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?

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!

On a scale of zero to ten, how much do you believe that God wants to bless you? Zero – not at all; three – a bit I guess; seven – yeah, sure I think God wants to bless me; or ten – God wants to bless me beyond anything I can imagine. Come on, how would you rate Gods desire to bless you on a scale of zero to ten?

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?

I used to think that getting things done in this world was all about having control. If I could just control this and that, then I’d be able to achieve X, Y and Z. But the older I get, the more I realise that it’s all about influence and not control. Because as things turn out, influence is far more powerful than control.

Yesterday, on the program, we met young Jabez. A man who’d had a pretty rugged start in life. His name literally means ‘you’re a pain’. And yet, he stood head and shoulders above his brothers and the hundreds of other names listed in the nine chapters of genealogy, in the middle of which we find him.

Why did Jabez stand out from the crowd? Because he prayed a prayer for God’s abundant blessing. Here it is again:

Jabez was more honourable than his brothers and his mother called his name 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 your hand will be with me and that you would keep me from evil that I may cause no pain’. So God granted him what he requested. (1 Chronicles chapter 4, verses 9 and 10)

We’ve seen the power so far of asking for the first part,

O God that you would bless me indeed. (1 Chronicles 4:10)

Bless me abundantly, bless me just the way you want to bless me. That’s a powerful prayer. Ask God to bless you and then leave it up to Him … His Father’s heart to choose how He wants to bless you. God wants to bless you abundantly, He really does. Not with trinkets and toys but with the sort of blessings that will fill your heart with joy and flow through you and over the top of you and right into the lives of other people. That’s how things work in God’s economy of blessing.

You know that line ‘faith without works is dead’? The opposite is also true. When our faith is working its way out – as God’s blessing flows through us into the lives of other people, as God uses the gifts He’s given us to bless others – all of a sudden our faith becomes alive and vibrant and real. Flat, dry, lifeless faith becomes a thing of the past. So can I say, faith with God inspired, God empowered works is so incredibly alive?

Now let’s go onto the second part of what Jabez prayed. Right after asking God to bless him indeed, what was the very next thing he prayed?

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

Territory was a big thing back in those days. In fact, for all of Israel’s history having your own land has been a big deal. They spent centuries waiting to take the Promised Land. And when finally, God took them there under Joshua they had to fight for it battle by battle. So expanding your land, expanding your borders, your territory was a huge deal for an Israelite. Still today, Israel is fighting for land several millennia on from when Jabez prayed this prayer.

A little while back on the program, we talked about whether or not you and I are kingdom builders or empire builders. Are you in the business of building your own personal empire or are you in the business of building the Kingdom of God? Good question, a question each one of us should be asking ourselves on a constant basis.

But let’s go back for a minute to the first part of the prayer, the request for God to bless us indeed – a whole lot, abundantly, over flowingly, more than we could ever hope for, dream or imagine – let’s say God does that. Let’s say God blesses you so much that you can’t contain it. The natural result is an overflow, kind of what, like Jesus was talking about in John chapter 7, verses 37 and 38. He said:

Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and let the one who believes in me drink. As the Scripture has said, ‘out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’.

When you have that much of God’s blessing overflowing out of you, when you have the Spirit of God flowing out of you – it’s not just a trickle, it’s not just a stream, not just a river – but rivers of blessing, rivers of living water flowing through you into the parched dry land, of the lives of the people around you, people who need more of God’s blessing.

If that’s happening, what’s the next logical thing for you to ask? More influence of course, more people to share the blessing with. More people to experience the mighty blessings of God that you’ve been experiencing. The request for God’s abundant blessing flows, naturally and logically, into a request for God to expand your borders. So that His Kingdom will come one soul at a time, to more and more souls.

When I came to Christ (way back in 1995), right from the beginning, I couldn’t contain the goodness and the joy of what I felt. I knew right back there, on that first day, day one, that I wanted to share this love of Christ with lots of other people. So I started to pray that God would give me the chance to do that and He did. And today, here I am with you and a few million other people across a hundred and sixty countries, chatting about the good news of Jesus.

