Failure: Secret Super-Power for the Faith-Driven EntrepreneurSample

When Success Doesn’t Look Like Success

What do you do when the numbers don’t add up? When the deal falls through, the business closes, or your best plans unravel? For many believers in business, failure can feel like more than just a financial loss – it can feel like God’s disapproval. After all, doesn’t Scripture say that obedience leads to blessing?

Yes – but we have to ask, “what kind of blessing?”

In the Old Testament, God’s promises often came with material results: land, cattle, crop yields and more. In those days, wealth was often seen as a sign of God’s blessing to His people.

But the story changed when Jesus came. Jesus didn’t bring any promises of material blessing or wealth.

Instead, he warned against the love of money, the pursuit of wealth and the danger of riches. His focus was on bringing the Kingdom of God to earth, a spiritual reality breaking into the world through surrendered lives.

That’s why Jesus’ words to the businesspeople of his day hit so differently.

“What is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight.” – Luke 16:15

There are other verses of course, but this one should stop us in our tracks. Because the very things we’re tempted to chase – money, status, applause – are the things God warns us to let go of.

Jesus doesn’t promise every business will thrive. He doesn’t guarantee that the righteous will be rich or respected.

In fact, Jesus goes out of his way to warn that wealth can be a trap and that true success may look like self-denial, quiet obedience, and hidden faithfulness. He points toward a Kingdom where the last are first, where a widow’s coins matter more than a king’s treasury, and where a failed cross is actually a victorious throne.

If you’re facing failure today, you’re not at all disqualified – you might just be getting refined.

God’s love isn’t proven by profit margins, and His approval isn’t found in market share. If your eyes are on Jesus, and your heart is set on building His Kingdom – through your integrity, your generosity, your willingness to serve – then heaven sees you as successful, even when the world does not.

Paul, one of the most influential leaders in the early church, spent much of his life poor, beaten, imprisoned, and misunderstood. And yet, he said he had learned the secret of contentment in both abundance and lack. He understood that success isn’t about circumstances – it’s about faithfulness.

You may have lost a business, but you haven’t lost your purpose. You may feel overlooked, but you are not unseen.

The road of worldly success is crowded and competitive, and leads nowhere.

The way of Jesus is narrow, but it leads to life.

So take heart. Your worth isn’t in your wins. And neither are you defined by your failures.

Your value is being created in God’s image, and serving Him in obedience as you join with Him to help bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth, right where you are.