"Bruce Wilkinson - The Prayer Of Jabez" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilkinson Bruce)

Or perhaps you're one of those Christians who thinks that once you're saved, God's blessings sort of drizzle over your life at a predetermined rate, no matter what you do. No extra effort required.
Or perhaps you have slipped into a ledger-keeping mindset with God. In your blessings account you have a column for deposits and one for withdrawals. Has God been unusually kind to you lately? Then you think that you shouldn't expect, much less ask for, Him to credit your account. You might even think He should ignore you for a while, or even debit your account by sending some trouble your way.
This kind of thinking is a sin and a trap! When Moses said to God on Mount Sinai, "Show me Your glory" (Exodus 33:18), he was asking for a more intimate understanding of God. In response, God described Himself as "the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth" (34:6).
Incredible! The very nature of God is to have goodness in so much abundance that it overflows into our unworthy lives. If you think about God in any other way than that, I'm asking you to change the way you think. Why not make it a lifelong commitment to ask God every day to bless you-and while He's at it, bless you a lot?
God's bounty is limited only by us, not by His resources, power, or willingness to give. Jabez was blessed simply because he refused to let any obstacle, person, or opinion loom larger than God's nature. And God's nature is to bless.
His kindness in recording Jabez's story in the Bible is proof that it's not who you are, or what your parents decided for you, or what you were "fated" to be that counts. What counts is knowing who you want to be and asking for it.
Through a simple, believing prayer, you can change your future. You can change what happens one minute from now.

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LIVING LARGE FOR GOD

Oh, that You would enlarge my territory!

The next part of the Jabez prayer-a plea for more territory-is where you ask God to enlarge your life so you can make a greater impact for Him.
From both the context and the results of Jabez's prayer, we can see that there was more to his request than a simple desire for more real estate. He wanted more influence, more responsibility, and more opportunity to make a mark for the God of Israel.
Depending on the version you're reading, the word territory can also be translated coast or borders. For Jabez and his contemporaries, that word carried the same emotional power as I the words homestead or frontier did for generations of American pioneers. It spoke of a place of one's own with plenty of room to grow.
In Jabez's time part of Israel's recent national history was Joshua's conquest of Canaan and the partitioning of the Promised Land into chunks of real estate for each tribe. When Jabez cried out to God, "Enlarge my territory!" he was looking at his present circumstances and concluding, "Surely I was born for more than this!" As a farmer or herdsman, he looked over the spread his family had passed down to him, ran his eye down the fence lines, visited the boundary markers, calculated the potential-and made a decision: Everything you've put under my care, O Lord-take it, and enlarge it.
If Jabez had worked on Wall Street, he might have prayed, "Lord, increase the value of my investment portfolios." When I talk to presidents of companies, I often talk to them about this particular mind-set. When Christian executives ask me, "Is it right for me to ask God for more business?" my response is, `Absolutely!" If you're doing your business God's way; it's not only right to ask for more, but He is waiting for you to ask. Your business is the territory God has entrusted to you. He wants you to accept it as a significant opportunity to touch individual lives, the business community, and the larger world for His glory. Asking Him to enlarge that opportunity brings Him only delight.
Suppose Jabez had been a wife and a mother. Then the prayer might have gone: "Lord, add to my family, favor my key relationships, multiply for Your glory the influence of my household." Your home is the single most powerful arena on earth to change a life for God. Why wouldn't He want you to be mighty for Him?
No matter what your vocation, the highest form of Jabez's prayer for more territory might sound something like:

O God and King, please expand my opportunities and my impact in such a way that I touch more lives for Your glory. Let me do more for You!

When you pray like this, things get pretty exciting.

MOVING THE BOUNDARY LINES



During a weeklong speaking engagement some years ago at a large Christian college in California, I challenged students to pray the Jabez prayer for more blessing and greater influence. I suggested-that the 2000-member student body set a ministry goal worthy of a college of its stature.
"Why not look at the globe and pick an island," I suggested. "When you have it picked out, put together a team of students, charter an airliner, then take over the island for God."
Some students roared. Some questioned my sanity. But nearly everyone listened. I persisted. I had been to the island of Trinidad and seen the need, I told them. "You should ask God for Trinidad," I said. "And a DC10."
I had no immediate takers.
Still, the challenge prompted a flurry of stimulating conversations. I found most students eager to do something meaningful with their time and talents, but unsure where to start. They usually made a point of listing their deficiencies in skill, money; courage, or opportunity.
I spent much of that week asking a question: If the God of heaven loves you infinitely and wants you in His presence every moment, and if He knows that heaven is a much better place for you, then why on earth has He left you here? With student after student, I pressed home what I understand to be a biblical answer to that question: because God wants you to be moving out your boundary lines, taking in new territory for Him-maybe an island-and reaching people in His name.
God was at work. A week after I had returned home, I received a letter from a student named Warren. He told me that he and his friend Dave had decided to challenge God's power and ask Him to bless them and enlarge their borders. Specifically, they had prayed that God would give them the opportunity to witness to the governor of the state that weekend. Throwing their sleeping bags in Warren's '63 Plymouth Valiant, they had driven the 400 miles to the capital to pound on doors.
The letter continued:

By Sunday night when we got back from Sacramento, this is what had happened: We had expressed our faith to two gas station attendants, four security guards, the head of the U.S. National Guard, the director of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare for the state of California, the head of the California Highway Patrol, the governor's secretary, and finally the governor himself.
As God is making us grow, we are thankful and scared stiff. Thanks again for your challenge!

That was just the beginning. Over the next weeks and months, a vision for more territory swept the campus. By fall, a student team headed by Warren and Dave had mounted a major mission project for the following summer. They called it Operation Jabez. Their objective: assemble a team of self-supported student workers, charter a jet, and-you guessed it-fly to the island of Trinidad for a summer of ministry
And that is exactly what they did. One hundred and twenty-six students and faculty signed up. By the time the jet took off fully loaded from Los Angeles, Operation Jabez boasted trained teams ready to minister through drama, construction, vacation Bible school, music, and home visitation. The college president called Operation Jabez the single most significant student ministry venture in the college's history.
Two students had asked God to enlarge their territory-and He did! One little prayer had remapped boundary lines and impacted the lives of thousands of people.

"I THINK THIS IS MY APPOINTMENT"

The Jabez prayer is a revolutionary request. Just as it is highly unusual to hear anyone pray, "God, please bless me!" so it is rare to hear anyone plead, "God, please give me more ministry!" Most of us think our lives are too full already. But when, in faith, you start to pray for more ministry, amazing things occur. As your opportunities expand, your ability and resources supernaturally increase, too. Right away you'll sense the pleasure God feels in your request and His urgency to accomplish great things through you.
People will show up on your doorstep or at the table next to you. They'll start saying things that surprise even them. They'll ask for something-they're not sure what-and wait for your reply.