Spiritual?
GODSun Perspective on
Spirituality, Leadership and Business
June 2023 Vol: 0623
Exploring the Interconnectedness of Spirituality, Leadership and Business
This is the sixth newsletter looking at the interconnectedness between the spiritual, leadership and business arenas. In this one I am going to provide a more clear understanding of what I mean when I say spiritual. I have indicated before that the spirit realm is unseen but I don’t think that that gives a clear understanding of how the spirit realm impacts us. I will try and clarify it more in this newsletter.
As I stated previously, I believe that having a clear understanding of what you believe will enable you to be a more effective leader and business owner. This recognition will generate power and excellence in whatever is done.
Photo to the right is by George Pagan III on Unsplash.
Our spirit is the vehicle through which the spirit realm interacts with humankind. The spirit realm may be comprised of different entities such as angels and the hierarchies within their order, fallen angels and their hierarchy, demons and God Almighty. For those of you who have watched the Christmas Carol remember when Scrooge’s business partner came back to visit him from the dead? He was a spirit and he told him that he would be visited by three spirits that night. Before he left he showed Scrooge the spirits of humankind that wanted to intervene for good in the lives of mankind but had lost their power to be able to do so. I don’t know if this is true or not but I do know that the only way the spiritual world can impact the physical or natural world is by getting a human being to partner with them or to agree with them. Let’s go back to the beginning.
God gave dominion to mankind (male and female) and they in turn, through deception, gave their dominion over to a fallen angel called Lucifer. Mankind, who was positioned above this fallen angel, believed the lies he told them and willingly took off their crown and gave it to Lucifer. They thought that they were going to get something of greater value in return. He caused them to doubt God’s goodness and to believe that God was holding out on them. That there was something much better to be had and they could get it by doing what Lucifer told them to do instead of obeying God. Sounds like some kind of a fairy story doesn’t it? Or does it?
This is the same tactic that Satan is using today. He causes mankind to question God’s existence, goodness and love for us and then weaves insidious lies and half truths about Him and who we are. We exchange truth for a lie and then wonder why our lives and our world is in such a mess. We wonder why things are so hard and seem to go from bad to worse with increased confusion, mental health issues, division, violence, hate, etc. These things happen because we don’t know the truth anymore. And we don’t know truth because we are getting our information from the father of lies, satan. He was a liar and deceiver from the beginning and that is what he continues to do. So, if you are seeing a lot of lying and deception going on, it is because satan is working through those perpetrating the lies and deception. He has connected his spirit to their spirit and is using them to wreak havoc on earth. You see he has no power to do anything unless we decide to partner with him. God doesn’t traffic in lies. He is full of love, grace and truth.
What I have written above is foundational spiritual knowledge. Whether you believe in the spirit realm or not, you are being impacted by it. And
Not believing in it doesn’t make you any less susceptible to it.
You will yield yourself to one or the other.
You may say that you are an independent thinker and have complete control over your thoughts and, therefore, your actions. I have to challenge you on that. We live in a world where someone is trying to control our thoughts to direct our behaviour, response or perspective. Whether it is the school system, the books we read, media, etc. We are always getting messages to buy, sell, be angry or full of hate, or to be kind and loving. That is what marketing is all about. How to manipulate the masses to do what is in the best interests of the marketer. In all of these situations the method being used to control behaviour is based on the truth or a lie. Mankind has gone to war based on lies that they were told. We need to be able to discern what is truth and what is a lie. This will be hard to achieve if we lack foundational spiritual truth. In everything there is an opposing opposite and we have to acknowledge that in the spirit realm there is an absolute good Spirit and an absolute bad spirit. Both of which we can choose to allow to interact with out spirit. Without this foundational truth we will believe lies, things that may be presented as truth, and act accordingly. This, in my opinion, is the biggest challenge of the western world. We no longer know truth or are afraid to speak truth since we live in a culture that glories in lies and deceptions. Just like Hans Anderson’s story of the Emperor’s new clothes, that I wrote about in the last newsletter. Everyone knew the truth but felt it was safer to adhere to the lie.
As business owners and leaders we get to choose what we are going to immerse ourselves and our business in: truth or lies. Both have consequences. Not just for ourselves individually but also for our family and culture. Be clear that if we decide to partner with lies in order to maintain or increase our bottom line then we have chosen to yield to evil. The best seller of all times has clearly stated that the root of all kinds of evil is the love of money (1 Tim 6:10). If we believe that money will solve all of our problems then we will make decisions based on that lie. We have been led to believe that if we have more money we’ll be happier. We believe that money will ensure that we have all the things that make life worth living such as recognition, peace, etc. That is a lie. We all know people who had lots of money and were connected to powerful people yet had no joy or peace and checked out of life. They didn’t get the life they dreamed of because they had received and believed a lie and not the truth. The lie kills but the truth gives life. We should never love money. Only people. And we should only use money and never people. When we put money above people we have the horrendous things that are going on now in the world with drugs, sex trafficking and all kinds of abuses.
