What Is A Man? Part 2: The Origin of a Man.

What is a Man? Part 2- The Origin of a Man

Women lie, men lie, but numbers don't lie. Max Holloway, UFC Fighter. According to Harvard physician Dr. Ali Benazir, the odds of an individual being born are one in 400 trillion. If this is true, that means your parents had better odds at one in 33 million of winning the lottery multiple times over than giving birth to you. According to the numbers, life is truly a gift. Have you ever considered the bigger purpose associated with life in reference to its origin? If you had, you would have had to consider, why was I the one in 400 trillion to be granted both the gift as well as the responsibility of life? To understand the why, we must consider the origin of man. When one considers how difficult it is for a soul to be born, one can't help but to conclude that there is a significant purpose for each of us in this earthly realm.

Thank you for joining me in part two of this ongoing series entitled "What is a Man? The Origin of a Man". This is the Essential Discourse Podcast. You're listening to Essential Discourse with Bruce Smith. This is the podcast that examines the perplexities of real life from a holistic perspective. Bruce is committed to delivering honest and crucial dialogue that is transformative and with his guests will not only identify problems but also bring forward solutions that are relevant, restorative, reasonable, and reliable. Thanks for listening.

Let's return to the podcast. Here's your host, Bruce Smith. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Essential Discourse podcast. I want to thank you for being intentional with your time and choosing to invest that resource with me. If you have not done so, please consider subscribing to and following the Essential Discourse podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or at EDPshow.com. Well, gang, I gotta be honest with you. This was probably the most difficult episode I ever recorded and tried to publish. If you follow me on social media, you know that my intent was to have this episode published a while ago. However, I ran into some problems with technology, and before that, I had issues with the presentation of the content that I was trying to get over to you.

In listening to the episode. In the editing process, it just sounded as if there was too much information and that the delivery sounded, for lack of a better term, preachy. I mean, super preachy. The only thing that I may have been missing was, can I get an Amen or is there a witness in the place? So that led me to revising the podcast and how I wanted to present it to you guys because I did not want to take a chance of having you tuning out before you tuned in to the content that I am attempting to cross over to you. So with that being said, we are trying something entirely new. This is the first time that I've done this in one of my solo podcasts, and I hope that it comes off as personal, engaging, and relatable. So much so that you will comment, share your thoughts, and refer the podcast or this episode to your friends and or families. So, without further ado, let's get into the podcast.

At the beginning of this journey of discovery in reference to what is a man? I didn't know the depth of that question. I didn't know that this singular question would open up so many thoughts. What is a man? What is a man? Is a deep and personal question by itself. When you strip away the traditional terms protector, provider and producer that people oftentimes use to define what a man is, you have successfully made the question more difficult to answer. Honestly, many males have never been challenged to think about man or manhood in this way. I know I wasn't. And that's okay! And that's why we are discussing it here on this platform. To fully understand something, it is best for us to start at the beginning.

Would you agree? That's why the focus of this episode is centered on the origin of man. So let me give you the answer up front to the question, what is a man in reference to the origin of man? And the answer is to be God's earthly standard bearer, right? To be God's earthly standard bearer. To display his character within the Earth. To be loving, faithful, just, attentive holy and et cetera, and et cetera, and et cetera. To care for all of creation in the manner that God created man. And how did God create man? He created man intentionally. And he was very meticulous in the creation of man. You can read the creation story and see how intentional he was.

You can look at the makeup of the human body, all the systems of the body, the nervous systems, the respiratory system, the organs, the brain. And you can see how meticulously God was when he designed our human bodies. So the origin, the origin the origin is the point or the place where something begins. Now, in relationship to man in its truest sense. And you might have caught this earlier. Origin is prior to natural conception. It is prior to the natural conception of any man. So not born, but created. And if we look at created, we have to look at the first man, Adam.

And it's important to understand that Adam was created with a purpose. And that purpose is wrapped up in the answer that I provided you for What is a Man? Adam was created in the image and after the likeness of God. You can find that in Genesis chapter one, verses 26 through 27. Adam was not only created in the image and likeness of God, he was gifted with the Spirit of God. Adam is the first living soul on the Earth. You can find that in Genesis chapter two, verse number seven. And I'm going to read it for you just so that we are all on the same sheet of music.

