50 Days of Prayer for Fellowship CRC

1 Chr. 4:10, “Jabez called on God, saying, ‘Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory and that your hand might be with me and that you would keep me from hurt and harm!’ And God granted what he asked.”

You would be forgiven if you did not know where to find Jabez in the Bible; the only things we know about him are the two facts that are mentioned in the previous verse: 1) Jabez was honored more than his brothers, perhaps because 2) his mother had given him the unfortunate name of Jabez (“to grieve”), saying, “I bore him in pain.”  But obscure as he is, his prayer is very famous in modern times, due to Bruce Wilkerson extremely popular book (2000) simply called “The Prayer of Jabez”. 

This little prayer echoes so much of what we want for our little church.  We want and need God’s blessing. We desire and ask that God would allow us to expand His kingdom reach through us.  We need His hand to be with us in everything that we do. And we know our human capacity to hurt others even with our well-intentioned actions, so we ask God to both shield us from harm and keep us from hurting others.

Would you join me in praying this little prayer today for our church?
Father God, may your name be kept holy in our lives and in our church. How we need your blessing, and we ask you for it now.  We do seek that your kingdom would come and your will be done through the work of our church and members, so we ask that you would enlarge our territory.  Keep us from working in our own strength and abilities, relying instead on your hand of provision and strength.  Deliver us from evil, yes, and keep us from unwittingly harming others with our efforts. Amen.