Faith is Our Business:
Living for Christ in the Marketplace
August 5, 2025
Host: Dr. Jamie Mitchell
Guest: Asaad Faraj
Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 8/05/25. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.
Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.
Jamie Mitchell:
Well, good afternoon, and it’s a great to be with you again for another hour of Stand In the Gap Today. I’m your host, Jamie Mitchell, director of church Culture at the American Pastors Network. Here’s something you might not realize. If you are over 16 years of age until you are 75, you work an average of 38.7 hours per week. Let’s say you take two weeks vacation, that means you would work 1,835 hours in a year. Now, let me compare that to church. The average evangelical church goer attends services about 1.7 times a month. According to a report by Quora, this translated into roughly two to three hours per week depending on the length of your service and any additional activities like prayer meetings or Bible studies that comes out to about a hundred to 150 hours per year. We are engaged in the marketplace 10 times more than we are church, and when it comes to evangelism, sharing Christ, we will encounter more unbelievers at work than anywhere else in our daily and monthly encounters.
With people exposure alone, we can live out our faith with greater impact at work than anywhere else. Yet here is my guess. Your pastor or your church has not preached or taught on how to live out your faith effectively in the workplace. And even more likely if you’re a business owner, you have not received much equipping on how to impact others through your business. Well, here at a PN, we are concerned with a biblical worldview being applied to the culture, government, family, church, and business. And today our program is entitled, faith Is Our Business, living for Christ in the Marketplace. And to help me is a friend, Asaad Faraj, a successful business owner. Asaad is a senior national sales director for Primerica Financial Services. He enlists trains and supports Allegion of financial advisors across America. Yet if you were to talk to some of his coworkers and probably his clients besides selling and investing savvy, they will tell you he is serious about his faith and love for Jesus Christ, and most importantly, making a difference in people’s eternal destiny. It’s that combination business success and spiritual impact is why I’ve invited him here to be part of our discussion. Asaad, welcome to Stand in the Gap Today.
Asaad Faraj:
Thank you so much, Jamie. I’m truly honored to be with you guys. I’m a big believer that nowadays in these times in this season, we know that pastors have always needed their business leaders to step up in the church, but more than ever, the business community need their pastors. So I applaud each one of our listeners. It’s truly an honor to spend some time with you guys and help encourage you in what you do because you’re so needed and treasured in the kingdom of God today.
Jamie Mitchell:
Amen. Amen. Asaad, I want you to briefly share with our audience about yourself. Tell us how you got into financial services business, but equally important, when did you come to faith in Jesus Christ?
Asaad Faraj:
Thank you very much. So, yeah, I was raised in a home where I went to church every week and for an hour a week I was a good Christian. But besides that, it really didn’t mean anything to me. I was in the world and one foot in kind of one foot out. And long story short, I had a mom and dad who loved me and were probably my father was the hardest working person I’d ever met in my life works. He helped us escape from a Muslim nation when I was four years old and brought us to America, which I’m so grateful for. I like to say I’m happy to be here with you guys, but the truth is I’m happy to be anywhere. We escaped from Iraq and many of you know about the war Desert Storm. It was actually the first war you can watch on television.
It was on CNN, it looked like you were watching Fourth, the Drive fireworks, except people were dying at the bottom end while the nation I was born in, there was a law in the land that once you turn 18, you must go serve in the army. And long story short, the desert storm war began Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the same month I turned 18. So my destiny was to be in that land serving the army on the receiving end of that shock and awe getting blown up to bits if it wasn’t for God’s holy, righteous, graceful, right hand plucking my family out there. And long story short, I was always grateful to be alive and grateful to be anywhere. And when I was in high school, my father was a hardworking guy, but we knew his business was going under. And by the time I went to college, I went and got a degree in electrical engineering from Marquette, university of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, got the degree, got out of there, got my job the same time I was living with a girl that was not my wife, and the relationship was going great, and then it was going terrible and I was watching this girl leave and go on dates while I couldn’t afford to move out of her apartment, which may sound funny, but it was brutal and grueling.
