Dear Bros in Christ,

Proverbs 27:17 As iron sharpens iron, So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.
Brothers in Christ, this monthly devotional is sent and meant to be an encouragement to all
and to build up and edify in the Lord Jesus Christ. Oikodome means "Builder". The Lord has
put this on my heart to send out a monthly Iron Man Oikodome {oy-kod-om-ay'} to build
up and encourage the men who love and follow Jesus Christ in their walk with Him.
Hebrews 3:13 "But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none
of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness."
PRAYER REQUESTS: If you have any prayer requests please send them and I will send
them out to the bros for prayer, if privacy is needed I will send in a discreet way.

JANUARY 2010
“PRAYER”
"It shall come to pass That before they call, I will answer; And while they are still speaking,
I will hear. Isaiah 65:24 NKJV

Bros may we ever be before our Mighty King Jesus Christ seeking His face in prayer day
and night, night and day and all the time in between going both directions… as the Lord
declares the complete history and glorious future to the remnant of Israel. God’s people will
confess their sins; all His enemies will be judged, justice will prevail as the Lord God will
make all things new, God brings great comfort in these prophetic verses of the last 26
chapters of Isaiah.
In our lives He can and will bring forth great comfort and make all things new when we
confess our sins, oh we still may have the consequences of sin to deal with but the idea is
that He can give us forgiveness that we so desperately need because it’s death without His
forgiveness, and be our hope- our only hope, make us newly washed and fresh so we can
start over right now right where we are at this moment. We can come as we are, so we
don’t have to go and do anything but get on our knees and confess our sins. He is able to
do the rest completely and in a way that only He can to make us fully forgiven, fully
washed and cleansed from the filthiness of our sins, fully restored to a right relationship
and a right standing with Jesus Christ. We are His children, His family and He bestows this
love, this right and this blessing on us His children when we come to Him and confess our
sins and ask forgiveness. What an unbelievable inheritance we have here on earth right
now and this is just the beginning of our inheritance. The Lord Jesus Christ makes us whole
again, we don’t have to carry that guilt and shame around like a heavy weight on our heart
woven in and out and all around and through our heart choking off our very life and making
our heart hardened by the weight of those sins, we have no need to leave hearts sick with
sin, we don’t have to carry those sins around like Samsonite luggage for the rest of our life.
We can ask the Lord Jesus Christ to take them away and that is truly a blessing here on
earth while we are temporarily here- it’s an early inheritance gift that comes from the Lord
Jesus Christ it is part of His love and gift to us because He paid dearly for those sins and the
right to remove those sins from us He alone is God.
Bros as we start out this new year and really everyday that we would take advantage of
this life saving gift that can only come from the Lord Jesus Christ and be refreshed and
forgiven. He already says before we call He will answer and while we are speaking He will
hear. I have been reminded of the power of prayer and lack of prayer a lot lately especially
as I read verse 24 in Isaiah 65. I think we always have to take our prayers back to the
beginning we must repent taking our transgressions and inequities before the Lord to set
things right in our standing with the Lord, by this meaning that the Lord Jesus Christ takes
those sins away when we confess with our mouths and turn away from those sins. And
when we have been washed and cleansed we can receive all His blessings and sup with
Him. Bros I believe there is a lot that should be desired in all of us with our prayer lives.
This day and age we seem to be hard pressed on every side to do this or get that done as
fast as humanly possible. How about all this technology that’s supposed to help us do a
better job and make things faster. I know for me and probably a few other old school-ers, it
seems we waste more time doing a bunch of things we never had time to do before
because now it is always in front of our faces- you know those hand held devices that
consume our every second. No one realizes how much these things actually control us.
They know our location at every second, they know everywhere we have been, they have
all our personal information stored in them, they have been made to track our likes and put
things that are suppose to be interesting to us in front of us so they can sell us something
we don’t want or need…The reason I say this is because more and more these things
consume you and me and our time. I have been making a concerted effort to spend more
time in prayer; I was missing it so much not that I stopped praying but I really needed to
get my focus back on prayer time and really missing what my Father had to say to me. I
read about these mighty men of prayer that were consumed with praying for hours to the
Lord and I think man nowadays it seems everything is a shotgun prayer- a quick blast
covering and encompassing as wide an area as possible. Not that short fast prayers can’t
or won’t reach God, but to say that somewhere somehow we can get messed up and
derailed if we don’t keep our priority’s right before the Lord Jesus Christ. I have been so
blessed in my renewed time of prayer, it is refreshing me and making me to get back to
the relationship with Jesus that blesses me so much and blesses God to hear from the
depths of my heart as I cry out to Him and He listens to me as only a Father can and brings
that comfort and refreshment to my soul. “…You shall weep no more. He will be very
gracious to you at the sound of your cry; When He hears it, He will answer you” (Isaiah
30:19 NKJV). Let this new beginning of a new year be a time of returning to the foot of the
cross and you will be amazed at what the Lord wants to say to you and what He wants to
do in your life and where He is leading you. He does hear prayer and He does answer
prayer and maybe He hasn’t heard from you in a while and maybe it is time He did hear
from His beloved child to see if it is well within your heart and soul…

