The Prayer of Jabez (1) // God Wants to Bless You, Part 1

Question: Does God want to bless you, yes or no? It’s a very serious question because how you answer it, is probably the best indicator to tell you what you think of your God. So I’ll ask you again, does God want to bless you, yes or no?

NO, IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK!

I remember, probably a decade or more ago, when I first read Bruce Wilkinson’s book, The Prayer Of Jabez. It had a huge splash when it was first released. And I don’t know how many millions of copies have sold since but it’s been a huge hit. I distinctly remember though, how uncomfortable I felt reading the first chapter of that little booklet, which, I read all in one sitting in a bed when I was in New Zealand. This is the bit that really got me, Wilkinson writes:

That God really does have unclaimed blessings waiting for you, my friend. I know it sounds impossible, even embarrassingly suspicious in our self-serving day, yet, that very exchange, your want for God’s plenty, has been His loving will for your life from eternity past. And with a handful of core commitments on your part, you can proceed from this day forward with the confidence and expectation that your heavenly Father will bring it to pass for you.

Think of it this way, instead of standing near the river’s edge asking for a cup of water to get through each day, you’ll do something unthinkable. You will take the little prayer with the giant prize and jump into the river. At that moment, you’ll begin to let the loving currents of God’s grace and power carry you along. God’s great plan for you will surround you and sweep you forward into the profoundly important and satisfying life that He has waiting for you.

Do you see why I was so troubled by this? On the one hand, Wilkinson was promising me the very thing that I wanted, God’s abundant blessing. Do you want that? Sure you do! I want that too. Who doesn’t want to be abundantly blessed by God? But on the other hand, it conjures up a fear … that perhaps the desire to have God’s abundant blessing was a selfish thing to want.

You and I, both, have seen the gross excesses of some who claim to be God’s people and who live this extravagant lifestyle that looks nothing … NOTHING … like taking up your cross and following Jesus. I found myself in a conundrum that I think we all find ourselves in, when it comes to God’s blessing.

Should I ask or shouldn’t I ask? Does God want to bless me abundantly; or does He not want to bless me abundantly; or at all for that matter? They’re the questions we often find ourselves asking.

Wilkinson hits the nail on the head, though, when he says that we live in a self-serving day, we do. And if we approach God’s promises of blessing unlimited, in a self-serving way, then of course, it’s not the right thing to do. To ask Him for blessings that just serve us. He’s much smarter than to give us everything we want. He loves us way too much to instantly fulfil our every desire.

When I was a child, even back then (over a half a century ago), the retailers in the stores figured out that the best place to put the sweets and the small toys was at my eye level, right at the checkout. They knew that I’d pressure my parents to buy me this and to buy me that. Do you remember pestering your parents to buy you these things when you were a kid, right?

But no, being wise parents, being good parents and loving parents, they didn’t always accede to our howls of protest as they dragged us kicking and screaming out of the store without that packet of lollies that we just had to have. And yet, I’m able to look back on all that my parents did for me, for the eighteen or so years that I spent under their roof, I tell you inequitably, that they blessed my socks off. I think most of us can look back on our upbringing and say exactly the same thing about our parents.

Good loving parents don’t always meet the selfish wants of their immature children. But they still bless them beyond measure because that’s how parents are wired … to bless their children. That’s exactly what God’s like. You don’t believe me? Well, let me ask you this, what’s the very first thing that God said to and did for Adam and Eve, when He created them, the very first thing? Do you remember?

So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them and then God blessed them and God said to them, ‘be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.

God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit you shall have them for food and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the air and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food and it was so. God saw everything that he had made and indeed it was very good and there was the evening and there was the morning of the sixth day. (Genesis chapter 1, verses 27 to 31)

The last thing He did after completing all of creation, was to hand it over to Adam and Eve. God blessed them and He told them it’s all theirs. The whole cotton picking lot, He gave it to them. He gave it to us. And it was only then, on the following day (the seventh day), once He’d done all the hard work of creation, once He’d given it all away to us that He decided to take a day of rest.