The same time, my parents who were hardworking people at a business, their business collapsed, their home was going foreclosure. I didn’t exactly pick up a gun and point to my head, but made perfect sense to me why somebody would do that. And long story short, in that same exact month that those two things happened, I was invited to a pizza party, an apartment complex in Arlington Heights, Illinois on a Saturday night. And I went and as soon as I walked in, two people I’d never seen in my life. A husband and wife darted over to me and said, do you know if you die today, where would you spend? All attorney would be heaven or hell. And I said, of course, nice to meet you too. I thought I was quite taken back by that. But they were bold and God knows we need people bold for Jesus today.
And they literally looked me in the eye within 37 seconds of meeting me and said, come over to our home, sleep on our couch and come to church with us tomorrow. And made no logical sense. But I remember agreeing to their terms and it was that next day, Sunday morning, I went to church with him. And then afterwards the pastor asked me if I knew what it meant to be a follower of Christ, that I didn’t have any idea. And he opened the Bible and showed me about an hour’s worth of information. And I got on my knees, I said a prayer, and then I opened my eyes and I was kind of disappointed. There was no dub on my shoulder, there was no fireworks, lightning, thunder, none of that stuff. But I remember that was December 29th, 1991. I remember having plans to go out in the bars of Chicago, that’s New Year’s Eve with my friends and go get drunk and womanize.
I remember following through my plans, but the Bible declared I became a new creation. The old me was dead and a new me lived instead. I remember going to the bars and nothing looked interesting to me. I grabbed the alcoholic drink, I took one sip and put it down and just leaned against the wall and talked to my friend about Jesus for a little bit and then left. I was a new person. I remember that just kind of changed in rock. So anyway, in that same exact month, all those things happened. I was invited to, I had an engineering job. It was just enough to pay my bills in Chicago. My parents, who I love with all my heart, were losing their home and just lost their business. And they were partners, my aunt and uncle, which was second parents to me, they lost their business too and they were losing their home. And I was invited to a meeting to learn about how to make money in the financial field. I felt this burden that I wanted to help them financially and the Bible says which to honor our mother and father. And that drove me more than it could have possibly been logical at that time. And I remember taking on the opportunity to work part-time in the financial field, and that was my beginning. I tell people my graduation president from college was two mortgage payments that were not mine and might not,
Jamie Mitchell:
Hey Asaad, hang on Asaad, hang on to that thought. We want to finish your story of how you got into the business world and how you’re using Christ to change people’s lives there. We’ll be right back. Well welcome back. Today we’re talking about living out our faith in Christ in the business world with business owner Asaad Faraj. And today you’ve already heard about Asaad’s amazing testimony, how coming from a place like Iraq where the Muslim faith is so strong, God rescued him and his family brought him to America and he came to faith in Christ. And now for the last 30 years, he has been helping people in the financial world with life insurance, planning for retirement, those kinds of things. Asaad, we just picked up as you found your way into the financial world, if you would finish that off. And then I have a couple of questions I want to get to about how you use Christ in the business world, but just finish up, how did you then find your way into the business world?
Asaad Faraj:
Thank you. I feel like Christ empowered me. I had nothing. I need nothing as far as the natural attributes to succeed in a business like this. I had zero knowledge of anything about money or finance. I’m talking less than zero. My parents knew nothing. They taught me nothing. I learned nothing in school. I knew nothing on top of that. I was literally the most shy, quiet, introverted person you’ve ever met. We have a saying in our company as we’re kind of competitive that there’s only one, number one, and we compete in various areas. Well, that was me. I was the number one most shy, quiet, introverted, least likely to succeed. So the Bible says we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. So Jesus planted me here and equipped me and empowered me to be a blessing to people at the same time be able to provide and take care for my family, which was so important near and dear to my heart, and obviously in alignment with God’s heart,
Jamie Mitchell:
Asaad. Interesting. I want to ask you this. I know a lot of Christians who are in the business world, but they don’t allow Christ or his word to actually guide them or their business. Was that something where you had to actually make a decision and say, look, I’m going to do my business by the word of God and for the glory of God? Was that a separate decision that you just came to at one point in your life?