Then the Lord God formed the man of the dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And man became a living SOUL. So there it is. He formed Adam. He created Adam out of the dust of the ground. He breathed himself, his spirit, into the body of Adam, causing Adam to become an animated being, a living soul. Now, throughout the story of creation, you can't find anywhere else in that story where God did the same thing with another created being. There were a bunch of let there be's and there was.

So,  Adam is unique. Adam is unique from the rest of creation. Adam is the perfect display of God's handiwork holistically. Holistically being mind, body, and soul. Why do I say that? Well, Adam had a conscience. Adam was aware of what was around him. Adam was aware that there was another source above him. Adam had comprehension.

Adam was able to understand what he was aware of. And Adam was gifted with the ability to make choices based off of his consciousness and his comperhension. The birds couldn't say, hey, that's water down there, so I think I need to go swimming and change the whole course of what they were created to do. Birds are still flying today. Fish didn't pop out of the water and say, you know what? I want to walk on land and stay on land for the eternity of time. No, fish are still in water. They are still doing what they were created to do. Why was it so important? Why was it necessary, for lack of a better word, that God created Adam? And that's simple.

He wanted to share his overflowing love, grace, and goodness through a relational bond. Now, that's a far cry from where most males reside today. And I think you will agree with that. Instead of being selfless, many of us are selfish. Instead of being humble, many of us are arrogant. Instead of being compassionate, many of us are indifferent. We don't care to care. Instead of being faithful to God and his people, many of us are unfaithful, disloyal, dubious, and et cetera and et cetera. So, God created Adam to share his overflowing love, grace, and goodness.

But also he created Adam to spread his glory. Right? God created Adam so that God's glory could be shared with the rest of creation. Many men today, many men today are actively rejecting or denying God. Many men are only concerned with creating their own form of glory. They could not care any less about God or his glory. God is not even a second thought in many men's mind. And that is a sad, sad commentary. But we got the purpose.

We got the purpose for why man created I'm sorry, why God created Adam. So out of this creation, what was there? What was the glue that held that together? Well, the glue that held it all together was a relational bond that established a universal standard. There are four parts to this relational bond. The first part is agreeable. God spoke to Adam. Adam understood God. Adam spoke to God and God understood Adam. And here's the kicker.

Adam agreed with God. Adam agreed with God so much that he obeyed God. You see, this is what we call today effective communication, right? Not only was it an agreeable bond, it was a bond for which Adam was charged. Out of this agreeableness, out of this obedience to God, god charged Adam. God made Adam responsible. Adam was responsible for all of God's creation to include Himself. The next thing God did was he made him accountable. Adam was to have an answer for the intent of his actions or inaction. Now, interestingly enough, today in our society, you'd be hard-pressed to locate any man who is all three of these things- agreeable, responsible, and accountable.

Especially, when you're talking about agreeable, responsibility, and accountable to another man. If we won't be responsible, agreeable and accountable with a man, what makes you think that we'll be the same with God? Now, interestingly enough, in today's society, you'd be hard-pressed to locate a man who is agreeable, responsible, and accountable. Now, you might find one of the three or two of the three, but you'll be hard-pressed to find a person, a man who has all three of these attributes. And then when you look at it from the standpoint of to God, where I just made mention that many men are actively rejecting Him or actively denying Him. So if they're denying and rejecting God, what do you think they're doing to other men? Out of the purpose of God's creation of Adam and the relational bond that was established, God the benefactor, initiated some provision because of this relational bond. Yes, provisions. God counseled Adam. God provided Adam with knowledge that's to know what to do. He also provided Adam with wisdom that's knowing how to do.

Now, the second benefit out of this agreeable bond was that God ministered to Adam. Oh, you don't believe that? The creation of Woman? Yeah. That's in Genesis chapter two, verse 18, verses 21 through 22. Look at what it says. The Lord God said, it's not good for man to be alone. I will make Him a helper suitable for Him. So the Lord caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. And when he was sleeping, he took one of the ribs from the man and closed up the place with flesh.

Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. Now, if you continue to read Genesis chapters two and three, you would see what Adam's response is when he was presented with Eve. In my mind, I think his response might have been something like, MY GOD!!! OKAY!!! You done outdid yourself My GUY! You done outdid yourself. I believe that God showed out in creating Eve. And notice this, notice this, notice that Adam didn't ask God for Eve. God created her because he saw and met a need that Adam didn't even know he had.

And when you're talking about ministry, you're simply saying meeting the need. And Adam had a need. So everything in the Garden of Eden was going good. Adam was doing his J-O-B. He was taking care of his responsibility. He was able to give an account for what he was doing, what he hadn't done. And he was still in communion with God. He still had an agreeable bond, an agreeable relationship with God. Until. Until Adam did the unthinkable.

He disobeyed God. He disobeyed the instructions that God gave him specifically, by eating the forbidden fruit, Adam committed the first sin. And it's that first sin, disobedience, that has plagued man ever since.He broke our fellowship, our relationship with God. And because of that, there was a penalty that had to be obsessed. And God told him up front, if you eat of that fruit, man, you going to die. And here we are, hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of years later, here we are in an identity crisis as men. Men are we don't know if we coming or going.

Some of us, some of us, we got a can't get right mentality. Some of us are so confused and distraught, and it's all because of the man made chaos that we continue to follow the example of Adam by being disobedience. But, God provided a working solution, and I say working solution because it's still working today. There was an open invitation of salvation that was presented for the world through Jesus Christ. He was born to reconcile us, to reunite us with the Father. He died to sanctify us, to make us holy. He was resurrected to justify us, to make us right. And he ascended back to glory and is seated on the right hand side of the Father making intercessory prayer for us right now.

So we have an advocate who is speaking on our behalf to the Father right now. And that working solution is twofold, because Jesus provided us with an example as to how we are to uphold the standard here on Earth. You know, there's nothing that he was not acquainted with that we will become acquainted with. And he handled it all with dignity, with class, with honor. And he never broke fellowship. He never broke God's will to perform his own will. And he showed us that it was possible, and he showed us what we were supposed to strive for in this earthly realm. So being that there's an open invitation for salvation and there is a display, there is an example for us to follow.

We've got to make a choice to either reject it, accept it, and apply it to our lives. This is a choice that every male must make. And you have to make it for yourself. You can follow the verified examples of truth for the abundant and holistic life that Jesus came to give us, right? You can accept that your path is your path. You can understand and know that there are things unknown to you but that are known by the creator. And that there is a guide who is willing and able to help you along this journey. Or we could do our own thing, as so many of us have done or are currently doing right now in one or more aspects of our lives. We are following various personas that imitate a fictitious lifestyle. I got it all together. I'm balling.

And when we do this as men, especially as men, we're wasting time and energy to be a version of a lie that's being presented to us. When we model celebrities, performers, entertainers, people...It could be people who live around the corner from us, you know what I'm saying? When we model these people, who we see, who we see, who we perceive as the epitome of success with our natural eyes, oh we're setting ourselves up for trouble, guys. We're setting ourselves up for trouble. Many, many of the people, many of the people that we fall victim in modeling ourselves after, they have behaviors and choices that are scripted. They're scripted in an unrealistic, unsustainable standard called public persona. And these public personas are designed to glorify themselves while oftentimes elevating the worst that society has to offer. It doesn't have to be an entertainer.

It doesn't have to be a celebrity. You could look at what somebody drives and say, yeah man, they got it all together. I want a Bentley. There's no way for you to know that they've mortgaged the house three or four times just to make the car payments on that thing. But that's what you want to ascribe to, right? And that's dangerous. That is dangerous, especially for males. That is a dangerous practice to model yourself after someone who has no godly reference and who does not follow godly instructions. That is dangerous.

