Most of us don’t struggle to believe the Bible is true. We struggle to see what it has to do with a pipeline review, a missed quota, or a team member who keeps dropping the ball.
I’ve spent my entire career in sales, with half of that time in a management role, and most recently as an assistant pastor. I’ve treated both business and ministry as two separate things. Then I noticed that almost every hard moment at work was one Scripture had already addressed.
Here are five principles I’ve leaned on. Each comes with something you can do any day of the week.
1. Work as if it matters to God, because it does
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” ~ Colossians 3:23
This verse changes who your audience is. When I know the Lord sees my follow-up call, I stop doing the minimum and give my best.
Trust is expected of anyone you work for, especially in sales. Logging deals, assigning reps, and tracking commissions can all be quietly altered, so integrity matters most when no one is watching. I learned that the hard way.
At 15, I worked the register at a farm that sold produce to the public. I liked earning extra money, but that turned into greed fast. One day I noticed that no one seemed to be paying attention, so I slipped a $20 bill into my pocket.
It was the first and last time I stole. A coworker saw me from afar and told the owner, and I was fired that day.
I thought I had checked every angle. I had overlooked the one that mattered. Paul wrote Colossians 3:23 to people with no power, no path to promotion, and often no say in their conditions. He still told them their work had a higher audience than their master. That is the point. When your real audience is God, the question changes from “Can I get away with this?” to “Is this worthy of the One who sees it?”
This is not only about avoiding theft. It shows up in smaller ways: the call note you skip, the CRM field you leave vague, the report you pad slightly to look better. Each is a small decision about who you are working for.
Monday: Pick one thing only you can see, like a deal log, a rep assignment, or a commission entry. Check it for accuracy and fix anything that’s off, even if no one would ever notice.
2. Let your yes be yes
“Let your ‘Yes’ be yes, and your ‘No,’ no.” ~ Matthew 5:37
Jesus said this in the Sermon on the Mount while correcting a culture of elaborate oaths. People would swear by heaven, by Jerusalem, or by their own heads to make a promise sound more reliable. The practice implied that their plain word wasn’t enough. Jesus’s answer was to become the kind of person whose plain word is enough.
Business runs on the same trouble. We add qualifiers and soft commitments: “I’ll try to get that to you,” “We should be able to deliver by then,” “Let me see what I can do.” Sometimes that is honest caution. Often it is a way to avoid the discomfort of a clear answer, and it leaves the other person unsure whether to plan around us.
Overpromising is especially tempting in sales. The deal is on the table, the customer wants a timeline, and the honest answer might cost the sale. But a promise you can’t keep only postpones the problem and adds a broken relationship to it. The same holds in management. If you tell your team you’ll get back to them by Friday, Friday is a promise. Leaders who miss small commitments teach their teams to stop believing the big ones.
A clear “no” is part of this too. Declining a request you can’t fulfill is more honest than agreeing and quietly failing.
Tuesday: Review every commitment you’ve made this week. Deliver on it, or go to the person early and renegotiate honestly.
3. Keep honest scales
“The Lord detests dishonest scales, but accurate weights find favor with him.” ~ Proverbs 11:1
In the ancient marketplace, merchants weighed goods on a balance. A rigged weight or a doctored scale let a seller quietly shortchange a buyer, and the buyer usually couldn’t tell. Scripture treats this as more than bad business. It calls it detestable to God, because it is theft dressed up as a transaction.
Few of us run a literal scale today, but we all keep a figurative one: our pricing, our forecasts, our metrics, our expense reports, the way we describe a product’s capabilities. The question is whether the number we present matches reality.
Honest scales also help you. Leaders who report accurately can see what’s really happening and fix it. Leaders who report optimistically end up managing a fiction.
Wednesday: Look at one report, forecast, or quote you own. Ask whether it reflects reality or what you wish were true, and correct it if needed.
4. Lead by serving
“Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.” ~ Mark 10:43-44
The disciples had just been arguing about who would get the best seats in the kingdom. Jesus gathered them and described how the world’s leaders operate: they lord their authority over people. Then he said, “Not so with you.” He pointed to himself as the model, the one who came “not to be served, but to serve” (Mark 10:45).
This is the reverse of how most workplaces define leadership. We tend to equate it with position, authority, and being the one who gets updated. Servant leadership asks a different question: what does my team need from me to succeed?
I speak with people from all walks of life every day. Whether they come with an interest or a real need, the most valuable thing I can offer is my service. That doesn’t mean a polished sales pitch about an amazing product they supposedly need. It means listening first, then serving. If I walk away from a conversation without a sale, but I know I helped them to the best of my ability, I’m satisfied.
What’s the saying? ‘People don’t care that you know until they know that you care’. That adds value to each relationship.
Thursday: In your next conversation with a customer or a team member, ask what they need, listen to the full answer, and then help in whatever way serves them best, sale or no sale.
5. Be faithful in the small things
“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.” ~ Luke 16:10
Nobody is promoted for one great day. Trust is built from small, repeated acts that nobody applauds: logging the call, answering the email, showing up to the one-on-one on time, finishing what you said you’d finish.
Years ago, I worked for a short time at a church as a facilities associate, which is a fancy title for a custodian. Whenever I saw a piece of trash on the ground or something that needed to be put away, the Holy Spirit would inspire a thought: “Pick that up,” or “Put that away.”
What I came to realize is that those little acts of obedience were preparing me for larger roles of responsibility. That was 16 years ago, and I still find myself picking up garbage without the prompting.
Jesus makes a striking claim in Luke 16:10. Your handling of small things is not just practice for bigger responsibilities. It is the test. How you treat minor details reveals your character, because there is often no audience, no reward, and no pressure to perform. Small tasks show what you do when no one is checking.
This connects back to the first principle. The person who is faithful with a $20 bill, an accurate CRM entry, or a piece of trash on the floor is building the character that can later be trusted with a team, a budget, or a company. The reverse is true as well. Small compromises rarely stay small.
The encouraging side of this verse is that you don’t need a big platform to start. Faithfulness in the ordinary is the on-ramp to everything else.
Friday: Choose one small thing you tend to put off, like the quick reply, the note you skip, or the item left out of place. Do it the moment you notice it, and keep that habit for the next 30 days.
Where to start
You don’t need to apply all five at once. Pick the one that stung a little as you read and begin there. Faith at work isn’t about adding religious language to your day. It’s about letting your character, honesty, and care for people show up in the work itself.
Question for you: Which of these is hardest in your current role? Leave a comment and let’s talk about it.
Grab your free Faith at Work Weekly Planner
Want help applying these five principles all week? Download the free Faith at Work Weekly Planner. It’s a customizable work week guide with Bible verses, example statements, and space to plan each day around what matters most. Fill it in on your screen or print it out, and start your Monday with a plan.
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