Bros sometimes there are times when we need to hear from God as we seek His word and
seek Him in prayer those times where the depths of our soul needs to be moved and
touched by His spirit and it is only when we spend time with Him in that deep prayer and
meditation can He touch us in that manner. That is to say where we invite Him and let Him
come into the innermost depth of our heart and soul and to know that He is the only One
that can go there and that has ever been there and He is the only One that knows what
exists there in the deepest depths of our heart and soul. He also is the only One that can
minister and change our hearts. He can remove what does not belong there and He can
move in your heart instantly in the power of prayer and make sweeping changes when you
invite Him in to sup with you. He can and will do all those things that you never could do
and He knows what has to go to make room for those changes, hopefully it is not
something we are hanging on to so tightly that He has to rip it from our grip, that thing or
something that is a growth on the walls of our heart and it has become enlarged and is
manifesting itself into something that is getting out of control and really maybe
uncontrollable and so you seek the Lord now that you have asked Him inside and let Him
remove it, He can be gentle, but if you ask know that He is going to do it and He may have
to pry it off and out of your heart and it could hurt but it will be that kind of feel good hurt.
You know that feeling where some area of your body is healing and it is sore but you can
feel the healing taking place and so it feels good in a sort of feel good hurt way… Maybe
you need to hear from God in a very physical or financial way, by some type of physical
blessing I mean a tangible blessing, you are crying out for help on something you are doing
or some trial or something you need help within a moments notice and you call on God.
There are times when we seek and need to ask God to move right now in our situation
according to His will and His tender mercies. And in those times when God seems to
instantly answer your prayer, when He hears your cry he answers right away isn’t that how
we parents respond when our children are crying out for us to help them… “And whatever
we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things
that are pleasing in His sight”. (1 John 3:22 NKJV)

