DISCOVER AND DEVELOP YOUR POTENTIALS AS A YOUTH A Practical Guide to Greatness

DISCOVER AND DEVELOP YOUR POTENTIALS AS A YOUTH A Practical Guide to Greatness BY APOSTLE PETER ODOEMENA THE SON OF MAN © BRIDAL FAITH MINISTRY WORLD-WIDE

This piece is dedicated to all the youths that are full of drive, initiative and unassuming in their approaches to life to mark the 52^NDBirthday of the Son of Man, the unrepentant advocate of youth empowerment.

The pillars of the nation are nothing but the youths of the nation. Anybody that is of the “productive age” in a family is a part of the pillars of the family. The strength of the family is measured by the quality of the youths in that family. The strength of the nation is measured by the quality of the youths that make up that nation.

We are likened to banana trees or plantain trees. Any plantain that does not have offspring, that is the end of its generation—that is what we are. I am talking to the youths that are taking after us. —Son of Man.

GET RID OF LAZY HABITS 85

DISCOVER AND DEVELOP YOUR POTENTIALS AS A YOUTH A Practical Guide to Greatness APOSTLE PETER ODOEMENA THE SON OF MAN

A Word from the Author

Put Your Name Here

Have you heard people’s names such as: Abiola MKO, Aboyade Oladunji, Achebe Chinua, Adebo Simeon, Adeboye Enoch, Adedoyin Samuel, Ade Ajayi, Samuel Aluko, Ayodele Awojobi, Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ayo Babalola, Tafawa Balewa, Mobolaji Bank Anthony, Dantata Aminu, Ekwensi Cyprain, Fagunwa Daniel, Fawehinmi Oyesola, Yakubu Gowon, Kumuyi William, Odutola Adeola, Okebukola Peter, Michael Imoudu, Soyinka Oluwole, David Oyedepo, Ebenezar Obey, Jakende Lateef, Charles Soludo, Sanusi Lambo, Mrs Oby Ezekwesili, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, Dora Akunyili, Ndu Okereke Onyuike, Cecilia Ibru, Alele Williams, Rotimi Williams, Mary Onyeali, Chinyere Onyenauche (Pilot) and so on?

These are just but few Nigerians who distinguished themselves in their chosen fields. These people have taken certain risks and broken new grounds. These people embraced success in their chosen careers. If they have succeeded you too can succeed.

It is your turn to succeed. Great achievers always emerge through demonstration of the ability to do what others say it is impossible. When the common people give up and quit, achievers press on to show their uncommon ability. You must move forward to do what others call the impossible to emerge as an uncommon achiever. You have in you God given ability to be a successful man and a successful woman.

If your desire is to be counted among the successful people. I need to tell you that success comes through doggedness in pursuing your goals without giving up. Movement in the way of success is a forward march. Great men and great women of history were single minded pursuers that made up their minds to achieve the goals of their dreams without giving up. You will surely succeed if you refuse to accept defeat and you press on in your success pursuit.

Desire is an essential key to success. It is the power in you that makes you strive to achieve your goal. Desiring the best is an inborn tendency of every person on Earth. Nobody prays for the “second best” in life. Desire is an important impetus and a good key to success. It makes success to become the cry of our lives, and the supreme yearning of the soul. It gives focus to where you direct and concentrate the powers and/or energies of your spirit, soul and body. You are limited in your success achievement by the depth of your desire. Desire big and achieve big.

Desire is a good thing for you on the track of success. As you pray, plan and pursue progress in your work, let desire ignite a sense of commitment and hardwork in you. Strong desire facilitates self-discipline which will make you to be conscious of your time for profitable utilization. This will in turn keep your heart and mind on your goals for success. When you desire for the best, you will surely work for excellence.

You must learn to see beyond what you are passing through at present and have a glimpse of what the Lord has promised to do. Are you passing through a difficult period? Don’t you know that it is the crushed grape that yields the wine? On many occasions, the fulfilment of the great promises of God are unpleasant circumstances. It is always darkest before dawn and the race for trophy is always fiercest just before the finishing line.

Experiences in life have shown that great achievements usually follow periods of great trials and difficulties. Showers of rain come after the very thick cloud and the shouts of joy over the delivery of a new baby come after the agonizing period of labour pains. The point I am making is that to succeed in life, you must be ready to tackle problems, fight a great battle, conquer laziness, be disciplined, add diligence to wisdom and be a man and/or a woman of honesty.

Completion of whatever we set out to do is in line with God’s way of working. He has no uncompleted projects! We too must work with the aim of having no uncompleted project. Therefore, face squarely what you have started which are good and profitable, that which you have left uncompleted for one flimsy reason or the other. Today, make a commitment to complete them. Your efforts should not be in vain. Pray and God will give you the needed grace and help.

To be successful, you need not to be dubious. Success achieved through falsehood, kick-backs, armed robbery, 419, stealing, engaging in any sinful habit, including looting, is not enduring success. Any success built on false foundation will surely collapse and such success cannot stand. It cannot endure till eternity. It has no backing of God and thus cannot be regarded as true success.

God Almighty is the giver of good success. His desire for man is to succeed. Only God has the key to success and He gives it to those that obey His commandments. To be successful is not only by being a successful businessman or businesswoman, possessing fleets of cars, building many mansions, having a street name; accumulating certificates, getting married and having children, living a sumptuous life. True success is the success that eventually makes one to live in Heaven with God for eternity. For what does it profit a man or woman if he gains the whole world and loses his or her soul?

Having money and great possession is not the ultimate. Money will buy a bed but not sleep; books but not brain; food but not appetite; finery but not beauty; a house but not a home; medicine but not health; luxuries but not satisfaction; amusements but not happiness; a crucifix but not a saviour; a Church pew but not Heaven.

God’s plan is that you should soar like eagle. Thus, you must refuse to die like a chicken. Have expectation for good success. Do not be self-defeated. Work hard; pray well and expect a good turnaround. It is your turn to laugh. It is your turn to sing songs of joy. It is your turn to get good and profitable employment. It is your turn to get married and have a happy family. It is your turn to succeed.

As you move forward with confidence and faith in God, you will surely make it and succeed in life. I wish you a great success.

May the year 2010, be your year of success as you abide in the Faith of Christ.

Apostle Peter Odoemena

The Son of Man

SELF-CONTROL: A MUST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

For you to prosper materially, first, develop yourself spiritually. Develop yourself to such a height where your conscience will begin to resist negative impulses and emotions that will lead you to negative actions. —Son of Man STRIVE TO BE A STAR 38

Cosmic realization says that the level of expository of life situation will determine the level of spiritual height a man or a woman can attain, and will determine the level of latent spiritual strength a man or a woman will acquire. COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS pg 98

The first step to becoming responsible lies in organising one’s self; taking out time to have a comparative analysis of one’s capabilities. Analyse and compare things you know you can achieve as a human being without depending on somebody else. —Son of Man. SELF-CONTROL EXPLAINED. PG. 19.

SELF-CONTROL — A MUST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Every man has two creators; his God and himself. His first Creator furnishes him with the raw materials of his life and the guiding or regulatory principles or legal framework in conformity with which he can make that life what he will. His second creator, himself, has marvellous powers he rarely realizes. It is what a man makes of himself that counts most.

2. When a man fails in life, he usually says, “I am as God made me.” This is why the Scriptures even confirm that a man spoils his ways and blame it on DESTINY. When he succeeds he proudly says, “I am a self made man.”

