If you don’t pay attention, you will miss it!
There is a deep lie. Very deep. In fact, at some point while reading this article you’ll experience it if you haven’t done so already from the title.
The lie is so pervasive; it’s almost militant in the keeping of a myth that is wreaking havoc in modern culture. The lie whispers that giving your life to God means signing a contract for mediocrity or accepting poverty or being timid. If you don’t pay attention, you’ll miss it. Or even worse, you’ll believe it!
Have you noticed it? – that we are quietly conditioned to believe that faith is a speed bump on the road to achievement. Some of us come across a mandate like the one to “seek first the Kingdom” and mistakenly translate it as a command to stop striving, shrink our ambitions, and abandon fierceness in the marketplace. In such cases, we confuse constraint with a lack of ambition.
I say the exact opposite is true! I am willing to withstand any attack that may come because of the belief that prioritising transcendent moral authority is not an “anti-success” posture, but rather a superior, higher-order success architecture.
I believe that it’s long overdue that we, as stewards, shatter the illusion that faith and achievement are mutually exclusive. God is fiercely pro-success; He is simply anti-ego, anti-pride and anti-disobedience. And many of us who have not figured out this secret to God-first success find it easier to reject Him, one of the reasons being that our characters are not steadfast.
The “All Me” Limitation
Let’s pause here a bit, because this is the exact moment where the conversation usually derails. I want us to ‘journey together’ on this:
In our zeal to put God first, it is incredibly tempting to blindly demonise the marketplace. We look at corporate structures, profit margins, strategic scaling, and the relentless pursuit of excellence and wealth, and we mistakenly label them as inherently “anti-God.”
But if we are honest and rigorous in our inquiry, we must acknowledge that this is simply not true. The established systems of success are not the enemy. The marketplace is a profound engine for human innovation; it is where complex problems are solved, where families are sustained, and where human potential is cultivated. Many of the principles that govern the business world such as discipline, strategic foresight, accountability, and diligent execution, are deeply biblical concepts. History is replete with leaders who leveraged the established systems of their time not to conform to the world, but to redeem it and uplift humanity.
The crisis we are facing (the reason many modern professionals and success chasers are burning out at a staggering, unprecedented rate) is not because we are participating in the marketplace. It is because we are demanding that the marketplace do something it was never architected to do. We are attempting to realise God-aligned visions and God-aligned identities using “All Me”-sized materials.
Here’s an example of what I mean – think about what we are predominantly using to construct our sense of self right now. We are taking the brilliant, functional tools of business i.e. marketplace logic, competitive drive, and the pursuit of self-sustainability… and trying to use them as the foundation for our intrinsic (human) worth.
In structural engineering, I learned about a concept known as load-bearing capacity. Every material has a limit to the weight it can support before it fractures and collapses. A brick of marketplace logic is a phenomenal material for constructing a marketing strategy or scaling a project. But if you take that exact same brick and use it as the foundational pillar for your soul, your inner peace, and your ultimate identity? It will inevitably shatter under the pressure. Those materials simply lack the structural integrity, i.e. the load-bearing capacity of perfect love.
When we operate from this misalignment, we slip into what’s labelled as the “anxiety of ownership.” It is a documented psychological trap where high achievers begin to inextricably tie their inherent value to their latest performance metric. It often starts innocently: you perform well, you are rewarded, and slowly, your psyche makes a quiet transaction, concluding that you only matter if you succeed.
But when your entire identity is wrapped up in this anxious ownership, the stakes of daily life become impossibly, suffocatingly high. A bad quarter or a failed project isn’t just a business problem; it registers in your mind as a fatal blow to your worth. Conversely, a massive victory doesn’t bring lasting peace; it merely brings an isolating, temporary high, followed immediately by the terrifying realisation that you now have to outdo yourself tomorrow.
You may find yourself trapped on a treadmill, terrified that if you stop running, the empire of ‘you’ will collapse. That cannot be all that success is. That’s not healthy. To me, the best those situations demonstrate is survival dressed up in a designer suit called success.
We must begin to understand that when we say God-First success, you’re not being asked to abandon the tools of the marketplace. You’re being asked to reorder priorities. This is an invitation for you to stop using fragile, temporary materials to bear the weight of your identity, and instead to build your life on a foundation that cannot be shaken.
Stewardship: The Pararadigm Shift
Here is where the God-First paradigm changes the game entirely. It introduces a radical pivot: we have to relinquish theanxiety of ownership for the disciplined, liberating practice of stewardship.
In short –
- Ownership Anxiety – Give it away. Drop it. Do away with it. Send it back to the sender.
- Stewardship – Take it up. Learn to do it. Adopt it. Adapt it. Live it. Be it.