A few years back I was working in Northern California and as I was driving my Jeep up
Highway 99 in the early evening on a Sunday as I was cruising along all of a sudden I heard
a couple of thuds under my hood. I thought wow that did not sound good so I pulled over in
the middle of nowhere and looked under the hood and at first did not see anything wrong.
But as I took a closer look I saw about a third of my serpentine fan belt missing- ouch I
thought! I stared at it for a few seconds and got back in and started driving thinking OK I
will take it easy and keep going. As I drove along I began to pray and think that maybe I
should try to find a place to get a new belt. Even though I had very little money and no
credit cards with me and maybe two wrenches to try to replace it, I had the Lord with me.
So the next town I pulled in and found a place that had one in stock – thank you Jesus! I
drove away and thought now where am I going to find a place to where I can put this thing
on. I got back on the highway and down the road a piece I saw a truck stop mainly a huge
gravel lot for the trucks to pull in. I pulled up under this street light in the middle of the lot
as I thought it might be dark in a little while and I would need the light. So I popped the
hood once again and got my two wrenches out to see if they would work for this job. I
learned after owning a few Jeeps you don’t want to take the old belt off first before you get
the new one in place- it can be a nightmare if you don’t know the direction it weaves
around all those different pulleys… I was so ill prepared for this job as I looked over all the
different size wrenches that I needed thank the Lord there was a truckers store there that
had a few tools, so I went and bought two more cheap wrenches and this left me with
twenty dollars to my name to get me through the rest of the week. As I began working and
everything seemed to go smoothly until I realized I needed one more wrench and the store
did not have it. I saw a mechanics shop in the distance so I walked about three hundred
yards to the truck mechanics shop and thought to myself there is no way no how a
mechanic who has to make a living with his tools is going to loan me a stranger his tools-
so I prayed and boldly went where no man with common sense would have gone. I said to
the mechanic I was working on my Jeep and needed to borrow a wrench and would leave
my drivers license as collateral if he would let me use one of his wrenches before I could
finish he said don’t worry about it take what you need just bring it back in fifteen minutes
because he was closing up shop and had to leave. Man the Lord opened the doors for me,
this is a miracle I though to myself as I looked through his tools and found the one I needed
and tried to give him my license but he refused to take it. I got back to my Jeep as fast as
possible and started the surgery once again. I got the belt on and tighten the bolt with the
borrowed wrench and got it back to the mechanic before he left for the day. So I was
almost finished putting this belt on about an hour later. I noticed it was getting colder and I
had no jacket with me- hey that is just the way I rolled back in the day and it was getting
darker and I thought praise the Lord I decided to fix this now instead of chancing it out on
the highway because there are some stretches of lonely dark highway up there that you
would not want to get broke down on trust me! So as I tried to tighten up the belt and then
started the engine I noticed it was still loose so I tried again and realized I needed another
hand to hold the alternator in place while I tighten it down or a pry bar to hold it. No matter
how many times I tried to get it snug it wasn’t tight enough. I was getting desperate as it
was dark and getting really cold, I had virtually no money and no help in sight in fact I was
the only one in the middle of this huge gravel parking lot that must have been a half mile
long… I began to cry out to the Lord desperately for help and I kept trying to tighten the
belt but it wouldn’t stay tight. I had now been under that street light for almost three hours
a simple little 20 minute job with the right tools and conditions had turned out to be a
nightmare for me. As I was praying and crying out to the Lord out of nowhere
instantaneously and remember I can see in every direction for three hundred yards and
there is nothing around me and this guy walks up and says “hey I was just driving down
from the mountains and …” I finished his sentence for him with “I know you wrecked your
car down an embankment and spent all your money getting it towed out and now you need
money to buy your wife some medication as she is a diabetic right?” He looked at me kind
of puzzled as I told him I only had about twenty bucks on me and had to have it for gas for
the rest of my trip. Without even so much as a complaint he said what are you doing here
and I said I just need someone to hold this while I tighten these bolts. The guy immediately
knew exactly what had to be done it was like he knew what I had been struggling with and
within seconds it was fixed and I started my engine and it worked the belt stayed tightly in
place and didn’t slip, thank you Jesus. I turned to him and said look I know you need money
I will give you half of what I have, so I gave him ten bucks and as I turned to close my hood
standing there in the middle of that huge gravel parking lot it took all of maybe two
seconds to close that hood and when I had turned around the guy was completely gone as
in vanished. I thought O’man wow Lord you are awesome, it was the most awesome thing.
The Lord heard my cry and fixed my problem in a few seconds, it was so unbelievable and
incredible how the Lord did that. You are probably thinking to yourself right now that is
awesome, but how did you know that his car went off an embankment and he spent all his
money getting it towed and not having enough money for his wife’s meds. Well let me tell
you bro a few months before this day actually maybe six months before I was driving my
little son up North with me to stay with me for a week and my Jeep was so hot inside and
he was so active I would have to stop about every hour and let him get out of his car seat
and run around a little bit so I would stop at a fast food joint with one of those jungle gym
mazes and let him burn off some steam and then go on our way. Well this one particular
time a few hundred miles from where I currently was almost stranded as I walked to my car
with my son a guy came up to me and said excuse me I was just coming down out of the
mountains and my car went off the road and crashed into the embankment… So I gave him
twenty dollars. As I think back on this story I think what are the odds of running into a
complete stranger twice; a couple hundred miles apart from each meeting, the Lord knows.
Maybe that was a test for me, you know entertaining angels…
I do know that the Lord answers our prayers just like when we hear our children’s cry and
respond, He hears our cry and answers at the sound of our distress calls no matter what
the need the Lord Jesus Christ is faithful even when we are not. Remember in Genesis 24
Abraham sent out his oldest servant to find a wife for Isaac. You would think he was not the
best candidate for this job sending a really old guy out to find a young beautiful wife for
someone else. But the Lord answered his prayer to bring Rebekah a very beautiful gal even
while he was still praying; “And it happened, before he had finished speaking, that behold,
Rebekah, who was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother,
came out with her pitcher on her shoulder”. (Gen 24:15 NKJV)
So bros know that the Lord is concerned with all that you are facing right now and He can
and is willing to answer your prayers. It may not be according to our will but according to
His which is way better- praise the Lord! “You will make your prayer to Him, He will hear
you...” Job 22:27 NKJV
In Him always and forever,
Daniel Wright
Iron Man Oikodome
Proverbs 27:17

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