3. Man is placed by God in this world not as a finality but as a possibility. Man’s greatest enemy ever is himself. Man in his weakness is the creature of circumstances while in his strength; he is a creator of circumstances. Whether he be VICTIM or VICTOR depends very largely on himself.

4. No man is ever truly great merely for what he is but ever for what he may become. Until a man is truly filled with the knowledge of the majesty of his possibility, until there comes to him the glow of realization of his privilege to live the life committed to him as an individual life for which he is individually responsible, he is merely groping through the years.

5. To see his life as he might make it, man must go up alone into the mountains of spiritual thoughts as Christ our Lord went alone to the Garden, leaving the world to get strength to live in the world. He must there, breathe in the fresh pure air of recognition of his divine importance as an individual and with purified mind, tingling with new strength he must approach the problems of his daily living.

6. Man needs less of the “I am a mere feeble worm of the dust” idea in his theology and more of the conception: “I am a great human soul with marvellous possibilities,” as a vital element in his daily activities.

7. With this broadening, stimulating awareness and view of life, he sees how he may attain his kingship through self-control. This self-control that is seen in the simplest phases of daily living is precisely the same in kind and quality, differing only in degree of attainment. Any man can attain this self-control if he only will; it is but a matter of paying the price.

8. The power of self-control is one of the greatest qualities that differentiates man from the lower animals. This is why I maintain that any man without self-control is a miniature human being; one that operates below base levels of human behaviour or a beast. Man is the only animal capable of a moral struggle or moral conquest.

9. Every step in the progress of the world has a new “control.” It has always been escaping from the tyranny of a fact, to the understanding and mastery of that fact.

10. For ages, man looked in terror at the lightening flash but today, he understands it is electricity, a force he has mastered and made his slave. The million phases of electrical inventions, computers, communication gadgets etc., are manifestations of our control over a great force. But the greatest of all “Controls” is SELF-CONTROL.

11. At each moment of man’s life, he is either a King or a Slave. As he surrenders to a wrong appetite, to any human weakness, as he falls prostrate in hopeless subjection to any condition, to any environment, to any failure or habit, he becomes a slave.

12. As he day-to-day crushes out human weakness, masters opposing elements within him and day-by-day recreates a new self from the sin or ignorance and folly of the past, he is then a King. Every mistake is past. Every correction is for the future. Ruminate on the past for improvement but do not carry it forward for that will be anti-progressive.

13. It is a King that rules himself with wisdom. Do not be Alexander the Great who conquered the world but himself; an emperor over the Earth but a servile slave over his own passions.

14. Some people look with envy over the possession of others and wish they were the owners. Sometimes, they feel this is a vague, dreamy way with no thoughts of real attainments as when we wish to wear another man’s crown or self satisfaction.

15. Sometimes, however, we grow bitter, storm at the wrong distribution of the good things of life, and then relapse into a hopeless, fatalistic acceptance of our condition. We envy the success of others, when we should emulate the process by which the success came.

16. We see the splendid physical development of great men, yet we forget that they must have passed through difficulties in their childhood before attaining greatness. Sometimes, we talk about the power and spiritual strength of St. Paul without realizing the weak Saul of Tarsus from which he was transformed through his self-control.

17. We shut our eyes to the thousands of instances of the world’s success — mental, moral, physical, financial or spiritual, wherein the great final success came from, a beginning far weaker and poorer than our own.

18. Any man may attain self-control if he only will. He must not gain it except by long continued payment of the price in small progressive expenditures of energy.

19. Nature is a strong believer in the instalment plan in her relations with the individual. No man is so poor that he cannot begin to pay for what he wants and, every small individual payment that he makes, nature stores and accumulates for him a reserve fund.

20. The patience man extends in bearing the little trials of his daily life, nature stores for him in a wondrous reserve in a crisis of life. With nature, the moral, mental, physical or emotional energy he expends daily in right doing or living is all stored for him and transmitted into strength.

21. Nature never accepts a cash payment in full for anything; this would be an injustice to the poor and to the weak. It is only the progressive instalment plan that nature recognizes.

22. No man can make a habit in moment or break it in a moment. It is a matter of development of growth. But at any moment, man may begin to make or begin to break any habit. This view of the growth of character should serve as a mighty stimulus to any man who sincerely desires and determines to live nearer to the limit of his potentialities and to His Creator.

23. Self-control may be developed in precisely that same manner as we tone up a weak muscle, by little exercise day-by-day. Let us each day do as mere exercises of discipline in moral, mental and emotional gymnastic, a few acts that seem disagreeable to us, the doing of which will help us in instant action in hour of need. The exercises may be very simple with long-term rewards.

24. A man can attain self-control in great things only through self-control in little things. If a man is faithful over a small thing, he will be faithful over a big thing, vice versa.

25. A sensible and wise man must study himself to discover what is the weak point in his amour, what is the element in him that ever keeps him from the fullest success. This is the characteristic upon which a good fellow should begin his exercise in self-control.

26. Is it selfishness, vanity, cowardice, moodiness, temper, laziness, worry, anxiety, mind-wondering, lack of purpose, lack of motivation etc? Whatever form human weakness assumes in the masquerade of life he must discover.

You must have dynamic imagination, which will lead you into creative acts, for God made us to be creators. He that created ship, he that created aeroplane, he that created car, he that created motorcycle, is he not a human being? —Son of Man COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS pg 91

27. He must live each day as if his whole exercise or activity were telescoped and monitored by a Supreme Intelligence down to the single day before him.

28. With no useless regret for the past, no useless worry for the future, he should live that day as if it were his only day. The only day left for him to assert all that is best in him, the only day left for him to conquer all that is worst in him.

29. He should master the weak element each slight manifestation from moment to moment. Each moment must then be victory for it or for him. Will he be king or will he be slave? The answer rests with man.

GOODBYE YESTERDAY AND WELCOME TODAY

There are too many trials in life. The way it comes to Mr. A differs from the way it comes to Mr. B. In all, they are obstacles, which we must surmount. In all, develop enough courage to face the obstacles. —Son of Man STRIVE TO BE A STAR 95

We had waited with battered breath for this moment. At some point, it was like an impossibility. It appeared like the year was made to be doomed. The pall was thick; the uncertainty was constant reality. Troubles dogged our paths. Disappointment and discouragement became our daily companions. For a season it appeared we could not take the next step; but that was just a season.

Sorrow, they say may endure for a night. Did you read that well or you read it like you have always read it? It says it is not compulsory for sorrow to come. Even when it does come, it is not compulsory for it to last all through the night. Read it again:
“Sorrow MAY endure for a night. The real challenge we all know is that sorrow does come and that a night can be several years long. It seems to be a misnomer when you describe sorrows duration with a night of just about 12 hours.”
I know people whose “night” has lasted much—longer than a decade. Maybe this for you was one year that seemed like a long night of sorrows.
Here is the good news:

A new season has come. The night is past; the dark is gone.

We stand on the verge of a new down; a new day where we are not searching for silver linings in the clouds, because our sky is bright.

We stand at the dawn of a new day, with a breath of fresh air,

We stand now because we did not give up yesterday.

