Hello Family, it’s the penultimate Friday in August 2019!!! Time is really ebbing away & I do hope you are ticking off your 2019 set goals.

If YES, Kudos to you. If NO, all is not lost yet, we still have about 20 weeks left in 2019 to score some points & end the year on a high.

As always I am available to provide any support you might require.

About 2 weeks ago, I started a new series on the “THE TOTAL MAN” & based on comments & feedback, I have been inspired to continue today. To catch up on the last post in this series, please click on the link below:

THE TOTAL MAN

In continuation of the series, please note that Leke Alder gave this lecture or speech at the Men’s Conference of The Covenant Christian Center, The Covenant Place Iganmu, Lagos, Nigeria on Sunday, June 29, 2019.

Once again, allow me to introduce to some & present to others, Leke Alder:

According to Genesis, man was made from two ideational raw materials. They are “image” and “likeness” – “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness.” Genesis 1:27. These raw materials are progressive and nativist.

Because man is made from “image” for example he responds to images. If you’ve been wondering why men like Page 3 girls and cultural approximations, this is it.

But the fact man is made from image also gave him imagination. He can stitch imageries together in his head. And because he can visualize things, he has the capacity for vision.

The concept of a man therefore incorporates imagination and vision.

The second ideational raw material is “likeness.” Because man is made from “likeness” he is able to do comparative analysis, compare like with like, differentiate like from unlike. He can do analytical reasoning, run analogies.

The two ideational factors in essence gave man right brain, left brain capacities, much like the concept of the logos. The whole ideational infrastructure is based on the concept of the logos.

I know we often say logos is “written word” and “rhema” is “spoken word,” but those words are much deeper and much bigger than we imagine. In Greek philosophy, which is where the concepts came from, logos is the principle of divine reason and creative order.

It is a right brain, left brain proposition.Yes, logos is “word”; but that’s also the code name for Jesus in the programming world. “In the beginning was the Word.” John 1:1.

He’s the creative genius in Genesis – “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth.” Colossians 1:16. He generated a code to run the universe, eponymously named the programme “Word”.

The Bible says he upholds all things by the word of his power. Hebrews 1:3. The force of gravity is one of the functions of that program; science says it’s one of the four fundamental forces, along with strong and weak nuclear forces and electromagnetism.

Gravity holds things high up there. It is an expression of the word of his power.

What Jesus essentially did was donate his code to mankind. He programmed himself into man. He would later reprise that role in the New Testament with the recreated man. If any man be in Christ he is a new creature. 2 Corinthians 5:17. In other words, the Christian is Man version 2.0.

But here’s where it gets interesting. In order to give man the capacity to generate the future God licensed him a technology called faith. Faith is the technology of the future. It’s a creative technology. But without imagination faith can’t work. It’s why God uses visualization to generate faith in man.

We see an illustration of this in God’s dealings with a gentleman from the Middle East named Abraham. When God wanted to give him a vision of what he could become he directed his gaze heavenward, told him to count the stars to see his numeric potential.

With the naked eye Abraham must have seen thousands of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. But God wasn’t thinking thousands, he was thinking billions. And so he gave him a secondary analogy – told him his descendants will be like sand on the sea shore.

Abraham of course could not have known there are more stars in the Milky Way Galaxy than the sand on the sea shore. The Milky Way Galaxy alone has between 100-400 billion stars.

God never thinks small. Stop thinking small.

The law of visualization says you must see it before you see it. That’s because you can edit yourself. You have the capacity to become what you see. You can write your history in advance. And so to maximize your potential as a man you must learn to use your imagination, you must be creative.

And you must learn to reason analytically. You can’t do Twitter reasoning.

Let me give you a personal illustration on how to use the tool of visualization. When I was a young man I wanted to live in a particular neighborhood. The fences in that neighborhood are low rise. They’re are unlike the fence at Maximum Prison.

A certain class of people lived in that neighborhood. Buses don’t even ply that neighborhood. You have to own a car. Here’s what I did. I would drive to that neighborhood at least once every week. I’ll just keep driving round, soaking in the atmosphere.

Sometimes I’ll park and just drink in the environment. Within two years I had moved into that neighborhood. I didn’t even say, I’m exercising faith, or I’m believing God like we usually say. It just happened. My desire was so strong and I had visual aid.

Faith has to have a picture. It’s why Jesus asked the blind man what he wanted him to do. What do you want me to do for you, Jesus had asked. Mark 10:51. The man said he wanted to see. He needed to have a picture of his eyes restored in his head before his faith could function. That’s why Jesus asked him the question.

Please don’t confuse the Abrahamic visualization exercise with New Age application. New Age borrowed the principle but would not acknowledge the author. Satan has no respect for intellectual property. The problem with New Age is the non recognition of God, the substitution of God for man. Thus man becomes an end in himself and that is a negation of Genesis.