None of that came because I was particularly clever. None of that came through the great strategic planning of our Board of our ministry. It came as an answer to a simple prayer. Lord, please expand my borders and grow your Kingdom through me. It’s a prayer that I pray daily because I know that’s the only way people will be touched by the Holy Spirit through what I do.

You see, we all labour in different parts of Gods vineyard, with the tools and gifts He’s granted us by His grace. His blessing isn’t limited by a lack of power or a lack of will. The well of God’s blessing is infinitely deep. Imagine the delight in His heart when He hears you pray:

Dear God, please bless me. Bless me, indeed. Please bless me more than I can imagine. And then Lord, God, expand my borders, my territory, my circle of influence so that I can share your blessing … the blessing that’s overflowing through me with people who desperately need to experience you and your blessing.

What do you think God would think when He hears you pray that prayer every morning, huh? I’m thinking that God would be absolutely over the moon at your motivation and your desire. I’m thinking that God would be ready to show up and answer that prayer. After all that’s exactly what He did when Jabez prayed that prayer.

Oh, that you would bless me indeed and enlarge my territory and so God granted him what he requested. (1 Chronicles 4:10)

God knows the best thing for you, is for you to go and be with Him, right now. He knows that. And He also has a deep longing in His heart for you to be with Him, and for Him to be with you for all eternity. And yet, think about it, He chooses instead to leave you here on this earth, in this fallen world amongst the ravages of sin and temptation and sickness and tears. Why do you imagine God does that? For what purpose has He left you on this earth?

It’s simple. You and I, and everybody else who believes in Jesus, we are entry points for God’s blessing into the parched dry landscape … full of people who desperately, DESPERATELY need a saviour. We’re like an oasis in the desert. You and I, we are places where people can come and drink a deep draught of that living water that overflows out of us.

That’s why God hasn’t taken you home to be with Him yet. God has a purpose for you. God has a plan for you. God has something left for you to do. So of course, we should ask Him for more influence. Of course, we should ask Him to expand our borders. Of course, we should be prepared to see others drink at the well from which we too have drunk our fill – from which we have drunk so deeply and so fully – that rivers of living water flow out from us.

Enlarge my territory, expand my borders is a prayer of someone intent on sharing the blessing of God around. And when we pray that prayer, you can believe me when I say, God will only be too ready to do exactly that. You know why? Because God wants to bless you. And through you, He wants to bless countless of other people. 

Have you ever felt like you’ve run out of puff, run out of steam? You’ve been going and going and going and all of a sudden the tank’s empty, the power’s gone, all gone (it would seem). Well, if you’ve been there or maybe if you’re there right now, then today’s message is for you.

If you were able to join me yesterday on the program, you’ll know that we’ve been talking a lot about God’s desire to bless us. Let me be a little more specific – God’s overwhelming desire to bless you abundantly. No, not a sugar daddy kind of blessing, not an answer to prayers like, ‘Lord what I really want is a million bucks in my account, a Mercedes SLE in the driveway and a twenty-seven room house overlooking the water’.

Now, in the right context, none of those are particularly bad things in and of themselves. They’re just not prayers that God answers very often. God does want to bless us abundantly, super abundantly, Jesus said, ‘Beyond measure, without limit’. But He wants to bless us in a way that glorifies Him and in a way that’s good for us.

If you have a spoilt child at home, a teenager maybe, whose always demanding this or that and throwing tantrums when he doesn’t get it. Would you bless him with more stuff? I hope not, because if you love him you need to help him grow up.

If on the other hand, you had a child with a heart for helping other people, and doing the best she can possibly do, and sacrificing her life for other people – if she asked you for a blessing would you bless her? Absolutely you would! The only thing that would constrain you would be your resources and your power.