One reason God created time was so that there would be a place to bury the failures of the past standing here in the dying days of this year. We have come to the point where we must bury the travails of this year. This is a convenient grave for the disappointments we faced. This is the proper cemetery for the fears we combated. We take one last look and bury them with a long sigh.
You know what? Your dreams may not have been birthed; that means your time is not due. If you have aborted a dream, there is the possibility of a new conception. If your project has been killed or you have lost a beloved one to the cold hands of death this year, reading this, I encourage you to dig a big grave in the plot of time called 2009.
Hope is born afresh in our hearts for a new day has come. A chapter has closed, and now we have the privilege of starting a new one. Like we write a new history. We will redefine our destiny. We will build the future of our dreams. Our hopes shall become our self-fulfilling prophecy.
It is our new season. We will sing a new song our hopes shall meet with fulfillment. Our aspirations shall become our reality. We look back with gratitude and look forward with fortitude.
This is a good time to look around and thank the person sitting next to you. Go out of your way and appreciate your colleagues who walked the year with you. You were never alone. Often, we believe all they are leaders. Let us break the norm today. Send a small “thank you” mail to your leaders — your mum or your dad. Do not forget those friends that have been faithful to you as well.
Remember the men and women that prayed for you in the Church, they too are bright spots we can appreciate. It was a difficult year all over the world and leadership/friendship made all the difference, all the way. Appreciate them.
I appreciate you too. For me, you are the real heroes of this dying year. I appreciate you for keeping the vision alive. I appreciate the tremendous feedback I got from all and sundry. I thank you for making the many late nights and long boring researches count for something. There were times when I did not see any reason to put my pen to paper or sit in front of a computer.
There were moments I was so overwhelmed by my little personal calamities. I did not see any reason to put up this Message. But somehow, at such moments a text or a call from one of you would reawaken me to the onerous responsibility I have been called to bear.
Let tomorrow bring what it may, as long as we are together, we will conquer still! If I did not touch the sky yesterday, let me see what will stop me from touching it tomorrow.
Welcome, land of our fulfillment. Welcome, tomorrow!
We are living in the days when everybody is fighting for survival. The troubled times are here. These days, salary earners are crying for increase in salary in order to survive, the hired hard times. Business people are not spared; they complain of low sales, lack of patronage, low return on investment. Contractors are equally caught up in the race for survival.
Besides lack of contracts, the few contracts gotten cannot be successfully executed due to insufficient mobilization fees and delay in payment for the award of contract.
These days virtually everything is scarce; money, time and other resources. In fact, employment opportunities are scarce today than yesterday. With this scarcity, you must strive to survive. We are living in the era of survival for the fittest. My focus this time is to expose you to some survival strategies in this time of scarcity.
My friend, you cannot really survive this period of scarcity if you fail to posses survival mentality. Without survival mentality, you cannot scale through this period of lack. If you believe you must survive this austere period you will definitely survive it.
However, if you allow your thought to suggest to you that you cannot survive this period of scarcity you will definitely not. You must change your thought. Think great thoughts. The depth of your thought will determine whether you will survive this time of scarcity or you will sink in lack.
Begin today to develop your resources. Resources abound in us and around us. Although, we possess resources meant for success in life but many fail to develop them and use them. We often show sign of real wealth, but it is lying underneath the roots and stumps and we refuse to develop them.
One of the greatest discoveries you can make is to find out that you can do what you were afraid you could not do. This is one of the survival strategies in this time of scarcity.
The human capacity for accomplishment is legendary. There are many things you are capable of doing, but which you have made to believe that you cannot do. Without exaggeration, we say there is virtually nothing a man sets his heart to do that he cannot do, once certain conditions are met.
Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth, yet, man climbed it. The longest river too has been discovered. Man has even gone to the moon. Those men and women of renowned achievements are human beings like you. The only difference perhaps is that, they came in contact with certain realities which you probably lack.
Dear Brethren, you can really survive this time of scarcity. If the government fails to provide employment for you, that is not the problem. You can create one for yourself. Do not wait for conducive environment. Even lack of infrastructure is not enough to determine your progress. There are opportunities locked up inside these problems.
Do you know that opportunities lock up inside these problems? Do you know that opportunities most of the time wear the garments of problems? Opportunities often disguise in problems in the world that opportunities for survival will stop.
I believe you can create employment for yourself. I believe you know you are greatly talented and richly endowed. You will never know it until you sit down, turn inward and examine yourself. Some things are natural with you. You do certain things with ease. Find out, discover and develop them. Your breakthrough and survival is along that line.
I cannot imagine why a woman can complain of lack of job when she can plait hair, sell food, sweep, engage in day-care, do cleaning work, wash cloths and so on. How can a graduate say there is no work?
I know that a reasonable, diligent and serious graduate from any tertiary institution should not wait endlessly for white-collar job, rather he or she should think of how to engage his or her brain and hands to profitable jobs.
For me, I never waited for government employment. I have discovered for years now that what I need to survive is inside me, with me and around me. If you need further knowledge on how to create work and employment for yourself, call my number.
It is high time you started thinking on what to do to survive this present economic meltdown. PRAY and ACT are the survival keys. If you cannot think the way out, you cannot pray through to taking action to succeed; it is your choice. If you like, you can remain in lack, poverty, destitution and scarcity.
Fear of the unknown, laziness, inability to see opportunities, keeping wrong friends, inability to assume responsibilities, blaming others for one’s failure and many other factors make many people to remain at the bottom of the ladders for life.

The distance a man can walk in life is determined by four cardinal points: One, space; two, time; three, energy; four, desire to walk. The first three might be there, but if the desire is not there, you are not making any headway. These four must combine for you to move. —Son of Man. COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS pgs 97 & 98

RECOGNISE AND DEVELOP YOUR POTENTIALS

You are born with potentials, talents and abilities needed to solve life’s problems. You must know that you have something unique to you alone that can proffer solution to our problems. —Son of Man SUCCESS VISIONS 65

For your information, everything you need to succeed and live a fulfilled life is in you. You are loaded with potentials. God has never failed to put in man all he needs to succeed in life.

I do not care who you are. Where you live is not the problem. The level of your education does not matter. The work you are doing at present is not the major concern now. The heart of the matter is that there are potentials in you that you need to discover, tap and utilize for your breakthrough in life.
There are many people who live a life of mediocrity. Our lives are seeds. We are loaded with potentials. God created man in His own image. This implies that man has the capacity to create things.
The main cause of unsuccessful life is the inability of one to discover his or her potentials. Do not deprive our world of the gifts, talents, potentials that God has deposited in you.
The world is waiting for you. It waited for Caruso, Henry Ford, Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth Blackwell, Ben Carson, Fanny Crosby, Mary Slessor, Wool Worth and other great men and women who did not fail to add value to their world.
You are specially designed by God for the fulfillment of a purpose. How will you be remembered when you leave this world? Have you discovered your potentials? Do you have a heart where ideas and potential can grow? What is the size of your dream? Have you discovered a particular potential in your vicinity that you are capable of proffering a solution?
Don’t you know that your living must complement others to live? What can you do to provide answers to people’s questions? I hope you can see these opportunities to put your talents and potentials to work.
Discovering your potential, developing your potential and making use of your potential will make you valuable and you will command attention. People of value use their abilities, talents, potentials and gifts to the full.
Once you discover your talents and potentials, take time to settle down and decide what you really want. Your life is yours, given to you by the Almighty God.
Determine your target. Do not do what the multitude do. Many watch others do things and follow suit. Never do things using trial and error method. There is need to determine your purpose for living and work towards achieving your goals in life.
Everything that goes towards making you a success is inside of you. The things that make money, create new things, add value to life, improve and develop society are inside of you. Find it and make it work.
You have a slump lot in you. Dig it up, clean it up and you will find the gold in it. The reason for your lack, poverty and suffering is because you fail to locate your potential. This gold in you must be dug. You want to attain great feat in life, and you must find that hidden treasure in you.
It is not enough to discover our talents and potentials, but we need to develop them to commercial value. Don’t just be a teacher but a skilful one. Do not be a good writer but a best selling author. Being a good preacher is not enough but a good soul winner.
You can be the best sweeper in your place of work. You can so develop your gift and potentials to the extent that you become a great singer. Why can’t you strive to be the best? You can be best in your calling. Your potentials, if developed and well utilized, will create a room for you in life.

