Iron Man Oikodome - "construction Defects Or Sin"

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. SEPTEMBER 2009 “Construction Defects or Sin” "You are worthy, O Lord, To receive glory and honor and power; For You created all things, And by Your will they exist and were created"(Revelation 4:11). “[He is] the Rock, His work [is] perfect; For all His ways [are] justice, A God of truth and without injustice; Righteous and upright [is] He” (Deuteronomy 32:4). “Construction Defects or Sin” In our world Construction defects are in everything that is built or manufactured it seems impossible to make or build something absolutely perfect. Contractors see all the defects, even though they try to build everything perfect. I don’t mean that they are intentional or major defects but the little nuances that come from building something by hand and by so many different people assembling things that all tie in together to create the finished product. There are bound to be some variations especially when mixing old with new or remodeled. Sometimes when the project is finished you look at it and it looks great to most folks. But as the builder or creator of a project you know every defect and sometimes it is hard to look past that and see the overall finished product. It can sometimes be like a scarred heart- it doesn’t show on the outside but if you could look inside you could see the defects and know the exact underlying condition of the structure. And when you know these things are there and that a project is less than perfect sometimes that is hard to except because we demand perfection but are incapable of ever creating it totally or being perfect in our own lives for that matter. So not even being able to be perfect ourselves we try to create perfection with everything we do and then the frustration can set in, where can we possibly think we are going to end up in our efforts to be perfect in all we do or try to create, except as even more frustrated than we started out being because of our lack of ability to be perfect. I would like to contrast building a project that is perfect to being without sin- just a little… We are incapable of being without sin or perfect in our own power or by any self will as individuals, having that sin nature why would we think we can create perfection or do anything exactly perfect to begin with and that brings me to this thought; how does God do it? What I mean is how can He tolerate us, knowing all of our sins and sin nature, when He looks at us or looks into our thoughts or see us in our actions or hears us talking or knows our motives or looks into our hearts? How is God able to be concerned about us when He knows our sin nature and what we are going to do before we do it? Because of love, He loves us and He created us and knows us intimately and every detail about us, every little- what we might call character defects and sins? But did God create sin or is this something we did on our own? Again I am thinking as a contractor and looking at this through my eyes, knowing a project I build is less than perfect not by choice even though I try hard and I want it to be perfect but it never will be. God knows we will never be perfect either…No matter how hard we try we will never be perfect because we have a sin nature and Jesus Christ is the only One who is absolutely Perfect. In spite of all this the Bible says; "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us"(Romans 5:8).

