I love to see Jesus as a framework for the human race—not just for our spirituality, but for our daily living as well.
With this being said, I often turn to Jesus for insight on how to carry out business and work. This might seem odd, seeing as Jesus didn’t have a business, but there are qualities and lessons we can draw from His life.
These lessons, I believe, will not only help us be better business men and women, but also better people—people who labor to save the world with their contributions.
Here are 4 specific lessons from Him that teach me to be a better entrepreneur:
1. Jesus was a leader
I begin with the obvious, because believe it or not, the obvious often needs reminding. And in this case, the obvious is the fact that Jesus was a leader.
However, He wasn’t just any leader. He was a leader who knew how to secure his influence.
What I mean is, His leadership involved gathering 12 disciples around His teachings and life to carry on His legacy after He left.
A true leader knows how to keep leading even after they leave.
In Jesus’ case, He trained up others to build off of His influence and teachings.
2. Jesus was a humble genius
Truth is, Jesus didn’t need to do a lot of the things He did, mainly because He was the Son of God. He could do whatever He wanted! But He chose not to. Jesus was humble, and because He was humble, He was able to muster up others under His cause.
For instance, Jesus was a carpenter. He didn’t have to be, but because He was waiting for and working jobs with the lower class of people, He was put in a unique position to speak into their lives, and ultimately, inspire them to embrace eternity.
As entrepreneurs, our humility puts us in connection with the people we need to do meaningful work. Pride only distances us from them.
3. Jesus was an excellent communicator
A good leader knows how to communicate with his or her people.
Some might debate that Jesus was a great communicator because He oftentimes spoke in parables. But if you look closer at what Jesus was doing, He was allowing for the right people—those who were willing and determined—to hear His message. He wasn’t speaking as someone beating the Gospel on people’s heads. He was simply allowing those who wanted to hear the ability to hear.
Also, Jesus knew how to bring people back to the main point He wanted to communicate. For instance, in John 4, when Jesus is talking to the woman at the well, she deflects once Jesus brings up her wrongdoing. But instead of following her tangent, Jesus redirects her back to the issue at hand in a genius way.
A leader knows the maneuvers of communication.
4. Jesus knew healthy networking
Do you ever wonder why Jesus told some people to tell others about His identity, and told others to keep it a secret? Wouldn’t it benefit people if every person He healed told people about His identity?
There was a reason Jesus kept His identity a secret from some and not others. There is much debate on this question, but my speculation is that Jesus did this because He knew which people would hinder His cause, and which people would enable it.
In other words, Jesus knew healthy networking—connecting with the strategically right people for the benefit of His vision.
It’s true to say that for us, some people would waste our efforts, while others would expand it. But the important thing to note is, though Jesus didn’t want some people to spread His identity, He still healed them.
Basically, Jesus was still generous.
As beginning entrepreneurs, we need to learn that generosity doesn’t always offer an immediate return to our cause, but it does benefit the world.
And in the end, making the world a better place is what we should all strive to do with our work—just like Jesus did.
What qualities from Jesus do you think could impact our business?