FACTS TO ASSIST YOU LIVE UP TO YOUR POTENTIALS

It is true that you have certain potentials in you. Believe that you too can succeed in life. Success is not reserved to only a set of people. To succeed, you need to stretch your imagination.
Problems and challenges bring out your potentials, talents and gifts. Fearing to face life challenges kills potentials.
Do not get settled after a breakthrough or success, press forward for greater success. Have a definite goal for life and pursue it. Avoid laziness and complacency as a plague. Never allow criticism to stop you from using your potential to the fullest. Never stop learning. Do not allow one failure to put a lid on your potentials and abilities.
Associate with people of like minds. You cannot afford to live a routine life; rather develop new goals, new visions, and new dreams. Always settle for the best in life. Finally, never limit your potential.
I can see that you have not developed your potential to the full. These God given abilities, talents and potentials must not waste! Your success is in you. You must rise up and face the challenges! I see you succeeding. Amen.

POWER MANAGEMENT

THE 48 LAWS OF POWER

There is a price to pay. Are you seeking trouble, there is a price to pay. Are you seeking progress, there is a price to pay. There is nothing you can get without paying the price. This is how nature endorses it. —Son of Man. LATENT POWERS PG 99

LAW 1: NEVER OUTSHINE THE MASTER.

Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to feel or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite – inspire fear and insecurity. Make your matters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power.

LAW 2: NEVER PUT TOO MUCH TRUST IN FRIENDS, LEARN HOW TO USE ENEMIES.

Be wary of friends – they will betray you more quickly, for they are easily aroused to envy. They also become spoiled and tyrannical. But hire a former enemy and he will be more loyal than a friend, because he has more to prove. In-fact, you have more to fear from friends than from enemies. If you have no enemies, find a way to make them.

LAW 3: CONCEAL YOUR INTENTIONS.

Keep people off balance and in dark by never revealing the purpose behind your actions. If they have no clues what you are up to, they cannot prepare a defence. Guide them far enough down the wrong path, envelope them in enough smoke, and by the time they realise your intentions, it will be too late.

Great men are almost always bad men. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. —Son of Man

LAW 4: ALWAYS SAY LESS THAN NECESSARY.

When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open ended, and sphinxlike. Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less. The more you say, the more you are likely to say something foolish.

LAW 5: SO MUCH DEPENDS ON REPUTATION – GUARD IT WITH YOUR LIFE.

Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone, you can intimidate and win; once it slips, however, you are vulnerable and will be attacked on all sides. Make your reputation unassailable. Always be alert to potential attacks and thwart them before they happen. Meanwhile, learn to destroy your enemies by opening holes in their own reputations. Then stand aside and let public opinion hang them.

LAW 6: COURT ATTENTION AT ALL COST.

Everything is judged by its appearance; what is unseen counts for nothing. Never let yourself get lost in the crowd, or buried in oblivion. Stand out! Be conspicuous, at all cost. Make yourself a magnet of attention by appearing larger, more colourful, more mysterious than the bland and timed masses.

LAW 7: GET OTHERS TO DO THE JOB FOR YOU BUT ALWAYS TAKE THE CREDIT.

Use the wisdom, knowledge and legwork of other people to further your own cause. Not only will such assistance save you valuable time and energy, it will give you a godlike aura of efficiency and speed. In the end, your helpers will be forgotten and you will be remembered. Never do yourself what others can do for you.

LAW 8: MAKE OTHER PEOPLE COME TO YOU – USE BAIT IF NECESSARY.

When you force the other person to act, you are the one in control, it is always better to make your opponent come to you, abandoning his own plan in the process. Lure him with fabulous gains – the attack. You hold the cards.

LAW 9: WIN THROUGH YOUR ACTIONS, NEVER THROUGH ARGUMENT.

Any momentary triumph you think you have gained through argument is really a pyrrhic victory. The resentment and ill will you stair up is stronger and last longer than any momentary change of opinion. It is much more powerful to get others to agree with you through your actions without saying a word. Demonstrate, do not explicate.

LAW 10: INFECTION: AVOID THE UNHAPPY AND UNLUCKY.

You can die from someone else misery – emotional states are as infectious diseases. You may feel you are helping the drowning man but you are only precipitating your own disaster. The unfortunate sometimes draws misfortune on themselves; they will also draw it on you. Associate with the happy and fortunate instead.

LAW 11: LEARN TO KEEP PEOPLE DEPENDENT ON YOU.

To maintain your independence, you must always be needed and wanted. The more you are relieved on, the more freedom you have. Make people to be dependent on you for their happiness and prosperity and you will have nothing to fear. Never teach them enough so that they cannot do without you.

LAW 12: USE SELECTIVE HONESTY AND GENEROSITY TO DISARM YOUR VICTIM.

One sincere and honest move will cover over dozens of dishonest ones. Open-hearted gestures of honesty and generosity bring down the guard of even the most suspicious people. Once your selective honesty opens a hole in their armour, you can deceive and manipulate them at will. A timely gift—a Trojan horse—will serve the same purpose.

LAW 13: WHEN ASKING FOR HELP, APPEAL TO PEOPLE’S SELF INTEREST TO THEIR MERCY OR GRATITUDE.

If you need to turn an ally for help, do not bother to remind him of your past assistance and good deeds. He will find a way to ignore you. Instead, uncover something in your request or in your alliance with him, that will benefit him, and emphasize it out of all proportion. He will respond enthusiastically when he see something to be gained for himself.

LAW 14: POSE AS A FRIEND, WORK AS A SPY.

Knowing your rival is critical. Use spies to gather valuable information that will keep you a step ahead. Better still, play the spy yourself. In polite social encounters, learn to probe. Ask indirect questions to get people reveal their weaknesses and intentions. There is no occasion that is not an opportunity for artful spying.

LAW 15: CRUSH YOUR ENEMY TOTALLY.

All great leaders since Moses have known that a feared enemy must be crushed completely. (Sometimes they have learned this the hard ways.) If one ember is left alight, no matter how dimly it smoulders, a fire will eventually break out. More is lost through stopping halfway than through total annihilation. The enemy will recover and will seek revenge. Crush him, not only in body but in spirit.

LAW 16: USE ABSENCE TO INCREASE RESPECT AND HONOUR.

Too much circulation makes the price go down. The more you are seen and heard from, the more common you appear. If you are already established in a group, temporary withdrawal from it will make you more talked about, even more admired. You must learn when to leave. Create value through scarcity.

LAW 17: KEEP OTHERS IN SUSPENDED TERROR: CULTIVATE AN AIR OF UNPREDICTABILITY.

Humans are creatures of habit with an insatiable need to see familiarity in other people’s actions. Your predictabilities give them the sense of control. Turn the tables, be deliberately unpredictable. Behaviour that seems to have no consistency or purpose will keep them off-balance, and they will war themselves out trying to explain your moves. Taken to an extreme, this strategy can intimate and terrorize.

LAW 18: DO NOT BUILD FORTRESSES TO PROTECT YOURSELF—ISOLATION IS DANGEROUS.

The world is dangerous and enemies are everywhere—everyone has to protect him or herself. A fortress seems the safest. But isolation exposes you to more dangers than it protects you. It cuts you off from valuable information. It make you conspicuous and as an easy target. Better to circulate among people, find allies, mingle. You are shielded from your enemies by the crowd.

