1 Chronicles 4:9-10
#1. We need a great Ambition!
Bless Me
Enlarge my territory
I do not want to be average, indifferent or ordinary.
But nobody ever told the bumblebee and they keep right on flying.
You can absolutely rest assured that it was not/is not God.
God I need your help.
"Whether life is rough or smooth, ambition we must have, or die at the hands of our own laziness."
#2. We need a Growing Faith!!
He was just a common man with an uncommon faith.
Never try to have more faith, just get to know God better.
"You're a pain!"
Be an agent of change.
He choose to believe God instead of his critics.
Past, problems, labels, limitations!
Through a simple, believing prayer, you can change your future.
#3. We need a Genuine Prayer Life!!
His prayer life was a key to a productive life.
1. Jabez prayed for God’s power.
James 4:2b-3 NLT
...... Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it.
3 And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.
God granted his request.
Eph 3:20 NIV
20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,
Matthew 7:7 NIV
7 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
John 14:14 NIV
14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
John 16:24b NCV
24 Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy will be the fullest possible joy.
2. Jabez also prayed for God’s presence.
Larger territory=greater responsibility
Increasing growth=additional pressure.
My abilities
+experience
+training
+my personality and appearance
+my past
+the expectations of others
=my assigned territory.
My willingness and weakness
+God's will and supernatural power
=my expanding territory.
3. Jabez prayed for God’s Protection.
God does not want you or me to live with endless worry and anxiety.
We release God's power to accomplish His will and bring Him glory through all those seeming impossibilities.
We make a huge spiritual leap forward when we begin to focus less on beating temptation and more on avoiding it.
You can finish strong.
Things started badly for a person no one had ever heard of.
He prayed an unusual short prayer.
Things ended extraordinarily well!!!