Listen, man, you are what you consume. Believe that. You are what you consume. By modeling these fictitious lives of popular people, men send open invitations to dangers thoughts that lead to destructive behaviors that will likely destroy their futures if left unchecked. If you don't check yourself, you will most definitely wreck yourself. It's essential to emphasize that what appears to work for other people is not sustainable...When you can't bankroll public relation teams, in regards to celebrities, public relation teams, image and legal services that create and maintain these lies. Or they use their skills to mitigate the coincidental consequences of their behaviors, they being the people whom they were employed by. And it's oftentimes because these celebrities believe the lies that were created to project this persona, they start believing these lies. And now you're paying these people who created the lies to lessen the effect of your actions as a result of believing the lies now make that make sense.

Devastating results await. The person who insists on modeling their lives on a lie. This is true. This is true. What I'm telling you is true. Devastating results await. And a person who insists on doing this will ultimately find himself imprisoned in a vast, winding and dark place, suffering from self-identity deficiency. The man who finds himself in this place has no answer for the question, What is a Man? Because he has never taken the initiative to identify, to investigate, to imitate, to inquire of, or to implement the principles and practices of a true man.

This man is blind. Not only is he blind, he's deaf to any man not on TV, not on social media, or who he does not perceive as a person of importance or power. This man, the one who practices modeling themselves after these people, he should expect to be intimately familiar with being disillusioned, disappointed, discouraged, depressed and disconnected. I need you to listen to this. I need you to listen to this, and I need you to understand this. The origin story of every man, it includes a divine spark that inspires him with the potential for greatness. Now, only God knows the full extent of a man's capacity.

It is up to each man to tap into that potential and strive to achieve God's universal standard of excellence. Even when we doubt ourselves, if we have stewarded our communal bond with God by doing our very best to adhere to the charge, to being accountable and to be in agreeable fellowship with God, we can trust that God will not permit neither his plan nor his purpose for our earthly lives to fail. This is not to suggest that we will never stumble or fall from time to time. It means that we are self conscious enough to realize that we have shortcomings and imperfections. And, rather than being content with those things, we instead humble ourselves to live the lives God Himself has predestined us to live, both individually and collectively. When we choose to depend on God's word for counsel, instruction, direction, we can be sure that he will deliver us to the expected end that he has purpose for us. Yeah, he says it in Jeremiah, Chapter 29, verse eleven. For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, saith the Lord.

Thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Man, doing life God's way leads us to experiencing God's results. Listen. A righteous man will fall seven times and rise again. And although he falls, the Lord upholds him with the same hand that he used to create him. Be the standard bearer. Be the standard bearer God created man to be from his origin.

Be in agreement with God. Be intentional regarding the charge, the responsibility to, first, God. Secondly, his creation, and thirdly, for that which he has given you stewardship of. And after you have, after you have made sure that you are in agreement with God and that you are being intentional regarding the charge, be accountable, be able, be able to provide an acceptable answer. Well, this concludes this episode of the Essential Discourse Podcast. It is my hope that something stated has impacted you in such a way that it will cause you to strive to become a better version of yourself. The best version, the best original version of yourself. Join us next time as I examine What is a Man From Boys to Men. Yes, there is a distinction that must be recognized between an adult male and a man.

Until the next time. My prayer is that grace overflows within your life and that peace saturates you completely. This concludes this episode of Essential Discourse with Bruce Smith. We hope that your perspective has been elevated, that you have been edified, equipped, and encouraged as a result of listening today. If you found value in this episode, please recommend this podcast to your friends, families, associates, and colleagues. You can accomplish this by linking the podcast or podcast episode to your personal social media page. Your feedback and questions are welcomed. Please utilize the Facebook Business page, Essential Discourse with Bruce Smith or the Facebook Group Page, Essential Discourse Podcast Community to provide your feedback.

Additionally, please feel free to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or on your favorite podcast streaming app. For additional information about the podcast, the host, guests, and more, please visit www.edpshow.com. Until next time, remember, it's okay to extend yourself a measure of grace. We learn to grow. We grow to mature. We mature to be perfected. Thanks again for listening to Essential Discourse with Bruce Smith.