2:1-3)—God rested on the seventh day after six days of creative activity. And for us this is a vital model—we must have balance in our life, and make time for God, family and recreation.

If we don’t have a “sabbath” rest from our work, we will simply burn out—we are a lot more than just our business.

There will always be urgent matters connected to our business, but we must learn to separate the urgent from the important. While the urgent is always pressuring us, the important calls us to make time for God, family and ourselves. We must have this balance to be truly successful.

Recognizing The Enemy’s Plan

After the seven days of creation, Brett draws two more lessons from Genesis:

Gen. 2:21-25—God gave Adam a partner, Eve, who was a “suitable helper.” As we take partners into our business—and it can be very tempting if money is offered and finances are tight—we must be very careful that the new partner is “suitable” and that God is in the partnership.

Much prayer and listening to God is necessary, and if the proposed partner is a non-Christian, all the more so (read 2 Corinthians 6:14 on being “unequally yoked”). Ask questions like:

• Do I need this person more than he/she needs me?
• Would I trust this person to look after my children for six months?
• Is God in this partnership or am I being “set-up” by the devil?

Gen. 3:1-7—Here we learn how subtle and cunning the devil, our enemy—the deceiver, the accuser, the “father of lies”—really is! He totally conned Eve, using her weakness and “hot buttons” (she liked the idea of having her eyes opened, being like God and gaining wisdom) and she in turn persuaded Adam.

Within a very short time, for the first time, there was fear and blame-passing in the Garden of Eden, and the couple who had walked in fellowship with God in the cool of the evening now felt they had to hide from him.

The lesson for us here is the reality of spiritual warfare—that there really is a devil, and he really does have a plan to derail and destroy both us and our business if he possibly can. And he has a lot of experience in the field!

Make no mistake—if you are a Christian and you are in business of any form, you are in an intense spiritual battle. There is no neutral ground, and no surrender. It is a fight to the death, and there are no prisoners taken. The stakes are very high.

Money and greed are key weapons for the devil. We need to learn to have patience when opportunities come before us that look just too good to be true because they usually are. We need to learn to say NO, and stay focused on the track God has put us on.

Adam and Eve listened to the wrong advice, and ended up separated from God. That is not a place we want to be in! Don’t ever let anything take you away from God, no matter how tough it gets, or how enticing the latest temptation for a “quick buck” is.

We are to live our lives in the constant knowledge that Jesus is living inside us, and knows everything we do, from the tiniest to the biggest thing. Every deed, every thought, every hair on our head is numbered! If we really had a strong sense of that as we go about our daily work, as we make our decisions and choices, how would we operate? What would we do differently?

As a final thought, ponder this—are the things we are doing, worth Jesus dying for? If we judge every thought and action on that criterion, again—what would we do differently?