Most financial decisions are made by people using their natural man (their five senses). God’s desire and design is to learn how to make decisions that include our spiritual man.  By Gary Shotton #000473

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Spiritual Man

By Gary Shotton

This text is in Extreme Rough draft and will be edited in the near future.

My name is Gary Shotton, and I’m here as a part of inspiring better business. Today we’re going to talk about the spiritual man, and especially the spiritual man in regards to business and finance. I was just graduated from college and went to my first job and then I had 10 years experience there. And I felt the Spirit of God leading my wife and I to move to a new town 1200 miles away that’s almost 1900 kilometers. And I’ll just describe a little more this time than before because I was setting in a really good job, one of the best jobs in this town of 2500 people. I was a big corporation I had 10 years they were grooming me for management and upper management and I had, as I said three small children but the company paid for all of the insurance I had of company vehicle including the fuel, I got to use the vehicle to go drive home back and forth to the job which is uncommon today, and I had the kind of like the good life I had 14 acres, I had a ranch type gentleman’s farm with some cattle and, and, but I distinctly felt a leading of God to move out of that scenario, into bible school where I would learn faith and how to be led by the Spirit of God. Now, I’m talking about this because I believe that was an evidence of the first step. My first experience with following God, in my spirit My spirit man not my mind or my intellect my natural man because naturally I was on a track that many people would have just been excited to be on the same path I was, and I gave it up. Well let’s describe the spiritual man versus the physical man or more distinctly. Well first of all the physical man. All of us have normally all five of our senses sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell, and it’s what we have God designed in our bodies to assimilate, safety and comfort and decisions, reading hearing all those things are the five senses that are called the natural man. And in the business world, we have most decisions are made by those financial analogies, I mean, they’re analogies that use, you, you run through your five senses many times it’s a your brain that’s calculating and what you see. And they can be a guiding force and they are a guiding force for many, many people probably the majority of people, but I’m sad to tell you that there’s a lot of people that have made decisions solely on their father physical man, and they are disappointed in life, disappointed in the future, they may have all the money they possibly could want. But that’s not satisfying, and I know it sounds weird to some people because some people put so much emphasis on all it would take is to have more money, and I will be happy. But I’m telling you, there’s many many people in fact most people that do not have a relationship with God and this spirit man are very empty. Well the spirit man. Well originally God designed the spirit man to be led by the Holy Spirit by God himself, but sin entered the world back in Adam and Eve, and that bro was broken and that that that link between God communicating directly with mankind was broken because of sin. And as you know, the fast forward was Jesus, God was sent his son Jesus Christ died on a cross, rose again, and according to Romans 10 Nine and 10 if thou shalt confess with your mouth Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in thine heart that God is raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. That happened to my wife and I, in that first year after I was working on my head my new company and things changed immediately from the most boring dad job that I should have been happy with, to the most exciting future I can find in my financial and in my business world, I was excited that I was able to grow up from childhood, a baby child in the Lord to adulthood or a partial towards adulthood and starting that walk.

Well,  I had two other major times in my life that I believe the Spirit of God led me, one was when I had already owned my first business for 17 years. And this is a historic moving transportation company where we move furniture and stored, furniture, and in that setting. I had not arrived it was a pretty tough business. And yet again, I made a conscious decision to fire, follow the leading of God, the, the inward witness to put my business for sale with one particular buyer the only one that would possibly want to buy my company was a merger with a company that was in a city nearby. Well, it happened on affective about the 15th day of, of 2000, the year 2001 Well what happened on 911 2001 Well, That was the ignorantly bombing of the World Trade Center and all of economy took a nosedive people wondered how do I did I notice sell before that I didn’t. The Spirit of God led me, I’m telling you, the spirit man inside of me led me in a subtle way to know that was the right way to go. Again, when I came time to buy my current company. I was age 55 Normally people would be winding down, looking for near retirement or could retire, and I had some revenue that would keep me how comfortable not nothing excessive and again the Spirit of God led me. I believe that spirit man inside of me led me to, to become a new owner of a new business with some 65 employees, and a lot of responsibility. Later on in my life, the Spirit of God, the spiritual man inside of me was tuned in to God. Now I don’t want to give the impression that everything was perfect and I’m never made mistakes, please understand, I’m hitting the high points and I’m giving credit where credit’s due. That is God that God gave me the insight and wisdom. So, I’ve got to kind of give you some insight though that that, that, that, that being led by the Spirit of God is not like turning on a switch, it’s dark and you go over and turn on the switch and wow all instantly there’s light. It’s not like that. The Spirit of God is ready to move first on the natural simple things that you should do in order to prepare yourself for the leading of God in a more supernatural way, the spirit man inside of me wants to take leadership over my physical man, I’m not putting all the the mindset on this, on the side I’m using that also but they go together. So here’s three point steps that I hope that would be helpful. First of all, if you’re wanting to be led by that spirit man inside of you, you must work on putting your personal finances in order. Whatever that means you have to do that. Think about it. If you cannot handle money in a little way, who’s going to trust you, the bank know anybody that knows you know God. No, he’s not going to trust you with money that you haven’t already demonstrated that you could handle the money on a simple thing slow a little things, the things that you are responsible for on a day to day basis. The way you spend your money. The way you read be conservative and not waste your money, you have to be able to handle your personal finances in a solid good way over a long period of time before God will ever trust you with his number two, you’re going to have to be learned to be a giver. Now, you know, if you have an attitude to the dishes my money, and I’m giving up my money to the work of the Kingdom of God, you’ll never get there. You got to come to the conclusion that you’re handling God’s money, and the way you’re handling God’s money, that indicates how much more money you’re entrusted with from God. And so giving is a part of being called to the business world the work world into the financial world, it’s not there, is you’re not called to be some reservoir like the water and all this money is being now accumulated into your huge bank account and you’re going to brag about how much money gods give you, it’s not true. It’s are you like a river or a stream, are you handling his money in a way that it’s passing through your hands and and not all but you have a wonderful life I have a wonderful house, a wonderful of the good vehicles, but I’m handling the God’s money in a way that I’m a perpetual giver. I mean, without numbers, if you were able to look at my checkbook, my, my end of the year tax report you would see that dollars go out of my checking account, please understand I’m not bragging I’m trying to help you with understanding that important. So number three, you’ve got to work at developing your faith. You know this is a lifelong process of learning about God and how God works, and how God leads you. I did lessons on following the in the inward witness and how God would lead you and guide you. God wants you to be a full fledged relational type person with him, and that means you’re your physical man, you’re using your intellect your wisdom, all that God gave you, but more importantly, you’re learning to follow the spirit man inside of you, the man inside of you that is more in touch with God than anything else you can imagine. Well, God wants you to have success God wants you to have good things and I’m here to help you in a small way as an instructor to mentor and help guide you. Thanks for being a part of Inspiring Better Business.