Offerings and selling things

Human life well understood is life in relationship to God. All that we do should be connected to God. All that we are should be under God. This is no different for the the activity of selling a product.

Let us assume that you are selling a good product or service and asking a good price. A good product is one that will fulfill a good need that people are having. The product should be good externally and internally. An internal good product is one that carries good energies, energies that are elevating for man. Your product should not be too expensive and not be too cheap. You can sometimes give away things but normally you don't want to sell products for a price under its value, because in that case you would take away the chance for people to offer something to God through their buying the product or service.

There are two moments in the process of selling. The first moment is your selling the product to a customer. The second moment is that of you offering to God the money that you acquired. The first moment is one in that you are functioning as a priest accepting an offering from people. The second moment is that of you as a priest offering your accomplishments to God. Let us study these two moments in more detail.

Your function as a priest accepting the offerings people make through buying things

There are a number of rules to keep in mind for this stage of the selling process.

1. Your selling a product only becomes an offering to God for the people who buy when you really represent God. This rule puts strict demands on you as the intermediary person between the buyer and God. Your heart and mind should be centered on God during the entire process of your selling. This is only possible when you don't deceive the people or try to tempt them with false arguments. You should be honest and fair and friendly to the people. You should really try to love people in a way that God likes. You are selling a product, but that is only an external aspect of your meeting people. Most important is that you engage in a relationship with someone. In this relationship you should try to represent God and you should try to look at the person in the way that God does. In that way, you can overcome when you would have false feelings such as pride, arrogance, jealousy etc. Your main task in the selling process is that you give God's love to the person and that you try to give to the person what the person needs.
2. The buyer of the product should buy in complete freedom. When you understand the money you acquire as an offering to God, you also understand that the buyer should have complete freedom. God can never accept offerings from people who did not really want to bring that offering. An offering is a gift to God. This should be a gift of love. No love can be given if it is forced in some way, through deception, temptation or external pressure. You may attempt to convince the person that your product is good and you may move the person to buy through your love and goodness, but that is not the same as when you try to apply smart sales techniques. After a person bought the product, he or she should have a good feeling about it. The person should really be happy to have given money to you. The person doesn't need to know that you represent God. By your sacred being and pure actions you can make clear to the buyer that you are a good and trustworthy person.
3. Keep the goals that God gave you for a day. At the beginning of the day, before you go out to sell things or deliver services, you can ask God what goals you should fulfill for that day. When you ask for it, usually God gives you an internal goal and an external goal. You should also ask God what to sell and where to sell. The internal goal can be something connected to yourself, something that God wants you to learn for that day, for example. It could also be something connected to the town or people where you are going to sell things. The external goal usually is a certain amount of products to be sold during a specified time period. During the entire day you should try to remain focused on your goals. For example, if you get distracted by having nice conversations with people, it might be that you won't make your goals. When you did not reach the goal at the end of the day, pray to find out what caused it. Sometimes it may have been caused by your own mistakes and then you can learn from that. Sometimes outside factors may have contributed to failing to reach the goals. Also in that case, pray about it to learn more.
4. Consider that offerings from some people cannot be accepted. Some people may offer to buy things or a product of service from you with bad motivation. They may want to hire you as their slave, making profit from you for egoistic purposes. In that case it is better to either put certain conditions for what you want to sell or serve, or you may refrain from selling altogether. God cannot accept offerings that are made by selfish people having evil intentions. For example, God could not accept Cain's offering because Cain had selfish motivation and wanted to get things from God. When you understand yourself to be a priest who must decide whether offerings are acceptable to God, you also know that you need to find out whether people's motivation for buying your product or service is either lofty or clouded by evil intentions.

Your function as a priest to offer to God the results of your sales

1. All offerings need to be split. You can never just throw all your offerings on God's altar. Always there is the need to split the offering. For example, if you got money from someone who wants something back for it in evil motivation, there is a claim on the money. As soon as you use that money, the person who gave you the money will want to check if you do with the money something pleasing to him or her. If you offer that money to God, you also pass on the evil claims to God and this is not how it should be. Therefore, in prayer, you must ask God how to split the offering. You cannot pass on debts to God. If for example you still need part of the money to pay off debts to the world, you cannot offer that money to God because it is claimed by your debtors. Ask God how to split the offering. How much money is acceptable as an offering to God, how much money should get another purpose. Sometimes offerings need to be split in two, sometimes in three or more parts. In that case, only the most sacred portion of the money can be offered to God. In seldom cases, none of the money you acquired will be acceptable as offering to God.
2. Consider to whom to offer. You are the priest who is responsible to bring the offerings of the people, the buyers, to God. You also need to acknowledge the ones who made your product. You need to pay them off before you can offer to God. Appreciate the value of the product made by the producer. If you got a lot of spiritual trouble in selling a product, it might have been caused by bad conditions made by the producer. Sometimes you may feel that you paid too little to the producer as he or she sold you products with higher value than you realized. In that case, consider to offer back to the producer more than you initially paid. He or she can then use that money as offerings to God. Sometimes God wants you to bring offerings to a higher-ranked priest, for example the highpriest of God's nation, or your parents or restoration parents. Be serious in prayer to find out to whom to offer what.
3. In which manner to offer. Each offering is a gift, a present to God and sometimes a gift to a person. In any case, always present your offering in a dignified manner and 'wrapped' in an acceptable way. Sometimes it is enough to just put money in a clean envelope. Never just 'throw' the money on the offering altar, by manner of speaking. Don't let the person who receives your offering do the work of counting. Present money in the form of clean and neat bills and coins. Do not offer money bills that are literally dirty or stained or torn.

Finally, don't forget about the essential nature of offerings to God. Already all things belong to God. You are not really giving anything to God, you are just giving back what belongs to God. In a sense, not even that is true, because all things belong to God, whether they were stolen or not. What you are really offering is yourself. The offering stands in the place of yourself. What you are offering to God is your own work, your money and your heart. Through offering to God you are restoring yourself and gaining the highest value possible out of what most people consider to be something rather low and dirty, the aspect of life commonly called 'business.'