Saturday, November 5, 2011

You Have to Ask

Day three hundred five

I was up at 5:30 am to get ready for a work meeting this morning.  I am scheduled to go back to work and close tonight.  I knew this was going to be a long day, so I prayed that the Lord would bless me with the energy I needed to get through my day.  May He lift me when I start to droop, may He give me the words to use when I am too tired to think, and may He inspire me when I am needed to do His work.

1 Chronicles 4:9-10
The first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles contains one list of names after another, but right in the middle of these lists, there is a short description about a unique individual.  The only place we read about him in the entire Bible is in these two verses.  His name is Jabez.  What was so special about this guy that the writer of Chronicles felt that he needed to let us know about him? 

The thing that made this man's life special was his prayer life.  In verse 9 Jabez is described as an "honourable" man.  The root of why Jabez was “honorable” was because of his prayer.  So what did Jabez pray for?

He made four requests:

Bless me (v 10)
God wants to bless us.  This is a difficult thing for some of us to ask for.  We feel that we are unworthy of anything good that God might do for us. And although there may be some truth to that we have to remember that God loved us so much that He gave His only Son to us. Jesus came to the earth for the expressed reasons of dying on the cross, being our advocate, and paying for our sins.  Because of Him we are eligible for blessings.

God wants to bless His children. Paul wrote:

"What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" (Rom 8:31-32)

God wants to bless us, but we need to ask!

Enlarge my coast (v 10) (Stretch me)
It seems to me that if God is going to bless us, He also needs to stretch us to be able to accommodate the kinds of things He wants to do in and through us. I think that God would like to do more in our lives than we are aware of. 

The only thing about being stretched is that sometimes it seems a little uncomfortable. We like comfort. We like to know what is in our routine for the day.  But what if God wants to give you MORE than you are comfortable with? 

Pray for a larger vision. Ask Him to help you see beyond just your own needs.  Ask Him to bless you with His vision for the world.

Be with me (v 10) (Empower me with the Holy Spirit)
The “hand of the Lord” is a phrase that we see throughout the Bible. When it is used in reference to God’s enemies, it seems to speak of God’s acts of judgment (Ex 7:5), but when it is used in relation to God’s people, it seems to speak of the work and power of the Holy Spirit.

Jabez is one of God’s children. He is asking for the Spirit of God in his life.  We too need the power of God to be able to keep going. We need the power of God to be able to do the things God has for us to do.  We need to be open to the Spirit so that we know what God wants to do in us and through us.

Keep me from evil (v 10) (Protect me)
We are also living in a time of evil. Our world is not so different from that of Jabez.  We are constantly being bombarded with evil in our everyday lives; it is hard to avoid it! Then there is the fact that when God begins to bless you and stretch you, the enemy will attack.  And he does not pull any punches!  He has a purpose, to stop you from serving the Lord, and he will not stop.

We need to pray. Pray for yourself.  Pray for othersPrayer is part of our defense against the enemy.  And we need all the help we can get!

The last part of verse 10 says, "And God granted him that which he requested."  God answers these kinds of prayers.  The question is:  Are we saying prayers like this?

A story

There’s a little fable about a Mr. Jones who dies and goes to heaven. Peter is waiting at the gates to give him a tour. Amid the splendor of golden streets, beautiful mansions, and choirs of angels that Peter shows him, Mr. Jones notices an odd-looking building. He thinks it looks like an enormous warehouse-it has no windows and only one door. But when he asks to see inside, Peter hesitates. “You really don’t want to see what’s in there,” he tells the new arrival.

 “Why would there be any secrets in heaven?” Jones wonders. “What incredible surprise could be waiting for me in there?”

When the official tour is over he’s still wondering, so he asks again to see inside the structure. Finally Peter relents. When the apostle opens the door, Mr. Jones almost knocks him over in his haste to enter. It turns out that the enormous building is filled with row after row of shelves, floor to ceiling, each stacked neatly with white boxes tied in red ribbons. “These boxes all have names on them,” Mr. Jones muses aloud. Then turning to Peter he asks, “Do I have one?”

“Yes, you do.” Peter tries to guide Mr. Jones back outside. “Frankly,” Peter says, “if I were you....”

But Mr. Jones is already dashing toward the “J” aisle to find his box. Peter follows, shaking his head. He catches up with Mr. Jones just as he is slipping the red ribbon off his box and popping the lid. Looking inside, Jones has a moment of instant recognition and lets out a deep sigh like the ones Peter has heard so many times before. Because there in Mr. Jones’s white box are all the blessings that God wanted to give to him while he was on earth ... but Mr. Jones had never asked.

“Ask,” promised Jesus, “and it will be given to you” (Matthew 7:7).

“...yet ye have not, because ye ask not,” (James 4:2).

That is the lesson from Jabez hidden among the list of names: We have to ask in our prayers for blessings, growth, the Holy Ghost, and protection. Such knowledge in two verses, I'm so glad I didn't skip over them!


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