Well, here’s the good news, God is not constrained by resources or power. He has an infinite quantity of both of those. And like any good Father, God’s heart is to bless us without measure provided that our intentions are the right intentions.

And that’s why we’ve been looking at the prayer of Jabez found tucked away, amidst nine chapters of dry boring genealogies. Jabez stands out head and shoulders above his brothers and above hundreds and hundreds of names in that genealogy and he stands out for this reason.

It’s because of what he prayed, what he asked God for. Let’s take another look at it today, 1 Chronicles chapter 4, verses 9 and 10:

Jabez was more honourable than his brothers and his mother called 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 hand would be with me and that you would keep me from evil that I may not cause pain. So God granted him what he requested.

Starting his life off with a name that literally meant ‘I’m a pain’, well, it’s not such a good start in life, is it? But despite that less than optimal start in life (something that a lot of us can relate to), he asked God to bless his socks off. And as that blessing overflowed out of his life, he then asked God to expand his territory to enable him to share that blessing with so many other people.

Blessing is something that flows into us from above. But when God blesses us abundantly, it flows out through us to those around us. And as we see them being blessed through the blessing that’s overflowing through us, the next natural thing to ask for, is for God to increase our borders so that we can share this blessing with more and more and more and more people. And that … that is something that God’s only too delighted to do because after all, you and I are the entry points of His blessing into a lost and hurting world. We’re here to be His blessing to those who need it.

I shared with you last week how early on (when I gave my life to Jesus); I knew that I just couldn’t contain that blessing. I knew that I had to tell people about it and so I asked God to expand my borders. This He did beyond anything I could have imagined (way back then). Here I am now with you sharing the love and the blessing of Jesus Christ.

But immediately, when those borders began to expand, I found myself completely out of my depth. When the number of radio stations airing this (this very program that you’re listening to) grew from a handful to a few hundred to over a thousand, there were many times along the way that I was completely overwhelmed by how much had to be done to make it all happen. How many things were beyond my ability and my wisdom and my foresight, by how inadequate I was (and still am) for the task.

Trust me, I’m not into false modesty. I’m telling you – the things that God calls the little ministry of Christianityworks to do (as we produce radio and television programs and reach out across the globe) – is breathtakingly, gobsmackingly scary on a daily basis.

I suspect that’s exactly what was happening to Jabez. And so the third part of his prayer went like this:

God that you will bless me indeed and enlarge my territory and that your hand would be with me.

He prayed that God’s mighty hand would be with him and upon him. Throughout Scripture the hand of God is used as a symbol or a reference to God’s immense power. Jabez knew – as more blessing came his way, and more opportunities to share that blessing came his way, as his territory grew – he simply couldn’t do it on his own.

Years ago, I stumbled across this amazing Scripture and it’s one that I want to give you today, 2 Chronicles chapter 16, verse 9:

For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the entire earth to show himself strong for those whose heart is true to him.

Isn’t that a beautiful Scripture?

The eyes of the Lord range throughout the entire earth to show Himself strong for those whose heart is true to Him.

In other words, when our heart is true to God – remember, God looks on a man’s heart not on his exterior qualities – when our heart is true to God, He actively sees that because His eyes are roaming the earth looking for precisely that.

And when He finds it in you and in me, He comes to us in a show of power to meet the incredible challenges of the abundant blessing and the expanded borders. God knows you and I can’t do it on our own, He knows that. In fact, His plan was that we should always, always have to depend on Him.

As Bruce Wilkinson writes in his little book, The Prayer Of Jabez, for the Christian, dependence is just another word for power. I love that! For the Christian, dependence is just another word for power. God wants us to depend on His power.

You see the disciples – unfaithful, selfish, uneducated bunch of guys that they were – Jesus departed and entrusted to them the salvation of the whole world. It was their role to step out and kick off this fledgling idea of this thing called Church right amidst terror and persecution. And what was it that Jesus said to them before He was taken up? Luke chapter 24, verses 46 to 49, He said to them:

Thus it is written that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day and the repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed to all nations beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things and see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised. Stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.