Now, if you have any doubt, any doubt whatsoever that God wants to bless your socks off. If the story of creation still doesn’t do it for you, then please turn your gaze with me to the cross of Christ. Galatians chapter 3, verses 13 and 14:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us for it is written ‘cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’. In order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

God doesn’t want to bring us up as spoilt brats. But wrap your mind around this; He wants to bless us beyond measure.

The picture that Bruce Wilkinson paints in the passage I shared with you from his book, The Prayer Of Jabez, of standing near the river’s edge asking for a cup of water to get you through each day, is how we’ve been conditioned to think about going to God, and asking for His blessings. "Don’t ask for too much, don’t be too demanding, don’t impose on God".

Well, that’s not how we are as parents, are we? Of course, we don’t want to spoil our kids. But the more they show us their gratefulness and maturity and selflessness, the more we want to bless them, right? We’re wired to bless our children without measure, in the right way.

Do you imagine that God isn’t up to the same mark? I mean do you really? Here’s what Jesus said on the matter, Matthew chapter 7, verse 11.

If then you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more then will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask it.

So let’s get this thing about God’s blessing straight. God is a good Father. He will never give us things that will cause us to become spoilt brats. So forget asking Him for that boat, or that holiday house, or that personal jet, or that bank account filled with millions and millions and millions of dollars or whatever currency you desire. He will no more fill us with that stuff than my parents would fill me with the candies at the store, that I demanded each time we were there.

But ask Him for good things, worthwhile things, things that will achieve amazing stuff on this earth. And watch God open up the windows of heaven and pour untold blessings into your life. "What to ask for? How to ask for it?" is what we’re going to be chatting about tomorrow and for the rest of this week on the program But right now, let me finish up by saying this, your God wants to bless you!

EXTREME BLESSING

Okay, so God doesn’t want to turn you into a spoilt brat, we get that, right? Dear God, please give me the latest model of the BMW 7 series, in a nice deep midnight blue colour. That’s a prayer that’s unlikely to get much of a response out of God. And certainly, when I talk about the blessing of God, that’s not what I’m talking about either.

But, in scrubbing those self-indulgent desires from our prayer list, I think, sometimes, we scrub off the idea of all blessings or at least the idea of abundant blessings, the sort of blessing that overflows out of us because we just can’t contain it.

The reason why I’ve called this series of messages, God Wants To Bless You, is because God wants to bless you. And no more so do we discover that, than in the prayer of Jabez. Maybe you’ve read Bruce Wilkinson’s book by that name. I only re-read it again recently. And I realised, even though I’m someone who spends a lot of time in God’s Word, I realised how easy it is to be drawn off track in our thinking, and in our perception of what God means, when He says "I want to bless you".

I truly believe that if we can wrap our hearts around the truth of God’s blessing for us, it will completely change the way we understand God, the way we see ourselves and the way we see the rest of the time we have left here on this earth. So let me read to you straight out of God’s Word, the prayer that Jabez prayed to God. It comes from 1 Chronicles chapter 4, verses 9 and 10.

Now Jabez was more honourable than his brothers and his mother named him Jabez, saying, ‘because I bore him in pain’. And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, ‘Oh, that you would bless me indeed and enlarge my territory, that you would be with me and that you would keep me from evil, that I may cause no pain. So God granted him what he requested.

Now these two verses, 1 Chronicles chapter 4 verses 9 and 10, are buried deep inside nine chapters of genealogy. Can you believe it? Nine chapters? I’ve read my Bible – front to back and front to back and back to front and back to front – on quite a number of occasions. But can I be honest with you? I lost it in these nine chapters, really. I know that all Scripture is inspired by God. I know that all Scripture is useful for teaching, reproof and correction and for training in righteousness, 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 16. I get that, but nine chapters of genealogy? Give me a break!