Asaad Faraj:
Great question. So my first seven years, I did not have any idea what that meant or how to do it Then came, the Bible says, earthly efforts accomplished little, but godliness is profitable into all things. So about seven years I worked like A-D-O-G-I worked seven days a week, 12 hours a day just trying to make ends meet. I was supporting two households that were not mine. And then long story short, my pastor’s son graduated from Bible college and wanted to be an evangelist and invited me to go on a mission trip with him to Dominican Republic where he asked me a lunch and invited me to my face. And I thought completely, no chance, no way. I said, I’ve got no time. I’ve got no money. I got to work. That’s impossible. That’s why Wanda say, well, somehow got arrested. My vocal chords and the word yes came out, I have no idea how, but I remember going on that trip and let’s just say I became on fire for evangelism and the things of God on that trip.
You can go to church for an hour a week, but you can never get into physical shape by working out one hour a week. You can never study enough to pass a test by studying one hour a week. You can’t get good at anything one hour a week. And so I went on that trip and for about seven straight days, morning till night, all I did was the things that Jesus did. We went out and evangelized and prayed with people and with a blessing to people, and I strengthened muscles I never knew I had. And it was on that trip, I became on fire for the things of God. And then it just naturally from there spilled over into my work. And I’ve got some stats I research, if you don’t mind, Jamie, for people who think, well the business thing should be separate from ministry, they don’t really flow together.
Well, that’s not exactly how the Bible was written. So of Jesus, 132 public appearances in the New Testament, 122 of the 1 32 were in the marketplace, not in the temples. Jesus taught 52 parables of which 45 of the 52 had a marketplace context of the 40 divine encounters described in Acts 39 of the 40 were in the marketplace. And Jesus called 12 people from the marketplace, not from the temple, not from clergy, to build his church. His plan was those 12 people and there was no plan B. So the marketplace is near and dear to God’s heart and people in the marketplace are including pastors. When you’re out there, you’re in front of more unsaved people than you can ever be on a Sunday morning, if that makes sense. Jv,
Jamie Mitchell:
Wow, what tremendous insight. Asaad in your business, you talk to people about their finances, about savings, about budgeting and talking about people about their money can be uncomfortable, but knowing you have also no problem talking about their money, but also about spiritual things and having spiritual conversations. Now you’ve been at this a long time, so you have a level of boldness way beyond what the normal churchgoer would have, but how do you engage people and open the door for spiritual conversation with people either who are your clients or your coworkers?
Asaad Faraj:
For that, I just try to not have an original idea, but try to study the only one who’s a true pro at this and his name is Jesus. And if you study the word, what you’ll find is Jesus never spoke to problems. He spoke to people. He encountered two different sets of blind guys to one. He said, what do you want me to do for you? And the other Perry said, do you believe I can do it? Same problem, two completely different questions. He was addressing where her hearts were and Lazarus had died and Lazarus had two sisters, Martha and Mary and Martha came to him. And then Mary came to him and Martha said something different than Mary. And Jesus said something different than Martha, than he did to Mary. He didn’t address the problem of Lazarus being dead. He addressed, he addressed their heart.
So my counsel to people who want to do that is the Bible. I believe that every single person out there has the same exact favor, subject, which is themselves. And our mission, whether you’re a pastor in the ministry or in business, is simply to get people to open up and you get people to open up by getting to like you and trust you. And people think, well, I didn’t get people to like me and trust me by telling them how likable I am, how trustworthy I am. It seems logical, but it’s not how it works. The way you get people like you and trust you is get them talking about their most favorite subject in the world, get them talking about themselves. The more you ask questions about them, the more they open up, then you’ll find that if you just blanket minister to people, you won’t be affected.
But if they’re opening up and you have a chance to pinpoint, see, Jesus had an advantage that we did not have. He knew what was inside people’s hearts and minds and everything going in their life without anyone needing to tell him what was going on. We don’t have that luxury. We have to ask them the questions to find out what’s going on and where they’re hurting. But if we can learn how to listen and then address the need, address the person, we’ll be way more effective to share the gospel. But the key to share the gospel is just get people to open up. And you do that with the art of asking questions.