LAW 19: KNOW WHO YOU ARE DEALING WITH—DO NOT OFFEND THE WONG PEOPLE.

There are many different kind of people in the world, and you can never assume that everyone will react to your strategies in the same way. Deceive or outmanoeuvre some people and they will spend the rest of their lives seeking revenge. They are wolves in lamb clothing. Choose your victim and opponent carefully, then never offend or deceive the wrong person.

LAW 20: DO NOT COMMIT TO ANYONE.

It is the fool who always rushes to take sides. Do not commit to any sides or cause but yourself. By maintaining your independence, you become the master of others – playing people against one another, making them pursue you.

LAW 21: PLAY A SUCKER TO CATCH A SUCKER – SEEM DUMBER THAN YOUR MARK

No one likes feeling stupider than the next person. The trick then is to make your victims feel smart and not just smart but smarter than you are. Once convinced of this, they will never suspect that you may have ulterior motives.

LAW 22: USE THE SURRENDER TACTIC: TRANSFORM WEAKNESS INTO POWER.

When you are weak, never fight for honour’s sake; choose surrender instead. Surrender gives you time to recover, time to torment and irritate you conqueror, time to wait for his power to wane. Do not give him the satisfaction of fighting and defeating you – surrender infuriate and unsettle him. Make surrender a tool of power.

LAW 23: CONCENTRATE YOUR FORCES.

Conserve your forces and energies by keeping concentrated at their strongest point. You gain more by finding a rich mine and mining it deeper than by flitting from one shallow mine to another – intensity defeats extensity every time. When looking for sources of power to elevate you, find the one key patron, the fat cow who will give you milk for a long time to come.

LAW 24: PLAY THE PERFECT COURTIER.

The perfect courtier thrives in a world where everything revolves around power and political dexterity. He has mastered the art of indirection, he flatters, yields to superiors; and assert power over others in the most oblique and graceful manner. Learn and apply the laws of courtiership and there will be no limit to how far you can rise in the court.

LAW 25: RE – CREATE YOURSELF.

Do not accept the roles that society foists on you. Re – create yourself by forging a new identity, one that commands attention and never bores the audience. Be the master of your own image rather than letting others define it for you. Incorporate dramatic devices into your public gestures and actions – your power will be enhanced and your character will seem larger than life.

LAW 26: KEEP YOUR HAND CLEAN.

You must seem a paragon of civility and efficiency; your hands are never soiled by mistakes and nasty deeds. Maintain such a spotless appearance by using others as scapegoats and cats – paws to disguise your involvement.

LAW 27: PLAY ON PEOPLE’S NEED TO BELIEVE TO CREATE CULTLIKE FOLLOWING.

People have an overwhelming desire to believe in something. Become the focal point of such desire by offering them a cause, a new faith to follow. Keep your words vague but full of promise; emphasise enthusiasm over rationality and clear thinking. Give your new disciples rituals to perform, ask them to make sacrifice on your behalf. In the absence of organised religion and grand causes, your new belief system will bring you untold power.

LAW 28: ENTER ACTION WITH BOLDNESS.

If you are unsure of a course of action, do not attempt it. Your doubt and hesitation will infect your execution. Timidity is dangerous. Better to enter with boldness. Any mistakes you commit through audacity are easily corrected with more audacity. Everyone admires the bold, no one honours the timid.

LAW 29: PLAN ALL THE WAY TO THE END.

The ending is everything. Plan all the way to it, taking into account all the possible consequences, obstacles, and twists of fortune that might reverse the hard work and give the glory to others. Planning to the end, you will not be overwhelmed by circumstances and you will know when to stop. Gently guide fortune and help determine the fortune by thinking far ahead.

LAW 30: MAKE YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS SEEM EFFORTLESS.

Your actions must seem natural and executed with ease. All the toil and practice that go into them, and also all the clever tricks must be concealed. When you act, act effortlessly, as if you could do much more. Avoid the temptation of revealing how hard you work – it only raises questions. Teach no one your tricks or they will be used against you.

LAW 31: CONTROL THE OPTIONS: GET OTHERS PLAY WITH THE CARD YOU DEAL.

The best deceptions are the one that seem to give the other person a choice: Your victims feel, they are in control, but are actually your puppets. Give people options that come out in your favour whichever one they choose. Force them to make choices between the lesser of two evils, both of which serve your purpose. Put them on the horns of dilemma; they are gored wherever they turn.

LAW 32: PLAY TO PEOPLE FANTASIES.

The truth is often avoided because it is ugly and unpleasant. Never appeal to truth and reality unless you are prepared from the anger that comes from disenchantment. Life is so harsh and distressing that people who can manufacture romance or conjure up fantasies are like vases in the desert. Everyone flocks to them. There is great power in tapping into the fantasies of the masses.

LAW 33: DISCOVER EACH MAN THUMBSCREW.

Everyone has a weakness, a gap in the castle wall. That weakness is usually an insecurity, an uncontrollable emotion or need. It can also be a small secret pleasure. Either way, once found, it is a thumbscrew you can turn to your advantage.

LAW 34: BE ROYAL IN OUR OWN FASHION: ACT LIKE A KING TO BE TREATED LIKE ONE.

The way you carry yourself will often determine how you are treated. In the long run, appearing vulgar or common will make people disrespect you. For a king respects himself and inspires same sentiments in others. By acting regally and confident of your powers, you make yourself seem destined to wear a crown.

LAW 35: MASTER THE ART OF TIMING.

Never seem to be in a hurry, hurry betrays a lack of control over yourself and overtime. Always seem patient as if you know that everything will come to you eventually. Become a defective of the right moment, sniff out the spirit of time, the trends that will carry you to power. Learn to stand back when the time is not yet ripe, and to strike fiercely when it has reached fruition.

LAW 36: DISDAIN THINGS YOU CANNOT HAVE: IGNORING THEM IS THE BEST REVENGE.

By acknowledging a petty problem, you give it existence and credibility. The more attention you pay an enemy, the stronger you make him, and a small mistake is often made worse and more visible when you try to fix it. It is sometimes best to leave things alone. If there is something you cannot have, show contempt for it. The less interest you reveal, the more superior you seem.

LAW 37: CREATE COMPELLING SPECTACLES.

Striking imagery and grand symbolic gestures create the aura of power – everyone responds to them. Stage spectacles for those around you, then full of arresting visuals and radiant symbols that heighten your presence. Dazzled by appearances, no one will notice what you are really doing.

LAW 38: THINK AS YOU LIKE, BUT BEHAVE LIKE OTHERS.

If you make a show of going against the times, flaunting your unconventional ideas and unorthodox ways, people will think you only want attention and that you look down upon them. They will find a way to punish you for making them feel inferior. It is safer to blend in and nurture the common touch. Share your originality only with tolerant friends and those who are sure to appreciate your uniqueness.

LAW 39: STIR UP WATERS TO CATCH A FISH.

Anger and emotions are strategically counter productive. You must always stay calm and objective. But if you can make your enemies angry while staying calm yourself, you gain a decided advantage. Put your enemies off-balance; find the chink in their vanity through which you can rattle them and you hold the strings.

LAW 40: DESPISE THE FREE LUNCH.

What is offered for free is dangerous – it usually involves a trick or a hidden obligation. What has worth is worth paying for. By paying your own way, you stay clear of gratitude, guilt and deceit. It is often wise to pay the full price – there is no cutting corners with excellence. Be lavish with your money and keep it circulating, for generosity is a sign and a magnet for power.