As a leader you need to know where you are coming from and why. You need to check your results and then you have to decide if those are the results that you want to be known for. Do you want that to be your legacy? If not, then you have to actively work at getting on another track since you are going to reap what you sow. In last months newsletter I gave a quote attributed to Edmund Burke and this month I am going to revise it a little and put my spin on it.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is
for good men and women to not understand the difference between a lie and the truth.
Which ever spirit realm we connect to will impact our thoughts because those are the thoughts that we will become aware of. The thoughts of joy, love, peace, unity, etc. are the thoughts connected to the light. Thoughts that produce anger, hate, division, jealousy, feeling sorry for oneself, etc. indicates that one’s spirit is connected to the dark side. Our minds can pick up thoughts from our spirit and our spirit can pick up the thoughts of the spirit world. We then act out our thoughts. I have already spoken about our minds and how our mind impacts our brain and that the mind and the brain are two separate entities. I also informed you how the thoughts impact the body through the release of chemicals. If you want to find out more about this check out the first newsletter . Studies have shown how positive thoughts cause the brain to light up and negative thoughts cause damage to the neurons in the brain and light is dimmed or causes certain areas of the brain to go dark. Dr. Caroline Leaf says “Every time you have a thought , it is actively changing your brain and your body – for better or worse.” From her book entitled “Who Switched Off My Brain?”
As much as we may not like what I am going to say next, I believe that it is true, by the evidence of what has been transpiring in the world. When we exchanged the position that God had given us for the position that satan promised us, which didn’t really exist, we unknowingly but willingly disconnected our spirit from God Almighty and connected to satan’s. This has had catastrophic effects down through the millennia and not just for mankind but for all of creation. Nothing visible is an accident. It is of divine creation, including mankind. As a result of our connection to satan we can think and channel satan’s thoughts, which are lies, but we don’t receive them as lies because 1) we don’t realize that it is happening or 2) we don’t believe that that is happening. We think that those are our thoughts and therefore we act on them instead of checking the source of the thought. We have the authority to cast down a thought, to reject it and think differently. But if we are believing a lie about a person or a thing we may not cast down the thought. Let me give you an example. For years women were considered as chattel. Something to be owned and used and abused however the man wanted to do. Yet if we had understood the truth of who a woman was, created in the image of God and an equal, that would never have taken place. But the truth of the Word of God was not received. Let’s back up a bit. Who is the one who chose not to be in subjection to the Word of God? Satan. Therefore, when we choose not to submit to the words of God we are choosing to submit to the lies of satan and his lies will produce oppression, division, hate, etc. There is no other outcome possible if we are connected to him since there is no goodness in him. There are only two sides and we are on one or the other either intentionally or unintentionally. I say unintentionally because I don’t believe that most people actually want to do harm. But not being aware of the truth of the situation will cause us to make the wrong decision and think that we are doing the right thing. Not believing that there is an opposing force to God Almighty will cause us to believe a lie and not recognize the influence that we are under. We need to know the difference between the truth and the lie. If not we may support wrong activities that will cause us to be identified in a way that does not align with our values.
As a business owner and a leader we will be called upon from time to time to make hard decisions. And in some cases we may be pressured to make a bad decision. Or it may be a decision that looks right on paper but doesn’t feel right and ends up with bad results. That is probably an indication that not all the information was presented to enable a decision to be made that would lead to good results. It also shows that our spirit was trying to guide us away from that decision but we ignored it. If something doesn’t feel right it is the spirit realm trying to assist us to do the right thing and not the wrong thing. It is important to know which spirit world we are connecting to on a regular basis. The more often we do the wrong thing the easier it will be to make the same decision the next time around.
Following the truth or a lie is a personal decision and no one can make that decision for us. Nor can anyone force us to do something that we are not willing to do. As I stated in last months newsletter we need to know that the company or person we are partnering with is trustworthy. A person is only worthy of trust if they are a person of integrity and character which means they are a person who knows the difference between the truth and the lie and who will always choose the way of truth. The truth can bear up under any and all instances of a challenge but a lie will not.
We cannot ignore the spiritual side of us since it is the most powerful of the triune part of man: spirit, soul and body. We need to go beyond just what can be seen and tap into our spiritual connection to make powerful and beneficial decisions.
I hope that this newsletter has given you some answers to things that have been happening to you and perhaps has also given you something to think about.
Sunday