Jamie Mitchell:
Asaad, it’s so interesting that you would say that my wife and I, we have this thing whenever we go someplace and we’re around new people, whether it’s like a wedding or whatever, and we’re sitting around with all these different people, we leave and we usually look at each other and we say the exact same thing. Nobody ever asks a question about us. We’re the ones who are always asking questions about them and about what’s happening in their life and how many kids they have and that kind of thing. But what’s sad is it’s mostly Christians. Christians lack that social ability to engage people. And boy, you’re right. If we will just learn that skill, what a difference that will make. Now listen, I know this, that if I talk politics or religion with people, I’m going to offend somebody. And as you speak about Christ and about the spiritual things, you must along the way offend people. I’m going to assume that happens. But have you found some ways to engage with people and to avoid offending or at least lessen that
Asaad Faraj:
Possibility? Yes. Thank you for asking that. And the answer is an absolutely resounding yes. And here’s what I found out to be true. Anyone ever who’s out in the audience, anyone ever raised kids before you have more than one kid and one kid hurts the other kid. So you tell your one son or daughter, Hey, apologize to him, apologize to her. And they say something like this, sorry. Well, as a parent, the way you’re going to respond is it’s not what you just said. That’s not an apology. It’s how you said it. They say that most marital fights has nothing to do what was said nor the tone it was spoken in. And we communicate with people. The truth is 7% is the words we speak. 38% is the tone of voice, and 55% is our bi language. So if we can just be laid back and calm and relax our shoulders and looking in the eye and speak softly and speak with compassion, and speak with love, and speak with kindness, speak like the fruits of the spirit are speaking through us, then they tend to receive it well. Nobody wants to deal with a know-it-all. Nobody wants to deal with somebody condescending or critical because those are not the Galatians five fruits of the spirit. So the answer to your question, if you communicate with the Galatians five fruits of the spirit, they’ll come across much better and people respond, receive and open up
Jamie Mitchell:
Friends. God is sending us, listen, he is sending us into our neighborhoods. That’s why he has you living where you are or to your kid’s school, maybe to a certain restaurant, but most importantly to your place of work. And he ISC sending you there as a missionary to witness his grace. And there’s going to be times that things might get tense, but just listen to the choice words, the great guidance and insights Asaad is giving. This is how you engage people and we can see a harvest take place. Now when we return, we want to talk about how to avoid compromise. Boy, that could happen so easily within the business world, but we’re going to find out how to avoid it and use our business to bless other people. Today we’re talking about marketplace missionary work. Don’t go anywhere. Stay with us here at Stand In the Gap Today.
Well, thank you so much for staying with us for this very important topic. How do we live out our faith for Christ in our place of work? And how do we as business owners leverage our work for the glory of God? Asaad Faraj is our guest, Asaad. One of the things that I’ve heard from believers over the years about the marketplace is the pressure temptations outright spiritual warfare they experience. My guess is that you have faced that as well. How do you stay above it? How do you avoid compromise? And has there been times when you have faced that kind of pressure?
Asaad Faraj:
Thank you. And the answer is absolutely resounding yes. And so the question is, so what do you do as you’re facing that pressure? And again, the person to learn from. I try not to have an original idea. I just try to study the words of the gospel. And Jesus faced massive spiritual pressure and temptation while he was fasting for 40 days, 40 nights, and he was hungry. And the Bible says three times the devil came at him and three times what came out, Jesus was exactly the same word and the words were, it is written. Man does not live on bread alone, but every word that comes to the mouth of God, it is written, do not put the Lord your God to the test. It is written to worship the Lord your God and worship him. Only then the Bible says the words we all long to hear, then the devil left him.
So yes, we’re always going to be in spiritual attack. It’s always important to remember whenever you’re dealing with people and it just feels demonic, it feels hateful, it feels wrong, it feels all those things. Never forget what Ephesians six 12 says. We don’t battle against fresh and blood enemies, but against evil spirits, rulers and authorities in dark places. So if the person hurt trying to hurt you, offend you, come at you has flesh and blood, that’s not the enemy. It’s the spirit operating on them. Can’t stand the spirit operating in you. And so we got to recognize who the enemy is and at the very least under your breath, begin to speak out what the word of God says because that’s what Jesus did in his wilderness. It is written, I am made in the image of God. It is written. I can do all things through Christ, strengthen me. It is written. I am more than a constant and the loves me is written greater, the one who’s in me than he that’s in the world by speaking out the word of God under my breath, I can get through those situations.
Jamie Mitchell:
Asaad, there are times in the marketplace that I know of that people have been asked to do things that would go against their faith, their testimony, the word of God. And if they don’t do it, they’re going to lose their job and they may lose their job, but they will keep their testimony. That’s what you would say to anybody who you encounter that it is never worth compromising if it means losing your job.
