Prayer Of Jabez

This was something that exploded onto the Christian scene a few years back. I was the next big thing in Christianity, despite it having been a part of the bible since it was God breathed.

It can be found in 1 Chronicles 4:9-10 you can read it here

About 4 years ago I moved from my hometown in London to Neath, leaving behind a box of books with a good friend that I simply didnt have room for at the time.

This past weekend, I got the chance to get back up to London to visit and my friend handed me my box of books.

I had almost totally forgotten them after all this time, and as I looked through them, I found books that I had forgotten I even owned and a few that I am still convinced are not mine, but obviously God wants me to read them.

Within the books was a small book by Bob Gass, many people may know the name as part of UCB and the Word for Today. This small book offers 'Fresh insight on the prayer of Jabez.  First of all I want to recommend reading this book, it took me no time at all to finish and God spoke to me all through it.

I want to share some things that grabbed me and to do this I am going to use quotes directly from the book as I think it holds a timely message for the church and us today. (therefore I would like to add that a fair bit of what follows is directly copied from the book and no my own work)

here it is

'Because God's promisescome with conditions...in this 'microwave mentality' generation, we risk turning the Prayer of Jabez into a get rich quick formula, or a way of manipulating God to get what we want, instead of taking the time to ask what we need'

 As a church, but maybe even more importantly as individuals, we have to grasp this fact. God doesn't pander to us. It is we, as examples of Christ that should take on the serving role just as we are told in philippiams 2 read

We need to be the ones serving God in what we do.

'...if you want what Jabez had, you have to do what Jebez did. His prayer was backed up by a lifestyle of obedience...'

Bob Gass continues in his book with what follows, and I want to state now that I in no way have gotten there with this, I am not yet at this point and I am learning this lesson even as I write this today.

'As a devout Israeli...Jabez would have been a tither. Actually the thought of not giving the first tenth of his income would never have occurred to him...'

Malachi 3:10 gives us the promise of God on this very subject, Matthew 23:23 then shows us that it is not a teaching just of the old covenant.

'Jabez would have grown up hearing the words of scripture on a regular basis and Deuteronomy 28:2 says "You will experience all the blessings if you obey the Lord your God"

...God can not bless you beyond your last act of disobedience'

Also read Dt28:1-13

'Now let me show you something else that will keep the prayer from working for you... Psalm 66:18 NLT

this scripture simply means, if you refuse to acknowledge your sin and seek forgiveness, God wont answer your prayers. He cant! if He did He'd be violating the very conditions He Himself laid down in His word'

You see we have to come before God with a confidence, in who HE is, who WE are, and mostly in WHERE we stand before Him.1 john 3:21-22

'...its not praying for what we want that brings God's blessing. But having the confidence that we're praying according to what He wants for us. He already has a plan in place for us. The trouble is most of us have no idea where we are in His plan, so we ask for right now things that He hasn't scheduled until later ( and in some cases not at all) You see, you can pray for a roof until you are blue in the face, but if your foundation hasn't been properly laid, you wont get one because you dont need one yet'

Hebrews 10 tells us if we continue to do God's will then you will recieve His promises - isnt that what we ultimately want out of life, the promies of God, His best for us???

The bottom line in our lives has to be Christ, He must be the ficus, we cant continue to live for ourselves, when the price that was paid was so great. We need to refocus our lives on what the cross is all about, john 15:13 'greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.' But thats not the end of it there at all. its that the price that was paid was in our place. And if our God can give up that much in sacrifice in our place then we need to grasp this final thing from the first chapter of the Bob Gass book

'...God knows the where's, the when's, and the how's of blessing you. You can trust Him to know WHAT you need, WHEN you need it, and HOW to get it to you...'

Lets stop trying to rip the calender of our lives from the grasp of God telling Him that He somehow forgot about x,y and z on our agenda, and realise that to fully experience the blessings of God we need to know He is in control and take the choose to life by the John the Baptist principle 'He must increase, but I must decrease' John 3:30 KJV

I leave you with a fantastic song by OneHundredHours that I love

At the foot of the cross

The Old Man and the new

I recently rented Solomon Kane from Blockbuster, its a film about a man who spent his life as a mercenary, until he comes face to face with the Devil Reaper and tells Solomon his evil deeds have irrevocably damned his soul, and he is now destined for Hell.


As a result of this encounter, Kane finds sanctuary with Monks, until he is forced to leave one day. Having enbraced a life of peace in an effort to attone for the evils of his past, when events take place Kane choses not to fight back. However when a family that befriends Kane are attacked, mostly killed and the daughter kidnapped, Kane vows to return the daughter to the only surviving member of the family. And the film follows Kane as he embraces his past life of violence to fulfill his vow.


The important part of the film for me is the reason that Kane makes the vow to find the kidnapped girl. With his dying words the father of the family declares that Kane will redeem his soul if he rescues Meredith the kidnapped daughter.


Its a film about redemption fundamentally


Now from a completely theological standpoint, Solomon Kane, could not be any less biblical if it tried, the idea that you can save yourself with your actions is so far short of the mark we know that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and that it is faith and not works that brings about our salvation and therefore our redemption, however, as I walked through town today after finishing the film, I felt God prompting something to be learned from its mistake.


The bible in Colossians 3 says
...seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. (ESV)

As Christians when you accept the gift He offers of salvation you become a new creation,  (2 corinthians 5:17) the old things have passed away and everything becomes new. The past is something that we need not focus or linger on, Paul himself writes in Philippians 3 that he was focusing all his energies into this one thing, Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead.