LAW 41: AVOID STEPPING INTO A GREAT MAN’S SHOES.

What happens first always appears better and more original than what comes after. If you succeed a great man or have a famous parent, you will have to accomplish double their achievements to outshine them. Do not get lost in their shadow, or stuck in a past not of your own making. Establish you own name and identity by changing course. Stay the over bearing father, disparage his legacy, and gain power by shining in your own way.

LAW 42: STRIKE THE SHEPHERD AND THE SHEEP WILL SCATTER.

Trouble can often be traced to a single strong individual – the stirrer, the arrogant underlying, the poisoner of good will. If you allow such people room to operate, others will succumb to their influence. Do not wait for the troubles, they cause to multiply, do not try to negotiate with them – they are irredeemable. Neutralize their influence by isolating and banishing them. Strike at the source of the trouble and the sheep will scatter.

LAW 43: WORK ON THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF OTHERS.

Coercion creates a reaction that will eventually work against you. You must seduce others into wanting to move in your direction. A person you have seduced, becomes your loyal pawn. The way to seduce others is to operate on their individual psychologies and weaknesses. Soften up the resistant by working on their emotions, playing on what they hold dear and what they fear. Ignore the hearts and minds of others, and they will grow to hate you.

LAW 44: DISARM AND INFURIATE WITH THE MIRROR EFFECT.

The mirror reflects reality but it is also the perfect tool for deception. When you mirror your enemies, doing exactly as they do, they cannot figure out your strategy. The mirror effect mocks and humiliates them, making them overreact. By holding up a mirror to their psyches, you seduce them with the illusion that you share their values, by holding up a mirror to their actions, you teach them a lesson. Few can resist the power of the Mirror Effect.

LAW 45: PREACH THE NEED FOR CHANGE BUT NEVER REFORM TOO MUCH AT ONCE.

Everyone understands the need for change in the abstract, but on the day- to-day level, people are creatures of habit. Too much innovation is traumatic and will lead to revolt. If you are new to a position of power, or an outsider trying to build a power base, make a show of respecting the old way of doing things. If change is necessary, make it feel like a gentle improvement on the past.

LAW 46: NEVER APPEAR TOO PERFECT.

Appearing better than other is always very dangerous, but most dangerous of all is to have no faults or weakness. Envy creates silent enemies. It is smart to occasionally display defects, and admit to harmless vices, in order to deflect envy and appear more human and approachable. Only gods and the dead can seem perfect with impunity.

LAW 47: DO NOT GO PAST THE MARK YOU AIMED FOR; IN VICTORY, LEARN WHEN TO STOP.

The moment of victory is often the moment of greatest peril. In the heat of the victory, arrogance and overconfidence can push you past the goal you aimed for, and by going too far, you make more enemies than you defeat. Do not allow success to go into your head. There is no substitute for strategy and careful planning. Set a goal, and when you reach it, stop.

A poor man is not one that has no money but one that has no wisdom. He has no knowledge, he lacks understanding. To him that lacks understanding, the world is a tragedy.

—Son of Man. GET RID OF DANGEROUS WEAPONS 125

LAW 48: ASSUME FORMLESSNESS.

By taking a shape, by having a visible plan, you open yourself to attack. Instead of taking a form for your enemies to grasp, keep yourself adaptable and on the move. Accept the fact that nothing is certain and no law is fixed. The best way to protect yourself is to be as fluid and formless as water, never bet on stability of lasting order. Everything changes.

GREATNESS IS BRILLIANCE

(AN INTERVIEW WITH BIMBO AKINTOLA, BY OMOTOLA OLAIFA FROM THE SPECTATOR, AUGUST 21-AUGUST 27, 2009).

GREATNESS IS BRILLIANCE

A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognised. —Son of Man.

A talented actress, Bimbo Akintola started her acting career as an undergraduate, almost when she starred in the highly successful Yoruba movie, Owo Blow, in 1995. Since then, she has remained the delight of every movie lover.

Since her career kissed fame when she earned that debut role in Owo Blow, she has earned accolades from every part of Africa as an actress of immense value.
Bimbo’s road to screen success was not a roller coaster. She has encountered various challenges that almost got her out of the game, but the young lady was strong-willed. She prevailed and now, she tells of her greatest task and her general idea of greatness.

TSP: How do you define greatness?

Bimbo: Greatness is doing exceptionally brilliantly in your exploits. It is achieving the seemingly impossible. It is a stage when you reach the apex of the career and you are fulfilled. But in terms of professionalism, it is the technical know-how of managing the people and resources around you to a level that you will be appreciated by all and sundry. It is that positive impact an individual can make on his society. It is about the individual being selfless and thinking of the collective interest of others, rather than self.

Do you know that the Creator of Heaven and Earth is an industrious God, a hardworking God? That is why He enjoins us to work. He is not a lazy God; He is a progressive God who does not believe in failure. —Son of Man. GET RID OF LAZY HABITS 51

TSP: How do you think greatness can be achieved?

Bimbo: Setting out to be different can facilitate greatness. Personally, I think, if you do not set out to be different from every other person on the street, you cannot do great things. At the end of the day, you will just end up doing what others have done in the past; and with that you will not make a new impact on anyone. Greatness is not about reproducing and imitating. You have to make people know that you are exceptionally good at the thing you are doing.

TSP: How can a woman be great?

Bimbo: HARD WORK, CONSISTENCY and PRAYERS make anybody—not only a woman—great. Whether you are man or a woman, if you can keep to these three things, you would achieve great whether you are man or a woman, if you can keep to these three things, you would achieve success. But the most important thing is the favour of God.

TSP: What are the qualities of a man destined for greatness?

Bimbo: Fear of God, self-discipline, commitment, passion, focus, all combined together, are the qualities that make a man great. Once you see these qualities in a man, you know if he does not relent, he will go far in life. If you do not know where you are going, you will not know when you get there.

TSP: Is there any relationship between greatness and success?

Bimbo: Success is achieving a goal that you have set for yourself within a particular season. It is therefore important for you to note that it is when you have achieved this at the highest level, when there is nothing more to achieve, is when you have achieved greatness. Then, the next question is, how you have used it to assist the people around you.

TSP: How do you relate greatness with leadership?

Bimbo: When you let leadership function well, it must lead to great things. Let your leadership activities show some signs of greatness. In your home, in your neighbourhood, particularly at the place where you work, try something that could make you great. When you are already successful at the level you are now, wherever you are now, if you are successful, the next position will come your way. If you exhibit good leadership, it could lead to greatness.

TSP: Who is the greatest man that ever lived?

Bimbo: There is no one except Christ. Nobody can claim greatness.

TSP: What is the greatest book you have read?

Bimbo: The Bible is the greatest book I have read.

TSP: Of all the challenges that you have had, which is the greatest?

Bimbo: I do not have challenges, as such; all the setbacks on the job are now stepping-stones. In addition, areas where I made mistakes in the past, I capitalised on them. Today, I am more focused and better off in what I do. For me, I do not see challenges; I see opportunities for improvements. This mentality is my watchdog and it has brought me this far.

TSP: What is the greatest lesson learnt in life?

Bimbo: The greatest lesson is to be caring to people you see on your way going up, because you might meet them while coming back. In addition, to be honest and truthful in everything I do at all times.

PREDESTINATION AND CHOICE:

THE REALITY

PREDESTINATION AND CHOICE—THE REALITY

The most common everyday language we use is “choice.” It is not easy for one to make a choice. The greatest problem that has always confronted mankind in life is the problem of choice. GET RID OF LAZY HABITS 43.

