Our mandate to Make a Difference in missional enterprise flows from Jesus’s command to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and to “love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-40)

But what does it really look like to put God’s love at the center of the way we conduct our businesses? A couple of real-life testimonies may help.

The Metric for Success

An article from the Navigators, entitled “When God is in Charge of a Business: Sharing the Love of Jesus” tells the story of veteran practitioners of missional enterprise among unreached people. They described the primacy of love in their work in this way:

“God is teaching us that the only metric for success in the business world, or any other sphere, is love. We take the time to treat each person as valued and deeply loved by God.”

Click on the link to read the whole article.

Who is Your Neighbor at Work?

A second testimony comes from two men who both worked as senior executives at Apple. In the video linked below (part of the Faith & Co. series from Seattle Pacific University), Ron Johnson, who served as Senior Vice President of Retail Operations at Apple, explains:

“You have to ask the question, ‘How do you love your neighbor . . . at work? Who is your neighbor at work?’ A neighbor is someone who happens to be in the walk of your life.”

Verse(s) of the Week:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (ESV)

Let’s meditate this week on this biblical description of love, and pray for God to express that love in our businesses.