And so we too should be doing this also. An this brings me to the point I would like to look at.


Paul says he is forgetting the past and looking to the future and I agree with this sentiment, however I believe that we can not pass our life experiences up to today out of hand in our walks with Christ.


Now for Solomon Kane, when looking for redemption he sought Christianity out and found sanctuary with God and a lifestyle of peace, however ultimately it was in the film his past that brought about his redemption, the previous life he had chosen gave him the skills and the ability to complete the vow taht lead to His avoidence of Hell.


For us as Christians, its not quite the same, but we need to keep our past mindful, not dwell on it, but learn from it. Our past experiences have formed the person we are today in the same way the our future experiences will continue to create what we become. Character, personality etc are all effected by our circumstances.


A fantastic speaker called Denis Morgan-Donar once said 'we need to stop praying that our circumstances will change, because what do you get when they do???


Another set of circumstances.'


Whats my point here, - simply that we are told to learn from our past mistakes Hebrews 12: 10-11. SO we can not totally forget the past.


The Old testament showed the Isrealites making notches in their staff as a reminder of the things God had done for them, and our mistakes should be viewed in the same way. Not to dwell on them but to learn from them and move on.


This is what I believe Paul was talking about. Remember that Paul was a Pharasee, he persecued christians and was standing at the stoning of Stephen before being knocked from his donkey in a visitation with the Lord. That he was leaving the past behind him and learning from what had gone on and hoping for the coming future.


Your experiences will always colour your view. They will carve out how your react to situations, how you approach something. AN example from my own life is this: -


Not too long after we moved into our home, I had been feeling unwell and decided to go to bed early. Normally I go round checking that the house is locked and secure before going to bed, however since it was so early I assumed that my wife would do the locking up. SHe however assumed that since I always do it out of habit, that I had done this night also.


At about 3am the following morning, I was woken by the sound of someone downstairs, naturally I flew out of bed, to find a man standing in my hall way. No the sight of me at 3am in my undies is probably not the best view point of me, in fact its probably pretty frighting I must say, add to that at this time I owned a jet black huskey lab cross (who looked very much like a black wolf) who slept at the top of the stairs and had somehow not seen this guy walking into our house as a concern until I hit the stairs at pace, and she went nuts. Being dark it was fierce barking and white teeth and not alot else could be seen.


Thankfully nothing had been stolen from our house, but I learned a valuable lesson that night. Every night since that day, even if I know tha its been done I will go and check that the house is locked up at night.


Its learning from past mistakes, I dont dwell on what could have happened that night, the possiblities are worrying, but that I might not be so lucky next time, so there will not be a next time.


We are an ongoing process, to be Christian means to be christ like, 'little christ' you are not there yet. Aerosmith sing 'lifes a journey not a destination' and for us as christians we know the destination, its the journey that we are on currently to become more like Jesus each day


Philippians 2:5-11 should be the focus of our journey, that basis of it, chooseing everyday to take this on board.


Learning from our mistakes, learning from what the bible calls the old man and becoming a new creation in Christ Jesus. Putting on the New man. Its a process.


28And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28


Not somethings, but ALL things - Past present and future.


Amen and Amen

secular or christian

My brother in law was in Neath this past weekend, on sunday while heading out to Living Word Church Carmarthen, we were listening to some music and I recognised one tune as being Rhianna's Unbrella, only it was a guy singing and the lyrics were not the ones written for the original song. That was my introduction to Coffey Anderson, a guitarist from Texas. If you have never had the change to listen to this guy, I recommend you change that right now

HERE

At the end of the video he says ' You gotta re-do that if the aint do it right' and sitting up at almost 1am this morning with my 3 week old daughter, I was listening to some worship songs ad remembered something that was said during a preach back in my Elim pentecostal days. Now for the life of me I can not remember who said it, at least not the first time but it stuck me as interesting at the time.

This guy said that we should not try to seperate the secular from the christian, as it cant be done. Now at first I didnt really agree with that statement, and found myself thinking, 'this guy is off his rocker, obviously never listened to someone like Slipknot. But I started to look into hat he was saying a little more.

Lets start with the Gospel of John - chapter 1 verse 3 ESV version
All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made.

So music was created by Him, and since we know from the beginning of John that the Him we are talking about here is Jesus, then all music was created by God. Can anything then be 'secular' it would appear not.

Throughout the bible as well as many other recorded bits of history, music plays a major role in the lives of us humans. The Bible documents music as a means of readying an army for battle (Ps. 68), inspiring people to worship (Ps. 100), evangelism (Rom. 15:9), prophecy (Is. 23), lament, testimony (Is. 27:1-3), and celebration (James 5:13).

Music has essentially a spiritual nature.

Now dont misunderstand me, I am not saying that all songs as they are written can be used for worship, I dont for a second think that you can use The Animals 'House of the Rising Sun' in its original form as worship, however you can take it and redeem its content much in the way that Coffey Anderson did with umbrella, and as such this has been done in a number of cases: -

these are a few links

Blind Boys of Alabama - Amazing Grace, a fantastic example of just what I am talking about

Ken Norburg  - another example of taking the supposedly secular and redeeming it for the Lord

It is said that Martin Luther used tavern songs in writing his hymns, having looked into it, ther are as many references to say he did as those that say its baseless, however common is the case that at least one song was 'secular'. And others from german folk songs.

For me, I dont think this happens enough, there are many genres of music that are largely viewed in the church today as the devils music, metal is one such example, however if nothing was created outside of Jesus as the bible tells us then how can the enemy have any music, its all open to redemption by the saints.

we gotta redo that if it aint done right