Asaad Faraj:
I know it’s hard in the moment, but your job, my brothers and sisters is not your source. Your father in heaven is your source. He’s the only uncreated, God, the universe. He owns all the cattle, he owns all the hills, he owns all the cattle on the hills. He owns all the gold and silver, everything belongs to him. And if he’s on your side, what can men possibly do to you? What good does it do to get in the whole world but lose your soul? And so I just want to encourage people in those tough situations where there’s black, white and there’s gray stay on God’s side and then he fights with you. And I want to remind people that the Lord has many names in the scripture. He’s the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Lord God Almighty, the Lord God, Jehovah Jiro, Jehovah Rafa.
But one of my favorite ones of his names is the Lord of Heaven’s armies, which means he has armies and they’re angels and they’re not curly and cute and laying on clouds like Hallmark says they are. Some of these angels are huge, they’re fierce and they’re armed and they battle for us. And the Bible says it took only one angel to bring down 185,000 of Syrian enemy camp, particularly two to bring down all samura. And it’s only going to take four to bring down a third of the earth. These angels are powerful. We serve the Lord of heaven’s armies as long as we stand aside his armies battle for us. And angels are ministering spirits created to help us, the believers. And so we can call upon them to battle for us and ask God to deploy angels on our behalf when those situations come. And I’d rather be on God’s side and the world side. We know that there’s one lost record, we’ll just say the staggering undefeated
Jamie Mitchell:
Interesting enough is that I’ve said to people over the years as a pastor, when those times come, it’s God who has control of it all and he is moving you and maybe wants you out of that job because he has something else for you, something better for you or better opportunity. Which brings me to this question. As difficult as business can be, there are blessings that you experience because sometimes our business success like you have had Asaad will open doors of ministry and maybe even more than being in full-time ministry. What have you seen as God has given you success? What doors of ministry has opened?
Asaad Faraj:
Thank you for that. And the best way to answer your question is it is been Ephesians three 20 above and beyond like ever dream for imagine. So in short, everyone would say, I got dealt wrong handed of cards. I had two mortgage payments that were not mine. I was 22 years old and I was broke and penniless. But God used that to build me up to be able to teach me work ethic and give me favor and business and allow me to overcome that. And today we’ve been blessed. I own about 111 franchise offices in 17 states and have a large business. And because of that, I’ve been able to do things like go on 37 international mission trips. I’ve been able do things like preach at stadiums in front of tens of thousands of people in Honduras, in Nicaragua and other countries. I’ve been able to do things like take hundreds of people with me into the mission field.
My mentors always said that if no offense, but if I was making $30,000 a year, would all these people from around the country reach out to me and want to follow me and maybe not. So God has given me a platform, if you will, of business success and I’ve been using that to usher more people into the kingdom. I’ve been asked to speak at business financial conferences all across the United States and last week in London, England. And my fee to speak and I come across as my fee to speak is I want to be able to preach the gospel. So literally I probably close to a hundred times, I’ll speak at a business conference and outside of the normal agenda, we’ll have a session called God or Success according to the Bible, hear from our guest speaker and I’ll do a salvation message. And I’ve seen with my own eyes over a thousand people come forward and receive Christ at business meetings, including about a week and a half ago in London, England.
I was asked to speak there, which was not planned. I was just on a vacation with my wife and a financial company contacted me and said, we’re having an event now. We heard you’re in town. Would you come speak at it? Well, I said my fee to speak because how am I be able to preach? And I did preach in London 10 days ago and about 50 people came forward to receive Christ. So God has tremendously opened doors and he continues to open doors because of the success I’ve had. I live in Fort Myers, Florida and last two years I’ve been tapped on the shoulder to be at the National Day of Prayer at the courthouse steps with the mayor of Fort Myers, the representatives, the senators, Byron Daniels I think his name is, and a few other people and a bunch of pastors. And they’ve tapped on me to come and take the microphone and pray a blessing over the business community of Fort Myers. And I’m kind of new here. I’ve been here for eight years and there’s many other business people in the area that’s been here much longer, but just we’ll call it an open door because of God’s faithfulness and because the success he’s given me, which I know is for his purposes and for his glory,
Jamie Mitchell:
I was just reading the story about the Christian businessman in Texas. This is about 40, 50 years ago named Lao. He was able to start Lao University, but he was a construction machine guy. He did all kinds of front loaders and that kind of thing, and God blessed him. You know what he said? He said, my job has been to shovel dirt and I push things and I shovel things, but I have found the more I have shoveled what God given me away, God keeps shoveling it back and God has a bigger shovel. That’s what he said. God always has a bigger shovel. Asaad, one of my mentors said to me, you know what, you can never out give God. You must have seen that principle at work in your life as you have been used by God and he has blessed you. He just keeps probably giving it back to you.
