It's Not Your Business

Kingdom-Focused Living Series #5

by Gary Miller

We rush off to work each morning and wonder---are we too focused on making a living? Our occupations take so much of our time and energy. Are our lives out of balance?

As followers of Jesus, how involved in business should we be? Should we participate in capitalistic America's feverish pursuit of profit and business growth? If not, how do we survive? Surely the Lord wants us to provide for our families!

But could God have a deeper purpose for our businesses than we have realized? What if occupational life, from God's perspective, is intended to play a prominent role in His Kingdom?

In this last book of the Kingdom-Focused Living series, Gary Miller looks for answers to these questions. Whether you own a business or work for someone else, It's Not Your Business will cause you to examine your occupation from a different perspective. Prepare to be challenged!

247 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2015

About the author

Gary Miller was raised in California and today lives with his wife Patty and family in the Pacific Northwest. Gary works with the poor in developing countries and directs the SALT program for Christian Aid Ministries. This program offers business and spiritual teaching to those living in chronic poverty, provides small loans, sets up local village savings groups, and assists them in learning how to use their God-given resources to become sustainable.

Reviews

[Nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely fantastic book and guide for those pursuing a faith-driven life in the business world. Miller insightfully and persuasively demonstrates that a life of business is and should be a life in missions. Doing away with the dualism of missions common in many churches, Miller takes up the banner for missions in every field, office, and workplace.

Alongside his drive to break down the wall between faith and worklife, Miller makes some painful but transparently accurate insights into what this merge of faith and work means for how we should conduct ourselves. Using a business as a tool for ministry means making decisions that are not always the right ones for profitability or expansion-but we must remember that any resource we have was given to us by God, and He has called us to the Great Commission in all aspects of our lives.

I found Miller's discussion of the power of business as a mission to be particularly powerful. He illustrates how business allows missionaries to become a true part of a community and be seen as contributing to it before the gospel is shared-this sets up the missionaries in a much better place to give testimony. This in contrast to missionaries who rely on their home churches across the world to fund them. This set-up can completely remove them from the local community's day-to-day struggles and can also significantly diminish their testimony, as nobody sees them 'working'.

This should be required reading to anyone in business within the church. I would love to see it integrated into Christian school and University business classes.

[Trish Boese · Rating 4 out of 5]

4* Excellent reading for any Christian involved in the business world. What does a Christian businessman look like? Is business kept in a separate box from spiritual things? Is God interested in us making a profit? These and many more questions are answered in this book by Gary Miller. Scripture has lots to teach us about how we are to use money. All the Kingdom-Focused Finance books by Gary Miller contain solid advice on finances.

[Samuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book really helped me see purpose in my career for the Kingdom, not just myself. I realized that I had a pretty strong sacred/secular divide in my mind, and I'm thankful this book helped me break that wall down to see how God can use your work for his purposes, not just for earning money so you can serve him outside of your work.

[Stennett Eberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually read Where Is Lazarus, but it’s not on Goodreads yet, so I made this book stand in.