Go Ahead And Ask! Series

"Go Ahead and Ask!"

Last week we began looking into the prayer of Jabez for a deeper understanding of how to pray and gain a fuller blessed life.

"Frequently these short cameo appearances by seemingly unknowns reveal deeper insights into the word of God." -- Carl Hagensick

-Jabez believed God hears and answers the prayers of His own.

-Jabez left the answering of his requests up to God.

-Jabez wanted to be more and do more for God.

With those revealed insights in mind and heart let’s venture into the four part prayer of Jabez with the first request asking to be blessed.

Have you asked God to bless you of late? Probably so … because we are people who ask God to bless, the missionaries in the world, to bless our kids, to bless our food and even our sneezes!

So maybe the better question is … Have we watered down the emphasis and impact of what it is to be blessed by God? Probably so … and with it we make vague and general requests of God with no desperate cry of the heart as we hear from the mouth of Jabez.

Blessed means (barak) … to invoke divine favor upon … to bring the benefits of God upon.

Bruce Wilkinson suggests … To bless in the biblical sense means to ask for or to impart supernatural favor. When we ask for God’s blessing, we’re not asking for more of what we could get for ourselves.

Asking to be blessed is asking for the unlimited and unfathomable riches of God’s goodness to laid upon our lives … that take us into realms that are beyond the temporal of our lives.

Proverbs 10:22 GWT It is the Lord’s blessing that makes a person rich, and hard work adds nothing to it.

To seek the blessings of God has nothing to do with you and has everything to do with God.

-The Lord will bless His people with peace … Psalm 29:11b

-For those blessed by Him shall inherit the earth … Psalm 37:22a

To ask for the blessings of God is asking for "Nothing more and nothing less than what God wants for us." -- Bruce Wilkinson

So with that qualifying thought in mind … go ahead and ask … recognizing your need to be blessed, the One who will bless you, knowing with certainty you will be blessed.

1 Chronicles 4:10a And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, "Oh, that You would bless me indeed,

1.Go Ahead and Ask ... Recognizing the Need to Be Blessed

Jabez prayed … Oh, that You would bless me indeed

As Jabez looked at his own existence … perhaps thinking that there had to be more to his life that what he had lived to this point …and cried out, "Oh bless me!"

-His cry was in recognition of the need to be blessed.

-His cry was an attempt to receive the supernatural favor of God.

Circumstances may appear to wreck our lives, but God is not helpless among the ruins. Our broken lives are not lost or useless. God’s love is still working. He comes in and takes the calamity and uses it victoriously, working out his wonderful plan of love. -- Eric Liddell in Disciplines of the Christian Life

Jabez … his name meaning pain and sorrow … recognized at some point in his life he needed God working heartily in his life … something he could not gain on his own.

Do the circumstances of your life lead you to encounter God for the soul purpose of securing not the tangible things of this life … but the weightier and eternal work in your life that only God can produce?

Jacob … his name meaning "supplanter or one who tricks" … had tricked his brother out of the blessing of birthright. In fear he fled and now years later he is coming to meet his brother to make reconciliation of the relationship. In Genesis 32 … we find him alone with God.

Genesis 32:24-28 Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. 25 Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him. 26 And He said, "Let Me go, for the day breaks." But he said, "I will not let You go unless You bless me!" 27 So He said to him, "What is your name?" He said, "Jacob." 28 And He said, "Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed."

-Jacob was alone with God.

-Jacob recognized and desired to be blessed by God.