Let me say this as clearly as I can: a steward does not play small. A steward is fiercely ambitious. A steward is expected to be highly productive, to innovate, and to multiply the talents they’ve been given. The difference between a steward and the ‘normal’ way of doing things? The psychological, emotional and spiritual pressure is fundamentally different – the mindset and soulset of the steward is this: I am doing everything for/because of/by/with God First.
Think about it in marketplace terms. When you are the absolute owner of an empire built on your own ego, every fluctuation in the market is a direct, existential threat to your soul. But when you are a steward, you realise you are managing assets – your time, your intellect, your financial resources, and your relationships – for the Creator of the universe. They are not personal trophies to be hoarded for your own glory; they are divine trusts meant to be invested for a greater good.
When you remove the agonising, suffocating pressure of having to be a “self-made” owner, you are highly likely to experience liberation (scripture calls this peace that surpasses all understanding). You can take bolder, more innovative risks because your worth isn’t tied to the outcome. You can build deeper, more authentic relationships because you no longer see people merely as competition or collateral. You see people as an extension of God and you treat them as such. You can then create with profound joy, knowing the foundation isn’t resting entirely on your fragile shoulders, but on the unshakeable grace of God.
The Science of “Loving Your Neighbour”
You might be thinking, “This sounds great for a Sunday sermon, but does it actually hold up in the cutthroat real world?“
It absolutely does. In fact, let me make a bold statement – science is just finally catching up to what Scripture has documented as a reference to how to live.
The secular world loves to praise the ruthless, ego-driven competitor. Understandbly so because if you don’t compete you will be crushed. Yet, while that’s a fact that stands on its own feet, there are other facts from decades of hard, longitudinal psychological data proving that traits like conscientiousness, impulse control, and steadfast moral character are actually the most robust predictors of lifelong occupational success, high income, and resilience under pressure.
And what about the biblical command to “Love your neighbour”? Well, this is referred to as “prosocial behaviour” in behavioural science and the data on it is beautiful. Far from slowing you down, actively helping and cooperating with others is mathematically linked to higher psychological well-being, increased life satisfaction, and lower rates of burnout. Very few of us who went through Covid will deny the importance of neighbourly love. We got to experience, first hand that even in the workplace, this kind of selfless empathy builds immense social capital and team trust, which naturally yields higher organisational profitability and shareholder value, even if you were doing it through Zoom and Teams.
Loving people isn’t a distraction from your goals; it is the ultimate performance multiplier. Loving people isn’t about the limited transactional love language concepts (let me leave this topic for another day), it’s about first asking how God wants you to do for them through you, being obedient to Him, and then only taking the appropriate action.
The Paradox of Audacious Humility
So, how do we actually walk this out in the boardroom, the living room, and the community? We have to embrace what I call the Audacious Humility Codex.
I know, it sounds like an oxymoron. But this is the dual mandate of the God-First achiever.
For far too long, religious culture has quietly suggested that to be truly humble, you must shrink your goals, hide your talents, and apologise for your brilliance. Conversely, the secular hustle culture screams that to be successful, you must inflate your ego, crush your competitors, and worship your own reflection. Both paths are deeply flawed and ultimately destructive.
Audacious Humility cuts straight through this false dichotomy. It requires the profound, ego-shattering humility to serve others – to metaphorically, and sometimes literally, wash the feet of your employees, your clients, and your family. It demands that you view people not as stepping stones to your success, but as the very beneficiaries of your work.
Yet, in the exact same breath, it demands the fierce audacity to step into the marketplace, disrupt industries, architect godly character, and build massive, multi-generational legacies.
You do not have to apologise for your brilliance. You do not have to shrink your drive. You do not have to be ashamed of the wealth or influence you generate – provided those resources are anchored in God’s love and deployed to uplift your neighbour. We aren’t called to abandon the marketplace; we are called to conquer it with (above all else) love.
Redefining the Scorecard
It would be inexcusable naivety not to recognise that the world of the marketplace is a score-keeping space. But if your success costs you your soul, destroys your family’s stability, causes you to put your desires above God’s commandments, or compromises your moral integrity, then you have not succeeded. You have merely successfully executed a failure, and you may even get great recognition for it from the world.
True success isn’t measured solely by the capital you extract from the world. It is measured by the character you cultivate, the neighbourly love you protect, and the enduring legacy you leave behind. True success is not right standing with the world; it is right standing with God when the world is not watching.
Putting God first does not mean you stop building. It means you finally start building on a foundation that won’t shatter when the storms of life inevitably hit.
Friend, if you haven’t done it already, begin to trade the exhausting, hollow pursuit of self-glorification for the grounded power of stewardship.
Stop settling for the world’s definition of achievement and success, and go build a legacy that puts God first and outlives you.
One, Perfect Love.