That is, until you stumble across Jabez’s story in these two little verses. This dry list of names goes on for pages and pages and pages. And the only breather, the only diversion, the only bit of insight in all of that, is the prayer of Jabez. In other words, God is saying to us that this Jabez fellow is meant to stand out head and shoulders above the other five hundred plus names on that list.

He was not a great king, not a great Prophet. He was for all intents and purposes a bog ordinary human being like you and me. That’s the point and yet, he stands out head and shoulders above the rest. In fact, God very clearly tells us that "he was more honourable than his brothers".

Why? Was it because of the great start he had in life, is it? Well, no, we’re told his mother had a particularly difficult childbirth when it came time for Jabez to pop into this world. I obviously don’t know how much it hurts to bring a child into this world. But in theory, I can tell you that every birth has pain associated with it.

For the Bible to comment on this particular birth, means, that it must have been a tough one. So tough! So painful, in fact, that his mother gave him a name that means literally that he was a pain. I’ve tried to imagine what my life would have looked like, if instead of calling me Berni, my parents had given me a name "you’re a pain". "Hi you’re a pain, how are you going today"?

Do you think that would have influenced his life badly, in a culture, where the meaning of your name was synonymous with who you are? You bet it would! The kid had a rotten start. But the Bible tells us that he was honoured above his brothers because he prayed a particular prayer. And the first part of that prayer was this.

Oh, that you would bless me indeed. (1 Chronicles 4:10)

Now, in some of the contemporary Bible translations they omit the word "indeed", which is a mistake. And which is why I’ve used the New King James translation here. The short of it is that the tense of the original Hebrew word for "bless me" makes it emphatic. It’s as though he underlined it and put three exclamation marks after it.

So the sense of what Jabez is asking God is this, "Oh God bless me a lot", that’s the meaning. Have you asked that of God? Not a specific prayer for this or that but an open prayer for God to choose the blessing. And whatever it looks like, whatever form it comes in and whenever it does come, that it would be a huge blessing, that you will be blessed indeed. That the blessing would be so big that your tiny mind simply can’t comprehend it.

Have you ever asked God for that sort of blessing? And if so, why not? Because the Bible tells us that because of this prayer, Jabez was honoured above all his brothers. And as a result of this prayer, verse 10, God granted him what he requested.

This is a prayer that I pray often, almost every day of my life:

Dear God, bless me a lot. Not the blessings that I choose but the blessings You want to choose. Because I know, that You’re going to think of stuff that I would never ever think of. I know that You’re going to come up with blessings beyond anything I can ever hope for, dream or imagine.

How do I know that? Because in Ephesians chapter 3, verse 20, I’m told that God is the God, who by the power at work within us, is able to accomplish abundantly far more than we can ask for or imagine. And if that’s the God He is, if He can and He wants to do stuff that we can’t even imagine, why wouldn’t we simply ask Him to bless us the way He wants to bless us.

Why wouldn’t we leave the choice open to Him? And if the Bible tells us that Jabez was honoured above all the others. And that God gave him what he asked for, why wouldn’t we ask for the same thing?

It seems pretty obvious doesn’t it? And here’s what happens when we do, God begins to move supernaturally in our lives despite and even through some of the tough things we’re going through. God starts to make appointments for us. He starts to give us opportunities to take the blessing He’s giving us, to let it flow through us, into the lives of other people.

A blessing is literally someone speaking well of you. In the New Testament, the Greek word for blessing is eulogia, from which we get the word, eulogy. A blessing is God speaking well of you. But when God speaks, something amazing happens. The Bible tells us,

God calls into existence things that do not yet exist. (Romans 4:17)

So when God blesses you, He speaks into your life and supernaturally makes things happen that don’t yet exist and would otherwise never have happened.