Asaad Faraj:
Nothing drives me more than that. We often have heard in our lives that to be successful financially, you have to have a diversified portfolio in many different sectors of investing. And I believe in having a diversified giving portfolio. So my favorite time of the year is my office manager prepares a report of what happened last year. And when I got the report in the spring for last year for 2024, we had given to 46 different ministries, a very significant amount, we’ll just call it more than 10 or maybe 20 times more than I used to make in a year as an engineer and very diversified from orphans in Mozambique, Africa to inner city ministries in Chicago that are just preaching the gospel to young men and sending them out door to door to you name it, all types of ministries from printing, Bible, IANS. And there’s nothing, I joke, I’ve never tried heroine or crack or even coffee. I have a very addictive personality and I’m sure those things are addictive, but nothing. And I mean nothing is more addictive than giving. I dare people, I doubled. I dare people to try it. Amen.
Jamie Mitchell:
Hey, we’ll be right back when we talk more about finance with Asaad Haraj. Well, I hope you’ve been inspired and encouraged by our program today. I have been. And it is so encouraging to hear what the Lord is doing through his people in the world, and most importantly in your business, and I hope you’ll get fired up about your place of work, your coworkers, maybe if you own a business, the people who work for you and living out your faith as Asaad Faraj has done. He’s been our guest. Asaad, we just stopped our last segment and you were sharing about how God keeps giving as you keep using the wealth that God has allowed you to have. And finance is your business now. You wrote a book called Faith Over Finances. What’s the premise of that book and how are you applying it to what you do with people in your business?
Asaad Faraj:
Thank you so much for asking. Yeah, the premise came from when I was on a mission trip and I was asked to speak to the business community in the nation of Haiti. And if the only thing about Haiti, Haiti had just suffered from an earthquake at the time, this was years ago, and they’re the poorest nation this hemisphere. So the businesses I spoke to, for example, one was a shoe store and a shoe store in Haiti is a lady sitting on a milk crate with about seven pairs of 20 or 30-year-old worn out shoes in front of her. And that’s a shoe store. So anyway, I pray to God to give you some wisdom, some strategies that would help the business community in Haiti. And it just happened to be that that strategy came to me right before the 2006, 2007, 2008 financial crisis that devastated America and honestly devastated the world in the natural.
But who knows that God’s finances trump the economies of the world and are immune to any type of financial problems in this world. So I started to implement these strategies. So in my book, faith or Finance, there’s a few chapters and one of them is called the 12 Steps to Making God the Lead partner in your business and your finances. While I implement those 12 steps and in my field, in my industry, not immune to other industries, we got rocked, but God sustained and grew my business during that horrible economic meltdown of oh 6 0 7 0 8 because of these 12 steps, because God’s principles are above our economy. So it’s been such a blessing and whatever you’d like to do, brother, if you want, I can share maybe a few highlights of a few of the 12 steps. Would you want me to do that?
Jamie Mitchell:
Yeah, that’d be great.
Asaad Faraj:
Okay. So for example, one of them is making God the lead partner in your business. So most people understand a business partnership in the United States looks like this. If there’s two people and there are 50 50 partners, it’s pretty obvious the more the business makes, the more they split the profits right down the middle and everybody gets that. Well, the style of God as your partner is quite different. The way that works is I ask people to tithe, give 10% from wherever you are at. But the more God grows your income, the more of a percent he gets as the lead partner. So you can crank up your income to any level you want, and as it’s growing, give more of a percent to God. And if I ask the average person, can you afford to give away 30, 50, 70% of your income? Most people say, no way, Jose, but if your income went up 10 x, then you can afford to do that.