I want to speak on PREDESTINATION and CHOICE so that whatever that happens around you, you will know where to place it—whether to place it on God or on yourself.

In predestination, let Me use birth for example. We are Igbos because we came out and saw ourselves in the geographical area called “Igbo land.” Whatever an Igbo land stands for, we do not know. We never contributed to our posting to the Eastern part of Nigeria. The same way it is applicable to other tribes.
Whatever that are associated with the Igbos, the same are associated with you if you are from Igbo land, whether they be good or evil. Besides, you are not responsible for those characteristic features of the Igbo people whether they be good or bad.
In the same manner also, you contributed nothing to your conception. Your parents mate, conceived, and gave birth to a baby and the personality became you. You could not query it. Even if there is anything faulty about it, there is nothing you can do about it— that is the condition you are born, you cannot change it.
Even if you protest, it will profit you nothing. The only thing you have to do is to accept it the way you see it for you are not responsible. You made no choice.
If you are to choose who to be your father, you could have chosen the President of Nigeria; you could have chosen Abiola or one of the rich men in Nigeria. You were not given a chance; if you were given a chance, you would have chosen America or Russia or Germany to be your country. Nobody is given a choice to make and he chooses suffering.
These are those things that were predetermined; there are many examples I am going to show you in this Message. These are unchangeable situations.
I want to show you what you can see as PREDESTINATION. When we talk of PREDESTINATION, there is nothing you can do to change it. You cannot protest against it.
Now, what can you say about the fate of the baby whose parents were HIV patients; they conceived, gave birth to the child and the child became a HIV patient?
What can you say about that child and predestination? Could it be that God predetermined that the child would be born with HIV? Can you say that God predetermined that the husband and wife must be HIV patients? If they had known that they would be HIV patients, do you think they would have paired up?
I do not know whether you are getting Me to the other side of life.
This particular case we are handling right now, has it anything to do with predestination? What do we call it? It is not carelessness. It is choice, whether wrong or good. Who made the choice? The husband and wife.
Hear Me very well; when you see yourself in a situation where you are not authorised to make a choice, your choice is vested on somebody, somebody made the choice for you, you will accept whatever you see for nobody is given a chance to make a choice and he chooses to suffer. However, people choose to suffer.
Understand this Message. Too many things we do in life are attributed to PREDESTINATION or DESTINY when they are not.
Now, what can you say about a hypothetical case like this one: A mother and the child were working on the farm, all of a sudden, a vehicle came from nowhere, lost control, came into the farm, and killed the woman, or the child or the two on the spot; who made the choice? The mother or the child? Do you call it predestination?
In other words, God predetermined that the driver of the vehicle, on that day, he would lose control of his vehicle and no other people would be killed other than those that were killed. Is that predestination?
Then, what is the position of accident in predestination? Or do you mean that there is no accident in life? If there is no accident in life, then life does not exist.

YOU ARE THE ARCHITECT OF THE LIFE YOU WANT TO LIVE

What am I saying in effect? Whatever we have chosen to do in this life automatically turns out to be our destiny. Hence, we affirm that to a very large extent our destiny lies in our hands. For the choice you have made today will determine how you will live your life tomorrow. Whatever you are doing today automatically reshapes your future.
You are likened to a farmer that is sowing seed today; the seeds will not germinate today and you reap it today. No! But will it germinate? Yes. By God’s grace, as it grows, it will bear fruit. The fruits will not ripen that same day. But will it ripen? Sure! As you journey along life, the fruits must surely ripen. It is at that point that you begin to complain or you begin to rejoice.
Nobody rejoices during the sowing season, it is a trying season. Nobody rejoices that time. Jubilation comes during the harvest period. Am I making sense at all?
What determine what you will harvest are:

a. The type of seed you sowed,

b. The time and effort you spent in taking care of the farm.

Thus, do not ever attribute it to predestination if you refuse to do that which you ought to do. I am saying that these are not conditions that are not changeable; they are conditions you have the power to change.
Any condition you know you can change is not predestination. Any situation, any condition you know you have the ability to tamper with or change, or dictate has nothing to do with predestination. This is what I am trying to say.
If I want to marry today, predestination does not come in. The choice is mine. If I want to drive my wife away, predestination does not come there for it is in the power of my hand to choose whom to marry. It is applicable to occupation too.
The occupation you are doing today, do you want to tell Me it was predetermined? For if it was predetermined, learning is unnecessary, training becomes useless. I do not know whether somebody is taking note.
Nobody teaches a baby how to suck the breast. Simply carry the baby if you are the mother, you see the baby putting his or her head inside the armpit. Intuitively, he or she knows the position of the breast. Is it not true? This is predestination. You cannot change it.
But concerning the school your child will attend, is it predetermined? No. The same is applicable to life. No life is predetermined; rather every life is something somebody made up his or her mind to live.
The way you decide to live your life automatically turns out to be your destiny. If you want to live a life of drunkenness, nobody was born with a bottle of Star in his hand; nobody was born with a cup of palm wine in his hand. Did you get the Message?
I am saying that the type of food a woman would use to supplement her baby’s food, the choice of that food is determined by the mother. There is nothing like predestination.
I am saying in effect that I am the architect of the life I want to live. I am the one that decided to live that life. Whether it is good or bad, I should not attribute it to predestination for God never predetermined the life I have decided to live, I am the one that haschosen to live that life, whether it is good or bad.
That is why Paul said, “Thou oh man, live the life you want to live, eat and drink but let it be known to you that at the end of everything, God must bring every action of man to judgment whether they be good or bad.”
If God predetermined your life, why did He place before you life and death and then asked you to make a choice? You are a free moral people, a free moral man in that you are permitted, you are given the authority to decide the way you want to live.
Hence, if you want to live a life of failure, it is what you have decided. If you want to make something out of it, you decided it. If you want to live a free life like that, no problem.
Now, tell Me the predestination side of marital relationship, in relation to husband and wife. Tell me the predestination side of it.
What is habit? Habit is a pattern of life. In order words, it behoves on the husband and wife to determine the pattern of life that will govern their home. They must have a memorandum, an agreement that this is the pattern of life we will institute in our family.
Then what is the Word of God doing? The Word of God is helping us to lay down a good pattern—that is what the Word of God is doing. You may not know what is good and what is not good without the Word of God.
Something is good because God said it is good; something is bad because God said it is bad. Do you believe that?
As a result, the Word of God is what is placed before you, guiding you into taking right decisions. Finish.
That is why when you neglect it, it is your right also, you institute anyone you think is the best. At the end, you will discover it is false.
That is why we emphasize on the Holy Spirit, that the moment one neglects the Word of God, he becomes self-destructive.
Note the children born in an ideal home, where there is harmonious relationship between the husband and wife, the children have no excuse to give for not patterning after the life of their parents.
Notice one thing common in that family, any member of that family that refuses the parental instructions must surely be self-destructive. No child ever refuses godly counsel from the parents without becoming self-destructive.