Sometimes, He does that of His own accord. Dad’s are like that. As our Father, His heart is to bless us. But as any father does, He longs for us to come to Him and ask. He longs for us to humble ourselves and turn to Him and ask for His blessing, His eulogia. He’s calling into existence things that don’t yet exist into our lives.

Does that give you a different perspective on God’s blessing? Does that make you want to get down on your knees right now and ask for His blessing? Does that make you want to pray this prayer at the start of every day? If it doesn’t I have absolutely no idea why.

And here’s the great thing, the totally fantastic thing … by leaving the decision up to God, it means that instead of asking for selfish things, we know that we’re going to get God’s good things. And you know what Jesus said? He said,

If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish and it will be done for you. (John 15:7)

So then, the only question is, what are you waiting for?

IT’S TIME TO ASK

I’m not a great one for prayer formulas. I don’t think God works that way. In fact, Jesus made it clear that the way to pray wasn’t to heap empty praises upon empty sentence before God; that just doesn’t impress Him at all.

What God wants us to do is to pray from our hearts, but can I tell you this? Since I’ve started praying along the lines of that Jabez prayer (it’s something that I do almost every day these days), I have seen God’s answer to that prayer in so many ways; in powerful ways; in mighty ways; ways that have always been much, much further and beyond anything that I could have conjured up.

The Bible says that:

God desires everybody to be saved and to come to a knowledge of truth. (1 Timothy 2:4)

And that’s why He blesses the likes of you and me; so that we can be the entry point of His abundant overflowing blessing into this world; so that He can bless the lost and the hurting through you and me.

If you’re still not convinced that you should be asking for God’s blessing, then listen to Jesus Himself. John 16:22, Jesus said:

Until now, you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.

I want to encourage you to start asking for God’s blessing every day in your life. The thing about God is that He’s like any good father. He knows when to bless and He knows how to bless.

Just the other morning, I was talking to a very, very wealthy man about his children over breakfast, and I asked him, "How do you go about blessing your children? In fact, when they grow up, are you going to help them financially or will you allow them to make their own way through in life?" and this is how he answered me. I thought it was really wise.

"Well," he said, "that depends on them. If they want to go out and serve God and sacrifice their lives for other people, I have told them if they can’t afford it, I’ll buy them a house. I’ll help them, of course I’ll help them, I’m their father. But if they want to go and sit on the beach and laze around and be selfish and lazy, I’ve told them, they’re on their own. The choice is really theirs."

And I thought to myself, "What a Godly piece of wisdom!" Isn’t that how God wants to deal with us? Of course, He wants to bless us, but it really depends on us – on our heart; on our attitude. And if you and I have an attitude of putting other people before ourselves, of serving them and serving God, hey; why wouldn’t God want to bless us abundantly? He’s the best Father that’s ever been, or ever will be.

So I pray the prayer of Jabez pretty much every day – not by road, not as a formula, but from the heart. That’s why I find myself praying for you every day. I pray that God would expand my territory by letting His Word take a hold of your heart – by growing the kingdom of God in you and through you, into the lives of countless other people.

To me, sitting here and chatting with you, (and just quietly a few million other people around the globe as well), is like throwing a pebble into a pond and seeing the impact ripple out through your life. It’s like throwing a few million pebbles in a few million ponds, and seeing them ripple out. That’s been the impact for me of asking God to bless me indeed and to expand my territories. A simple prayer by a simple, ordinary guy, and it’s what God does. And if He allows His blessing to flow through a clutz like me, I can’t begin to imagine what He can do through someone as beautiful and gifted and talented as you are. Are you starting to get the picture here?

Perhaps, you haven’t been receiving because you haven’t been asking. Perhaps, it’s time to start asking and asking, and asking and asking, day after day after day after day, ‘cos I guarantee: if you’re asking for the right reasons and not selfish reasons, you are going to see miracle after miracle happen in you and through you

So here’s the challenge, here’s the dare: start asking! You’ll be amazed at the miracles because God wants to bless you.