So that’s the whole idea is I pray that strategy where I’ve written down between me and my wife and my father in heaven, what that looks like as my income rises, let’s just say the Lord God almighty, the God the universe is now financially incentivized to grow our family business, knowing that the more it makes, the more his widows and orphans get taken care of, the more his bride, the church has their needs met, the more evangelism happens across the globe as the gospels preach, the ends of the earth and so on and so on. So that’s one of them. The second one is every one of us really appreciates Jamie divine appointments. You’re a happily married man, let’s be honest. There’s 8 billion people as planet. You met your wife, but you could have just as easily not met. It was not a random occurrence, it was a blessing and a divine appointment.
And you’re grateful for a divine appointment like meeting your wife. You’re grateful for divine appointments of the friends you have and pastors other people you know that you appreciate and you and I are a divine appointment we could have easily not met and we appreciate divine appointments. Yet here’s what I found to be true. Almost no Christians I’ve ever met actually pray for divine appointments. Why don’t we pray for God who the Bible says, God directs the steps of the righteous. And Jesus said, my sheep, they hear my voice and they recognize me. So why don’t we pray for God to direct our steps and collide our path with a sheep that hear his voice and give us multiple divine appointments on daily basis. That’s one of the 12 steps is to pray.
Jamie Mitchell:
Amen
Asaad Faraj:
For divine appointments. This is a little brief commercial about that book.
Jamie Mitchell:
That’s so good. Asaad, in light of our conversation today about making Christ a part of your work today, we pray and we should be asking, God, while I’m at work today, or as I’m doing my job cross path with a person that you want me to meet, whether to be a blessing to them, to be an encouragement, to be the hands and feet and the embrace of Jesus. If we did that, if every Christian did that as they were going out the door to their workplace, I think it would radically change our ability to make an impact for Christ. And sharing the gospel, wouldn’t it
Asaad Faraj:
1000000% it would. Wouldn’t that be exciting if people actually did that? And you’re right, the devil’s getting a victory because we don’t pray for that. God wants to interfere, but he’s such a gentleman, he’ll interfere when we pray, when we ask him to. And if we pray for that is near and dear to God’s heart, to collide our path with them and then give him that word in season that they’re longing for, how cool would that be?
Jamie Mitchell:
Got about a minute or two left. One of the things that I have noticed over the years is it’s easy for people who have been successful and have a lot of wealth to share about being generous and sacrificial and all that. But the fact of the matter is the normal person in the pew, if they would put their financial house in order, they would have discretionary money to give away. And that kind of what you have done in your life, a word of encouragement that they may not be a millionaire, but if they handle their resources well, they can make an impact with the wealth that God has given them.
Asaad Faraj:
Yes, they certainly can. And thank you for bringing that up. And Jesus says, if you’re faithful with a little, I will make you a ruler over much. And in Luke, Jesus says, to a much is given, much is required. So the first thing I have to say to people who are appearing to struggle like it’s hard on them is believe it or not, you are blessed. You’re some of the blessed, most blessed people in the world. There’s places like Congo, there’s places like Haiti where people are really struggling. If you are the United States of America, and I know we’re not a perfect nation, but the last I checked, people are not lining up to leave our country. You are blessed here and you can ask for God to help you steward what you do have so that he will increase what comes in your way. And that’s absolutely a biblical principle.
And the second council I’ve got for them is get help. Most of us don’t do our own dental work. We don’t do our own medical work. We go see a professional. A lot of us says there’s wisdom in the council of many and one can put a thousand to flight, but two 10,000. Get Pete, get somebody a professional or partner up with you and be a blessing to you. And I represent a dishonest industry, so be careful who you choose, but God will provide wisdom through another person to be a blessing for your finance as well.
Jamie Mitchell:
Asaad, we could do two or three programs. Look, will you come back sometime and join me again on Stand in the Gap?
Asaad Faraj:
I’d be honored to.
Jamie Mitchell:
Well, we’ve been discussing about faith and our business and we pray that you’ll catch a vision for your work. Start seeing the opportunity to bring Christ into the workplace. Please check out Asaad’s book, Faith Over Finances. You can get it on Amazon. But until tomorrow, remember this, live and lead with courage. Courage in the marketplace to live for Christ. God bless you. Have a great rest of your day.
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