O
THE
vercoming
Still Praying The Prayer Of Jabez?
SERIES
‘JABEZ WAS MORE HONOURABLE THAN HIS BROTHERS ... [HE] CRIED
OUT TO THE GOD OF ISRAEL’ 1 CHRONICLES 4:9.
Jabez prayed a short prayer and his life changed forever. He prayed for:
1) Greater success: ‘Oh, that You would bless me indeed ...’
2) Greater infl uence: ‘And enlarge my territory ...’
3) Greater power: ‘That Your hand would be with me ...’
Lord I pray
4) Greater protection: ‘That You would keep me from evil, [and] God granted him
that I would be
what he requested.’ (1 Chronicles 4:10 NKJ).
honourable before
How come this prayer works? Because when you pray it, you’re asking God
I pray that You bless
for exactly what He wants you to have. How come it works for some and not
me. Let my life be
others? Because all God’s promises come with conditions. Listen: ‘Jabez was ...
completely sown
honourable.’ If you want what he had, you’ve got to do what he did. Now you don’t
into Your Kingdom.
have to do anything to earn God’s love, but you do have to do certain things to
Let my motives be
experience His blessing. ‘We ... receive whatever we request because we obey
right and let my
heart be pure, so
Him ... ‘ (1 John 3:22 NLT). Are your motives right? James writes, ‘... you do not
that when You bless
receive, because you ask with wrong motives ...’ (James 4:3 NIV).
me Lord, I know
Is your heart right? David said, ‘If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not
it will be because
hear me’ (Psalm 66:18). Sin will clog the pipeline of all future blessings. Once you
it’s the desire of
have the ‘all-clear’ with God, you can start praying the Prayer of Jabez and expect
Your heart, in Jesus’
breakthroughs and blessings, because God knows what you need, when you need it,
Name.
and how to get it to you!
An Eternal Perspective
‘WE ARE CITIZENS OF HEAVEN’
PHILIPPIANS 3:20.
Lord help me to Billy Graham writes, ‘I have a friend who during the Depression lost his job, his
understand eternity
fortune, his wife, and his home. But he tenaciously held to his faith – the only thing
and that my actions
he had left. One day he stopped to watch some men doing stonework on a huge
have an eternal
church. One of them was chiselling a triangular piece of stone. “What’s that for?”
consequence. Show
asked my friend. The workman said, “See that little opening way up there near the
me Your ways Lord,
spire? Well, I’m shaping this down here so that it’ll fi t in up there.”’
that I might walk
Tears fi lled the eyes of my friend as he walked away, for God had used this
a path of eternal
workman to help him understand the ordeal through which he was going. “I’m
infl uence for Your
shaping you down here, so that you’ll fi t in up there!”’
Kingdom, that the
The Bible says, ‘…we are citizens of heaven …’ You’re on a temporary visa – never
projects I work on
forget that! Weigh your actions and your decisions in the light of your ultimate
and the things I
destiny, not your immediate comfort. Get rid of the idea that ‘thoughts of heaven
infl uence will last
are only the pleasantries of the ageing’. This life is the short story; heaven is the
for the blessing of a
unending one. Tummy tucks, face-lifts, liposuction, fame, fortune, and personal
future generation.
pyramids notwithstanding, your earthly suit isn’t going to last forever.
Let me leave a
Before you shed it, be sure you’ve fulfi lled your assignment, and that you’re ready
legacy of Your Glory,
to hear the words: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant!’ (Matthew 25:21 NIV). One
in Jesus’ Name.
second after you’ve arrived in God’s presence, what are you going to wish you’d
done now? That, and that alone, should be the guiding principle of your life.
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