Asking God To Bless Me--A Preview Of The Jabez Territory Series

So do you want just healthy addition or exponential growth for our church? What do you think? This is what Jabez prayed for. He looked at his circumstances and said, "God I want more than this. Lord, I want more from you beCause I want to do more from you."

Jabez was a man of soil as most all people were in his day. He understood that the extent of his land holdings would put a limit on what he could do for God; he could only have so many livestock. To increase his out put, he needed more opportunity.

Can you imagine a warehouse manager being upset if an employee said, "Sir, I want to do more to make this place really hum for the owner?" Hey parents, would you get irritated if your child asked, "What can I do to help you?" (You might faint). In the same way when you ask for greater opportunity for God, He is delighted.

God is waiting for each of you to grab hold of a greater vision for our church-and plead with him for it to come true. I believe-studying this prayer and hear Bruce Wilkinson talk about visionary leadership has convinced me of it. We need more opportunity, we need to see the opportunities surrounding us in our community that we have already overlooked.

Now this kind of thinking may be foreign to some of you-but as I have studied this text and other passages in the Bible I am learning that it is OK to make personal requests of God. It is OK to ask God to bless Bethany so that we can find out what God is blessing. It is all right to ask God to bless your business, your work in the Old Testament way of thinking. In an honorable way, with integrity-certainly not the Enron way of doing things.Maybe we have tended to become "Superspiritual"---we have removed our faith from the marketplace.

Some CEO’s reported their perception that the church is not interested in where I live. So the challenge for us to place the Lord in our everyday lives, in the home, in the market place.

So if we are going to make the Lord’s ministry our business at Bethany, if we are going to ask him to enlarge our territory and put him back in the marketplace like they did in OT times, we need to understand the distinctives of the Jabez territory as we start this Lenten journey:The territory is not focused on property but PEOPLE-my business is ministry-your business is ministry (share journal entry made a t conference). You do the ministry; I’ll shepherd the ministry.

The territory is not focused on money but MINISTRY-all financial resources we have are directed to that end.

The territory is not self-initiated but SPIRIT-DIRECTED-Notice Jabez’ prayer is general, God intiated and open-ended

The territory is not focused on comfort but CHANGE-and that means that if you pray this prayer your life will be disrupted, things at this church will be disrupted-so fasten your seat belt and hold-on for the ride. What happens will be out of your control, my control. This journey is going to be challenging, it will be fearful at times. I’ll talk more in the upcoming weeks of you getting pushed to the edge of your comfort zone.