Barb
03-21-2008, 12:52 PM
I admit to having never read The Prayer of Jabez, not for any other reason than I don’t readily follow the proverbial bandwagon.
However, someone bought it for me a couple of years ago for my birthday, and it was sitting there on my dresser…picking it up, I turned to a chapter that I’d like to share here…just a portion that is...
"Do you think God has favorites? Certainly God makes His love available to all, and Jesus came to earth so that 'whosever' might call on His Name and be saved.
But Jabez, whose prayer earned him a 'more honorable' award from God, might have made the case that God does have favorites. His experience taught him that equal access to God’s favor does not add up to equal reward.
Simply put, God favors those who ask. He holds back nothing from those who want and earnestly long for what He wants.
To say that you want to be 'more honorable' in God's eyes is not arrogance or self-centeredness. 'More honorable' describes what God thinks; it's not credit we take for ourselves. You would be giving in to a carnal impulse if your were trying to outdo someone else, but you are living in the Spirit when you strive to receive God’s highest reward.
'I press toward the goal for the prize,' Paul wrote in his last epistle (Philippians 3:14), and he looked forward to the day he could give an account for what he had done (II Corinthians 5:9-10).
The sorrowful alternative does not appeal to me. I don’t want to get to heaven and hear God say: 'Let's look at your life…let me show you what I wanted for you and tried repeatedly to accomplish through you, but you wouldn’t let me.' What a travesty!
I've noticed that winning honor nearly always means leaving mediocre expectations and comfortable assumptions behind. But in this case it has very little to do with talent.
How encouraging it is to find very few super saints listed among those God has placed on His honor roll (Hebrews 11). They are mostly ordinary, easy-to-overlook people who had faith in an extraordinary, miraculous God and stepped out to act on that faith.
What they discovered was a life marked by God's blessings, supernatural provision, and divine leading at the very moment they needed it."
However, someone bought it for me a couple of years ago for my birthday, and it was sitting there on my dresser…picking it up, I turned to a chapter that I’d like to share here…just a portion that is...
"Do you think God has favorites? Certainly God makes His love available to all, and Jesus came to earth so that 'whosever' might call on His Name and be saved.
But Jabez, whose prayer earned him a 'more honorable' award from God, might have made the case that God does have favorites. His experience taught him that equal access to God’s favor does not add up to equal reward.
Simply put, God favors those who ask. He holds back nothing from those who want and earnestly long for what He wants.
To say that you want to be 'more honorable' in God's eyes is not arrogance or self-centeredness. 'More honorable' describes what God thinks; it's not credit we take for ourselves. You would be giving in to a carnal impulse if your were trying to outdo someone else, but you are living in the Spirit when you strive to receive God’s highest reward.
'I press toward the goal for the prize,' Paul wrote in his last epistle (Philippians 3:14), and he looked forward to the day he could give an account for what he had done (II Corinthians 5:9-10).
The sorrowful alternative does not appeal to me. I don’t want to get to heaven and hear God say: 'Let's look at your life…let me show you what I wanted for you and tried repeatedly to accomplish through you, but you wouldn’t let me.' What a travesty!
I've noticed that winning honor nearly always means leaving mediocre expectations and comfortable assumptions behind. But in this case it has very little to do with talent.
How encouraging it is to find very few super saints listed among those God has placed on His honor roll (Hebrews 11). They are mostly ordinary, easy-to-overlook people who had faith in an extraordinary, miraculous God and stepped out to act on that faith.
What they discovered was a life marked by God's blessings, supernatural provision, and divine leading at the very moment they needed it."