”How’s business?” This is a greeting almost as common in some circles as ”Hi” or ”How are you?”

It no doubt originated with an honest concern for another person’s business health just as ”How are you?” was asked to determine another’s physical well being. Both phrases have been so over used that the one making the inquiry often does not really want to know or care how the other person or their business is prospering.

To those in business, the answer to ”How’s Business” is one of the most important facts in their life. Businesses keep track of receipts or orders on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis, and they are constantly comparing this month and this year with last month and last year’s totals to determine just how business is doing.

Jesus at the tender age of twelve told his mother that he must be about his Father’s business. Are we busily engaged in our Father’s business? There are some who would answer this question with a ”yes” when in fact the real answer is ”no.”

This happened when Jesus held a conversation with the Pharisees while he was teaching in the temple. The Jews told Jesus, ”We have one Father, even God.” They thought that they were about God’s business but Jesus corrected them by saying, ”If God were your Father, ye would love me.” They hated Jesus, therefore saying that God was their Father was incorrect. Jesus proceeded to tell them who their real father was. He said, ”Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.”

In actual fact, we are all about our father’s business. It all depends on who is our father. If our father is sin, as is the case with most of the world’s population, then we will be busy in his business of sinning. The world is really an expert at this business and many put in long hours and work overtime in the sinning business.

Jesus has given us this test to determine if God is our Father. He said, ”If God is your Father, you will love me.” So do we love Jesus? There is another little test to get the true answer to this question. Jesus said, ”If you love me, keep my commandments.” There are really a lot of people walking around saying they love God and they love Jesus, but in actual fact, their real father is sin and all their time and energy is being expended in service to him instead of the Heavenly Father.

Just what is the business of our Heavenly Father, the business that Jesus was about even at the age of twelve years? God is in the people business. He has devised a plan whereby fallen mankind can be reconciled to Him through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now God is always looking for those honest and sincere ones willing to go into business with Him. Unfortunately most of the world’s population is in business for themseIves, as Paul pointed out when he said, ”For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.”

To be in business with God, we must follow His son who was truly about his Father’s business and stop pleasing ourselves and start serving others. Paul put it beautifully when he told the Romans, ”We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and to please ourselves. Let everyone of us please his neighbour for his good to edification. For even Christ pleased not himself.”

Being in business with God is a service business and there is a real labor shortage for Jesus has told us ”the harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few.”

We have no excuse to be unemployed but there are always many excuses why we cannot be about our Heavenly Father’s business. Jesus in one of his parables, tells us how ”they all with one consent began to make excuse.” None of their excuses was accepted. None of ours will be either. If we are not now about our Heavenly Father’s business, let’s get in it today so that our answer to ”How’s business?” will be the same as the answer Paul gave when he said, ”Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbour... just as I try to please all men in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.”