Pray the Word with David Platt is a resource from Radical.net.

First Chronicles, chapter 4, verse 10, Jabez called upon the God of Israel, saying,

Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me,

and that you would keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain and God granted

what he asked so this is a verse that has been used in a variety of ways and even abused

in a variety of ways taken out of context and applied in ways that are maybe at best

questionable. But the reality is, this is a beautiful verse, a picture of one man, Jabez,

calling boldly upon God, asking for God's blessing in his life. Oh God, that you would bless me,

that you would enlarge my border. Even praying that is an acknowledgement that every good

thing we have or could have comes from God and that God is our Father in heaven and he delights in

giving his children good things when they ask. This is exactly what Jesus teaches about prayer.

So it is good to pray that God our Father would bless us, bless me, enlarge my border, Jabez, praise, that your hand might be with me.

What a great prayer to pray. I want to pray that prayer every day that the hand of God might be with me,

his hand leading me and guiding me and directing me and protecting me and blessing me. I want to pray this over my life,

my family, my wife, and my kids, over the members of the church I'm a part of. I want to pray

that in just a moment over all of us, that God's hand might be with us, and that He would keep

us from harm. Like what a picture of looking to God as our protector.

Jesus taught us to pray like this.

To pray to our Father in heaven who desires to give to us

for his grace and his mercy in our lives,

that he would lead us not into temptation, deliver us from

evil. And First Chronicles 410 says that after Jabez prayed this, God granted what he asked.

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