God’s plan was always to give you and me all the power we need to accomplish what He’s called us to do. Let me say it again, in case you missed it the first time, God’s plan was always to give you and me all the power we need to accomplish what He’s called us to do.

And so as we ask for more blessing – if we ask for more territory across which to share His blessing around – as naturally as night follows day, we’re going to need to ask Him that His hand would be with us; that His power would be upon us because without that power – without His power – we’re just going to stumble at the first hurdle.

We are not going to be able to accomplish the things God’s called us to do in our own power. I cannot achieve what God has called me to do in my own strength and neither can you. We can only do it in His power. And to the one whose heart is set on doing His will, there is more than enough, MORE than enough, MORE than enough, way more than enough power at our disposal.

Do you get it? God wants to bless you!

The very minute that you and I dare to step out to honour God and to serve Him we are stepping out onto a battlefield, make no mistake and the moment we do, that the enemy starts shooting at us. Question is … how do you defend yourself?

The prayer of Jabez is an incredibly powerful prayer. Here it is again if you’ve missed it so far this week:

Now Jabez was more honourable than his brothers and his mother called his name Jabez saying ‘Because I bore him in pain,’ and Jabez called upon the Lord of Israel saying, ‘Oh that you would bless me indeed and enlarge my territory, that you hand would be with me and that you would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!’ So God granted him what he requested. (1 Chronicles chapter 4, verse 9 and 10)

Jabez asks God to bless him indeed, to bless him a lot. He asks God to enlarge his territory so he can share that blessing around. And with that increased territory and the increased opportunities to be a blessing, he asks that God’s hand – God’s power – would be upon him because he knows he won’t be able to do it on his own.

But it’s the last part of the prayer, the part that we haven’t yet talked about which is as important as the first three bits. Have a listen to it again:

Lord keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain.

Now remember the very name Jabez means to be a pain because of the great pain that Jabez’s mother experienced in giving birth to him. So Jabez was already a pain, that’s how people saw him because in Hebrew culture (way back then), your name was synonymous with whom you are. It was seen as a prophetic statement of who you’ll become and how your life will turn out.

So imagine the teasing and the chiding that Jabez must have had growing up at school. I mean other kids can be so cruel. Imagine as a young man being introduced to someone, something like this, ‘Hi David, meet the pain’ and having David say, ‘wow what’s that about? This guy must be some kind of loser’.

Now Jabez did not want to cause pain and the one way to cause pain on this earth is to be evil. There’s something that David Wilkinson wrote in his little book, The Prayer Of Jabez, that leapt out at me. He wrote this:

Without doubt success brings with it greater opportunities than failure. As someone once said, ‘blessedness is the greatest of perils because it tends to dull our keen sense of dependence on God and make us prone to assumption.

And Jabez had been praying for huge untold blessing, for a great expansion of his territory of influence, for the power of God to be upon him. And God, as we heard, granted him his requests. Now, we know the Bible says:

Pride comes before the fall. (Proverbs 16:18)

When things are going really, really well, your enemy and mine (the devil), is roaming around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Just think about it … if God blesses you so much that you can’t contain the blessing, that His blessing flows out through you into the lives of other people, if He increases your territory so that you can share His blessing with more and more people, whose territory do you think you’re treading on? The enemy’s of course.

He doesn’t want the blessing of God to get around because people might discover who Jesus is. People might discover salvation is real and it’s in Him alone. The blessedness of having a true and intimate relationship with God through Jesus – nah, the devil does not want that getting out. And he is a wily, cunning, smart individual.

Don’t ever think that satan is a dummy. No, he’s been around the block a few million times. And nine times out of ten, satan has enough experience and enough gutter cunning to defeat us. He’s stronger than you and me. In his own way, he’s often smarter than you and me. And if we take him on – head on, on that field of temptation, it’s much more likely than not that we’re going to end up on the losing end of that equation.