In New Age there’s an idolatrous appeal to mother nature, the crediting of the universe with outcomes. New Age has a form of godliness but denies the power thereof. 2 Timothy 3:5. But the principle of visualization is nonetheless valid.

You can increase your creative and reasoning capacity. If you want to expand your analytical and creative capabilities you need to read, and you have to read wide. Apostle Paul was a well-read individual. He was familiar with Plato’s philosophy. You’ll find a refutation of Platonic philosophy in some of his writings.

His concept of Christ as equal to God for example challenges Plato’s concept of a demiurge. In Platonic philosophy a demiurge is a subordinate god who fashions and arranges the physical world. Some Gnostics will later adopt the idea. They saw the demiurge as one of the forces of evil.

Apostle John was well read too. He seemed familiar with the work of an eccentric philosopher called Heraclitus. It was Heraclitus who originally propounded the concept of the Logos. John took the concept further, declaring the Logos is not just a principle but actually a personage. John 1:1 is more or less a doctoral thesis. Apostle John would also confront Gnosticism.

If you’ve ever watched the Da Vinci Code or read Dan Brown’s book of the same title, you’ll be familiar with gnostic philosophy. All that stuff about Jesus having a wife and fathering a child is gnostic teaching. In fact, one of the major religions in the world today is predicated on gnostic doctrine, just that most don’t realize.

Don’t just read the Bible. And don’t just read motivational books. After you’ve been motivated then what?

If you want to be a total man study philosophy, economics, sociology, theology, art history, etc. Study the humanities. Be a renaissance man.

You’ve got to travel. When you travel visit museums, especially museums of modern art. They make you think in abstract form. Soak in environments where there’s design thinking. If you can’t afford to travel read magazines, whether online or offline. It’s one of the cheapest ways to travel. Read magazines that contain pictures to aid your visualization. Window shop. It’s free. It will expose you to material excellence and culture.

Reprogram yourself. You were made on Android platform. You’ve got to regulate your intake. It’s not compulsory you read newspapers first thing in the morning. That’s a lot of bad news to consume first thing in the morning. Run away from negative people. Don’t let them program you for failure. If it does not align with your strategic vision avoid intake.

Visualization is a primary medium. Visualization is so powerful Nigerians began to paint their houses the colors of N.T.A (Nigerian Television Authority) logo! They watch N.T.A every day. Have you noticed how many Nigerian houses are painted deep brown and yellow ochre?

The excuse is that brown absorbs dirt but how does that explanation work for yellow ochre? It can’t hide dirt. Up N.T.A!

Next stop we will be looking at the third dimension of manhood.

As we approach our 5th year anniversary there will be some changes as regards the distribution of our contents via Social Media to ensure that we are as less intrusive as possible.

Before that happens please subscribe to our blog by clicking the “Follow Blog” button at the bottom of our homepage.

We appreciate your consistent support as always

This is Leke Alder’s 2nd snippet …….. I AM SHALOMESQ

What a wonderful day it is today!! It’s the 2nd Friday in the month of August 2019!!

Hope you are all doing great & things are moving along as planned?

How are your 2019 goals? Have you achieved any?

If YES, then celebrate the milestone & kick-on from there to a higher level.

If NO, reassess what went wrong & give it a try again!! It’s not over until you say so!!

I would like to appreciate the comments & feedback I got from the last post on:

The Leadership Myth

The engagements were a source of encouragement to us affirming the fact that we are making an impact from our little corner of the world. Thanks a lot to everyone.

Today’s topic (The Total Man) is a start to yet another series & it was really clear to me after encounters this week with the works of 2 profound thinkers & fantastic coaches:

Leke Alder

Olusola Lanre

Allow me to introduce to some & present to others, Leke Alder:

The subject of our deliberation today is the total man. To be sure there are four men mentioned in scriptures. There’s that bloke we all know from Genesis, the guy named Adam. Then there’s the mediator between God and mankind – the Man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5).

He is sui generis – a very unique man. Then there’s the recreated man Paul wrote about in 2 Corinthians 5:17. You’ve been taught a lot about this man in church.

Lastly, there’s the man of sin, the personage popularly referred to as Antichrist (2 Thessalonians 2:3-10).

These are the four men in scriptures, but the man we’re dealing with in this lecture is the bloke from Genesis. He’s the mechanical engineering template for mankind.

There are many ways we can approach the subject of total man. We can for example tackle the topic from a utilitarian perspective, say define man as a bread winner. But that will not travel socially or culturally. There are many homes in which the woman is the bread winner.