Because God loves us, and His love was shown upon the cross, how great His love is for us that He allowed Himself to be separated from the Father because of our sins; He took the penalty for our sinsthat is LOVE. His Love for us was shown without hesitation on that cross taking our place paying for all our sins, our inability to be perfect, but His ability to Love us. “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him” (Romans 5:9). Gods’ creation, that would be us, we were created by His design and in His image, so what happened to us, we know that the incident in the garden had a huge impact on us? How did we stray from what he create us to be and to become who we are and like we are today- having sin nature and that lack of being fully able to be Christ like in our Christian walk? Not to say that we are supposed to be perfect in the sense that Christ Jesus is. But I know we want to be like Christ and so we are yearning, thirsting, hungering to lead Christ centered lives, it is with that sense- sort of pursuit of holiness knowing we will never achieve perfection until we meet our Lord Jesus Christ face to face but now following Gods perfection Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. He made us and He knows all the sins that we choose to do and every area where we are weak, just like a builder knows the less than perfect areas in his building. I don’t think God made any defects when He created us, but because He gave us free will to choose to follow Him or to choose not to follow Him or to obey Him or not to obey Him we are the ones that add sin to what God created to be when we allow our free will to take us away from God instead of using our free will choice to honor God and obey all His commandments and to me that free will when we allow it to follow our flesh is like a gear or centrifugal clutch or centrifugal force if you will, and by it’s force it moves us away from center, its when it engages by force that it moves away the free wheeling or free spinning position or for us free will position. It’s like God gave us a neutral gear for our free will or self will and we can choose to take it out of neutral and then when we allow a force to control us like our sin nature flesh or the world to influence us or the enemy the force thrust us from being God centered and into high speed sin gear and we begin to move in revolutions away from God so as not to be centered in Christ Jesus. Centrifugal force is when something moves away from center; a force that makes rotating bodies move away from center. Then the force that moves it away from center becomes greater while the force is allowed to have control, once it engages, its power controls it. God is our center and when we are centered on Him controlled by the Holy Spirit and draw near Him we are in perfect harmony with His will for our lives. It’s when we allow the power of forces by our choices to move us away from being God centered that we are living outside His will for our lives. These forces can be sin in our lives that dominate our walk or limit our walk with the Lord or even sin on a lark- non intentional or spiritual warfare, a falling away that takes us away from His Word, prayer, Bible studies, regular fellowship, breaking bread together or accountability to God and other believers. It’s like the construction defects I spoke of in the beginning there are things that are not readily visible from our exterior but God knows and sees the interior all the dirt of sin that is inside and He is the only One who can remove those sin faults and present us faultless. “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, And to present [you] faultless Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, To God our Savior, Who alone is wise, [Be] glory and majesty, Dominion and power, Both now and forever. Amen” (Jude 1:24-25). It’s a choice Bros we can allow our free will or that very sin nature to control us and to slip away from neutral to centrifugal force of sin nature or the enemy or our fleshy desires or the things of this world to consume us and force us away from God or we can choose to follow God and stay centered on Him and His ways for our life. “For it pleased [the Father that] in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight”—(Colossians 1:19-22). Dear Lord Jesus help us to choose You and not allow the forces of our sin nature flesh or evil or pride or lust of the eyes to prevail in our lives. But help us to be God centered so that we would stay close to You and Your perfect Will for us. That You would break down any walls the enemy has erected and remove the shackles of bondage that we might be caught and bound up in or maybe we have been back sliding away from you right now in our lives, slowly falling away, make us whole again so that we would come to honor You Father, to praise you Lord Jesus Christ, to be controlled by Your Holy Spirit

and not allow us to add our sins to what You created in Your Own Image and cause Your heart to be so grieved. Let us rejoice that You did create us for Your good pleasure and as You desired and that we would not allow our sin nature to control us Your very own creation, except may we do that which honors You and exalts You Lord Jesus above everything else, You are Perfect in every way Lord and we thank You that You alone are Perfect and everything You created was by Your Perfect Design and Purpose. And because You are perfect and everything You have done in the past is perfect and everything You do today is perfect and everything You do in the future will be perfect too. You are Perfect Lord and everything about You is perfect and we are thankful that we are made whole by Your Love and Your Grace and Your Mercy. In You only Lord Jesus Christ can we be made whole because of the love You poured out for us and into us on Calvary taking our place on the cross, thank You Lord for giving us the perfect sacrifice for our sins Jesus Christ our Redeemer so when our sins are removed we are washed from our sins according to Your perfect plan by taking our filthy sins that we added and washing us and making us white as snow and cleansing us from all unrighteousness to show the world that You are indeed God Almighty and You have the power to make what is dead in sin alive and perfected in Your Love, Mercy and Your Grace and no one but You Lord Jesus Christ can forgive our sins not the porcelain buddy ha, Moe ham mad, nor confusion, or mary not one can cleanse us from our sins and wash us but only You Lord Jesus Christ. You are the Master Builder Who sees and knows everything about everything and You love us all in spite of the sin nature that exist in us, that lack of self control which we can perpetuate the wrong way when we exercise our free will to satisfy our flesh. Only You make us cleansed through confession of sin to You and repentance and You take those sins away with Your perfect restoration, Your perfect forgiveness, Your perfect cleansing and washing by the blood of Christ Jesus-Your perfect remedy for our sins, Your perfect healing touch, Your perfect ability to mend a broken and contrite heart through our Fathers Love, Abba Father and only from our Daddy’s’ love can we experience the fullness of Your perfect love Jesus Christ in our lives, make us to follow and look to Your perfection our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:12). “[As for] God, His way [is] perfect; The word of the LORD [is] proven; He [is] a shield to all who trust in Him.”For who [is] God, except the LORD? And who [is] a rock, except our God? God [is] my strength [and] power, And He makes my way perfect” (2 Samuel 22:31-33). Looking to Jesus the absolute Perfection, Daniel Wright Iron Man Oikodome Proverbs 27:17

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