You’ve seen great men of faith fall, haven’t you? Through sexual immorality leaving behind so many hurt and disillusioned followers. Ah no, the moment the blessing of God and the power of God is flowing through you (to touch the lives of other people), you can bet your life that your enemy, the devil, will be on your case. He’ll be coming after you with a pickaxe to undo your plans to have an impact for Christ in this world.

And the best way … the very, very best way … to win is not to fight at all. When I first read that in Wilkinson’s book I thought, ‘that’s so obvious, how come I didn’t think of that?’ And that’s exactly what Jabez prayed:

Keep me from evil, that I may cause no pain.

It’s exactly how Jesus taught His disciples to pray:

Lead me not into temptation but deliver me from evil. (Matthew 6:13)

Let me ask you, how often do you pray that prayer? ‘Lord keep evil away from me, keep the devil away from me, keep temptation away from me’, how often? Because it’s the one prayer that provides you with an iron-clad defence against the enemy. Take him on and there’s every chance you’ll lose. Have God help you to avoid the battle and you’re guaranteed of a win.

Now, sometimes God allows us to be tempted as He did with Jesus, when He was cast out in the wilderness by the Holy Spirit (for forty days and forty nights) to be tempted by the devil. Sometimes God tests our faith in Him by using the devil as His tool. And that’s when you need to be clothed in the armour of God.

But my friend, when you’re tired and weak (in the cut and thrust of your day), the devil wants to slip under your guard. And the best way to avoid that is to ask God to keep you from evil each and every day. It’s amazing how supernaturally He answers that prayer, remember the devil has to obey God; he just can’t do anything without God’s permission.

I mean, when he set out to attack Job in the Old Testament and each step of the way the devil required God’s permission. ‘Lord keep me from evil, lead me not into temptation but deliver me from evil‘ is the most powerful prayer that you can pray to preserve your heritage, to keep the devil from robbing you of the blessing that God is giving you.

The thief comes only to kill, steal and destroy but I have come (said Jesus) that you may have life in all its abundance. (John 10:10)

Ain’t that the truth? God wants to bless you. And one of the things He will do for you is bless you by keeping evil away from you. That’s what Jabez prayed, that’s what Jesus taught because each of us have a Achilles heel, mine is perfectionism and anger. I used to be a very, very angry man. Now, I’m still not a softy. I’m no push over but there are certain people who I know who are going to rub me up the wrong way.

I cannot stand, for instance, laziness. It completely sets me off. So when I know that I’m going to be running into someone who’s going flick my switch as it were I pray this prayer:

Lord, Keep me from evil.

And the power of God to do that is simply amazing. Truly, I’ve said it so many times in my life where the Lord stills my spirit to avoid that critical spirit of perfectionism and anger that comes with it. Or He just changes the circumstances to avoid the temptation all together.

Truly, I tell you, when you ask God to bless you … when you ask Him to expand your territory of influence and blessing, when you ask Him to have His mighty hand upon you and with you … He will answer you in the most amazing ways. In ways that you can’t even hope for, dream or imagine.

And as that starts to happen, the devil will come along, just as Jesus predicted, to kill, steal and destroy – to rob you of the blessings because he knows that if he can get you to sin he will interrupt the flow of God’s blessings through you into this world. It’s like capping the oil well. He knows that, that’s why the moment you see the blessing of God flowing through you, you know that you have a target painted on your chest that the devil is going to be aiming at.

Listen to me … God wants to bless you. He so wants to bless you and yet like any father, if the child sins He’s going to interrupt that flow of blessing. That’s why you and I need to pray:

Lord, Keep me from evil, lead me not in to temptation but deliver me from evil. (Matthew 6:13)

It invites the supernatural power of God to protect you and to give you an iron-clad defence. Pray the prayer and like Jabez, God will grant you what you request.