We can also define a man adjectivally, looking at the qualities of manhood. But chances are we will end up with a multiplicity of definitions. It’s like trying to define a table. You can define a table in many ways. For example, you can define a table as a four-legged wooden platform. But there are tables with three legs, and there are even tables with no legs. They’re suspended. There are plastic and there are metal tables. Not all tables are made of wood. We nonetheless generally approach the definition of manhood in this manner. That’s why there are so many definitions out there.

To some a man is a sexually virile male who’s wholly defined by the fecundity of his spermatozoa. Believe it or not there are men out there who boast about impregnating women. To them that’s proof of manhood.

To some others a man is defined by the size of his appendage. The bigger the appendage the more affirming the definition. If you’ve ever seen a Calvin Klein brief advert, you’ll be familiar with this definition. But as any woman who has ever been married to an engorged but irresponsible male will attest it is a farcical definition of manhood. Besides, that engorged appendage is a biological accident. It’s nothing more than genetic donation.

There’s also the apathetic definition of manhood. It says a man has no feelings and never shows feelings. It’s how young men end up breaking the hearts of women. This definition of manhood endangers marriage. The man can’t express his feelings to his spouse. He can’t tell his wife, “I love you!” It’s unfortunately reinforced by that societal maxim, “Real men don’t cry.” And yet Jesus wept. Was Jesus not a real man? Emotional constipation is not the definition of manhood.

Not to be left behind Africans have developed their own definition. And it’s a culturally flavored definition. According to that definition a real man is an accumulator of women who nonetheless refuses to take advice from women.

He never listens to his wife. In other words, a real man is a fool! A wise man listens to counsel. (Proverbs 12:15). The man who wrote that actually had 700 wives and 300 concubines; and he regularly took advice from his mum.

None of these definitions will serve us well. If we want to understand the concept of man we have to dial back, go back to basics – the Book of Genesis. It’s where the concept came from. The Hebrew word translated Genesis is Bereshit. It means “In the beginning.” In that book, you’ll find there are four critical dimensions to manhood and that these attributes are capacities. If you don’t develop those capacities you will struggle at succeeding as a man. Here’s how man came about.

According to the Bible a creative genius uniquely identified as “God” conceptualized a new product called “man.” This was after angels and the animal class had been created. Man is an intermediary product between angels and animals. He has lower capabilities than angels but has higher processing power than animals. He is a self-propelled semi-autonomous entity embedded with a miniaturized mainframe computer called the brain. With that brain, he is able to processes zettabytes of data.

A compression algorithm makes unlimited storage of videos and texts possible. He has a user friendly cognitive interface called the soul. Among other things the soul converts signals, reconfigures them into different programming languages that are material sensitive. There’s a local area network embedded. It’s how a boy and a girl can communicate and fall in love with each other in a room full of people without saying a word to each other. The soul emits signals.

The very unique thing about this entity called man however is that he was created on an open architecture platform. Because of that man is able to modify and edit himself. He has the ability to reprogram himself. It is debatable what kind of architecture angels are built on, whether open or modified open; but we know the animal class can’t modify themselves.

They were created on a proprietary platform, very much like iPhones. Man, on the other hand was created on an open platform like a phone running on android system. Think Samsung.

Creating man on that open platform was a huge gamble, a very huge gamble, and at some point, God expressed regret. Man is prone to virus infection like happened in the Garden of Eden. He can be infected with deadly propaganda. He is prone to going crazy on God. He’s been known to deny the existence of his Creator.

But without that open architecture salvation will be impossible. Man can’t repent by himself. There’s no record of angels or animals repenting. And anyway, the programme of salvation rules them out. Or Jesus would have had to identify as an animal or fallen angel – a hypostatic union of 100% Christ, 100% animal; or 100% fallen angel and 100% Christ.

The body of man is a mineral composite. It is largely made up of six elements – oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus. The binding agent used for the original prototype is aluminum phyllosilicate.

It’s also known as clay. It’s why the Bible says Adam was made from clay.

But you cannot understand the idea of man from his physical make up. It’s a terribly flawed approach. That’s like trying to measure the weight of your luggage with a thermometer. It’s one of the reasons we have problems in marriage. We determine character from personality and looks for example. That’s measuring weight with thermometer.

To understand what the Maker had in mind when he made man you have to look at the conceptual dimensions of man.

Man was first an idea before the engineering was done.

Let’s drop the anchor here, allow this to sink & enjoy the view of a new perspective. This series & all others will continue in the weeks & months to come as duly inspired.

As we approach our 5th year anniversary there will be some changes as regards the distribution of our contents via Social Media to ensure that we are as less intrusive as possible. Before that happens please subscribe to our blog by clicking the “Follow Blog” button at the bottom of our homepage.

We appreciate your consistent support as always

This is Leke Alder’s snippet …….. I AM SHALOMESQ