God has been speaking to me two verses:
The first that we must be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves. I know that He wants me to crank up my shrewdness in business. I believe it to be so that I can gain influence. But, He also wants to prosper my family.
Matthew 10:16
A Hard Road before Them
16“Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves.
The second is the parable about the manager who is judged as not worthy to manage any longer but pulls of some shrewd things before he gets fired. The light bulb just went off on this parable. I didnt have eyes for it ever. Now, I see that he did this so that the folks in business would view him favorably after he was canned. He cut what they owed to gain favor. God says that even the wicked know how to conduct themselves in business to increase in favor. We must be shrewd too.
Luke 16
The Unrighteous Steward
1Now He was also saying to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and this manager was reported to him as squandering his possessions.
2“And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an accounting of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’
3“The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig; I am ashamed to beg.
4‘I know what I shall do, so that when I am removed from the management people will welcome me into their homes.’
5“And he summoned each one of his master’s debtors, and he began saying to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’
6“And he said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’
7“Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ And he said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’
8“And his master praised the unrighteous manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light.
9“And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the [a]wealth of unrighteousness, so that when it fails, they will receive you into the eternal dwellings.
10“He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much.
11“Therefore if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you?
12“And if you have not been faithful in the use of that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own?
13“No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other You cannot serve God and wealth.”