YOUR FUTURE IS DETERMINED BY PREDESTINATION AND CHOICE

Now, what can you say about destiny there? If he continues in that life style which is destructive, it is because he determined to continue in that way and that turns out to become his destiny.
What is destiny? Destiny means what the future holds for you. What does the future hold for you? What the future holds for you is nothing but PREDESTINATION plus CHOICE.
Predestination in the sense that your parents must be your parents, you contributed nothing to it. That you are black or white, that is what you should be. You are from Imo State, I am from Anambra State; you are from Hausa or Yoruba land, that is your predestination there.
Then concerning choice, the choice is in your hand, the choice of life you have chosen to live must influence your future. The place where you have found yourself, God is the one that placed you there. They are those things that make up predestination.
What choice have you made so far? I chose to marry my wife, it is my choice concerning marriage, she accepted my hand in marriage, and automatically I am her choice in marriage. This is what we have decided to do; it has nothing to do with predestination. God never predetermined it, I saw her and admired her. I approached her, I paid the dowry and married her.
In predestination no ransom is paid, no choice is made, it is whether you like it or not. In predestination, there is no second choice. You have no choice to make. God had already made that one before you came.
But in choice, there are various choices, there are millions of choices, so you begin to examine the one that suits your purpose. That one that suits your purpose plus that predestination automatically dictates what tomorrow will hold for you. Finish!
So in effect, the choice you have made or the choice you are going to make will dictate what tomorrow will hold for you.
Of course, you should know that if marriage bothers on choice, the choice of the wife you will marry will determine the type of family you will run, will determine the type of children you will raise.
In other words, when these things begin to come, try as much as you can to place them where they belong to and stop attributing whatever you are passing through to be FATE or DESTINY when you are to be blamed.
Let us courageously accept our defeat, accept our blames. Let us courageously admit our failure and not attributing everything to predestination.
Some say, “What God said I will be is what I will be.” What did God say you would be? Did God say you would be a fool? Did He say that you are going to be a goat? Why did He give you mental faculty, so that you can think, so that you can reason out something that is acceptable and perfect will of God for yourself?
When you meet something that is acceptable and perfect will of God for you, your heart will rest, you will not be running up and down, you will relax. However, as long as that has not been named, you do not query God—do not query God.
Many things inform our choices in life but nothing influences predestination.
For that reason, check what is happening around you; check what you are passing through, you will discover that it is as a result of the choice you have made. If there is any condemnable act in your life, God is not responsible, you are responsible. If you accept these simple truths, solving of problems becomes very easy.
The reason why many find it difficult to find out solutions to their problems is because they attribute all their wicked ways to predestination: “I am a different man, you are a different man, we must not behave alike.”
If I reason wisely and you reason wisely, we must be the same. Two plus two, no matter where you take it to will give you four; four plus four, will give you eight. I am telling you God’s truth.
Put one tin of milk inside a tea cup, with two spoons of sugar and two table spoonful of Bournvita, instruct everybody to do it the same way you did it, whether you are using plastic container or bucket, as long as you obeyed, the taste must be the same. The taste must be the same because it is the same quantity of water, the same quantity of ingredients —the container is inconsequential. The taste must be the same.
So, do not tell Me we should not behave alike. What ushers in peace in my house must usher in peace in any family that really desires peace. It is not desiring peace while walking in the way that brings disorder, no! If you do that, it is like expecting a positive result from a negative action. It has never happened before, and it will never happen. Getting a positive result from a negative action, no, no; it is even against the Law of Nature.
For this reason, let us be very careful and should not be attributing our failures to predestination.

YOUR LIFE IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE

I do not know why I am going this way. I have given you messages; educational messages, aiming at moving you to higher heights, moving you forward because in life nothing guarantees permanence.
Life is not constant; it will be changing with changing times. That is why you are a human being. If you are not subject to change, then you become a tree. A tree is a tree; a tree is static.
The reason why God gave you two legs is to make you mobile so that you can change your position, so that I can change my position and also change my condition. My condition is not predetermined, my condition cannot be predetermined. It is subject to change. Who is to effect the change? I am the one, you are the one.
If God should determine that I should be stable year-in-year-out, I will be like a tree. No movement. But God said that as a human being, it should not be so, I should be moving about. When you are moving about, you are experiencing too many things.
As you are seeing; you are getting experiences because you are changing position, you are changing condition, you are changing habit.
Habit is nothing but long established lifestyle whether it is good or bad.

YOUR DESTINY IS IN YOUR HANDS

The Igbos used to say that when an evil stays long on the land it becomes a tradition. Anybody you ask will be giving you bad example. Do not ever use anything evil to give as your example.
I know that there are some foolish people among us who always use bad examples each time they are to give examples; bad, bad cases, all aimed at telling the whole world that their own case is not different.
If you do that, it then means you are a fool, you do not know the essence of life; you do not know the reason why you are in this Faith of Christ.
For this reason, let nobody ever nullify our Messages through PREDESTINATION or DESTINY. Let nobody ever attempt it. Your destiny is in your hand, you can dictate your destiny, you can dictate your condition, you can say “no” to anything that does not favour you and then say “yes” to all things that are favourable to you.
You have the power even to change unfavourable conditions to favourable conditions the same way you have the right to determine the type of dress you will wear, the cream you will use, the soap you will use, the shoes you will wear.
Don’t you change these things from time to time? Who made those choices for you? Is that predestination? Why did you like to change all those things from time to time? It is because you want to look better. You want to show the world that you are improving for you were not comfortable with that old one. If that is true about life, so it is about people in every aspect of life.
I am saying that nobody should over-burden predestination. Do not transfer your weakness, your failures; do not ever transfer them to predestination, do not ever do that. If you do that, well, I say may God bless you because of that. That is the origin of failure.
You have never failed until you have attributed all your conditions to predestination. Stamp them out of your vision, out of your heart and then have a new vision about life. Get ready to succeed even where others failed. Begin to recognise why they failed.
Not everything is attributed to predestination. Ninety-nine percent of our failures are attributed to our wrong choices of life.

USE TRUTH TO RAISE UP YOUR FAMILY

God said and I quote: “As we continue, I will change almost all the messages except marriage messages.” If you are having any problem with your children, it shows that your marriage is making noise but you have not noticed it.
If you are a wife, do not blame your children, blame yourself; if you are a husband, do not blame your children, blame yourself. If two of you sit down and put heads together, two of you should blame yourselves. Are you getting what I am saying?
Blame yourselves, not your children. For God said, “One single evil conduct parents manifest before their children can destroy all they are struggling to build in them all these years.”
Therefore, husband and wife must strive to agree in all situations, in all matters. If they should disagree, may they disagree inside the bedroom and then settle it in their bed. Let the matter never come to the parlour where the children can hear a glimpse of the quarrel.
If you are demonstrating against your partner’s instruction, don’t ever profess it openly, rather profess it at the right time in the bed and end the matter there or else, you have given a place for your children, for they emulate evil faster than any other thing.
Nothing is as infectious as bad habit. If your family is not measuring up well—by your family I mean your children—the problem is traceable to you and your wife; there is a rift somewhere and it must be curbed immediately. Block that thing. Let it not be noticeable, or it should not be mentioned.
The moment all those grievances will begin to emerge in your homes, before your eyes, the walls will be shaking because too many cracks on the walls weaken the structure.
I thank God on behalf of the structural engineers in our midst. You can verify from them.
The moment the walls begin to crack, the foundation of the building must be re-examined. For if, the foundation is sound and okay and the materials used for the constructions are okay, it will be impossible for cracks to develop. Did you get the Message?
The reason why I am telling you this truth is to use the truth to lay the foundation of your family, use the truth to raise up your family to avoid cracks and eventual collapse.
For that reason, you will do well to give this message the right attitude it deserves. Amen.

Make the right choice out of life by knowing that which can meet the challenges of our time, for we are living in a “growing world” with “growing challenges.” If you do not look forward, you will stop moving forward. —Son of Man. GET RID OF LAZY HABITS 9