Model prayer of Jabez, but motives must be to honor God

I Chronicles 4:9-10 (NLT)

There was a man named Jabez who was more honorable than any of his brothers. His mother named him Jabez because his birth had been so painful. He was the one who prayed to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and expand my territory! Please be with me in all that I do, and keep me from all trouble and pain!” And God granted him his request.

In this obscure 4^th chapter of I Chronicles that lists the lineage of Judah, one of 12 sons of Jacob, are these two verses that most people except the most diligent Bible readers never knew existed. Bruce Wilkinson greatly raised awareness of this passage in his 2000 best-selling book “The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Though to the Blessed Life”.  This man, Jabez (we only know of him through these two verses, he is not mentioned elsewhere in the Bible), prayed several requests of God and God granted him what he requested.  Wow, what a wonderful truth and indeed Wilkinson wrote: “ I challenge you to make the Jabez prayer for blessing part of the daily fabric of your life. To do that, I encourage you to follow unwaveringly the plan outlined here for the next thirty days. By the end of that time, you'll be noticing significant changes in your life, and the prayer will be on its way to becoming a treasured, lifelong habit.”

However, some people have criticized Wilkinson’s book because they believe that he is using this prayer of Jabez to advocate what is called the “prosperity gospel”.  Prosperity gospel is the teaching that God will make you prosperous—wealthy with lots of possessions-- if you ask and believe that He will do this.  It refutes or ignores the teachings about sacrificing things for Christ, suffering persecution for being a Christian witness and suggests that those who are poor do not have sufficient faith and are not praying for the right things.  To the extreme the prosperity gospel teaches that God will do what man wants Him to do rather than man following the will of God.  Plus, the question arises, is repeating the kind of prayer Jabez prayed everyday showing “vain repetition” that Jesus condemned in Matthew 6:7-9?

Yet, this is a biblical prayer so why can’t you expect that by praying a prayer like this that God will bless you like He did Jabez?  Well, certainly you should pray as Jabez did and ask God for whatever you wish, but you should not expect that God will answer your prayers the way He did with Jabez.  This passage does not teach or claim that God will answer your prayers if you pray like Jabez prayed.  You must realize that God does not always answer your prayers the way you hope.  He answers according to His will, not yours.  God is sovereign and chose to answer Jabez’ prayer the way He did, but did He answer other biblical heroes prayers like this?  For example, did God keep the apostle Paul from being free from all trouble and pain?  Even Jesus prayed that God would keep Him from suffering (Luke 22:42), but further added that this be God’s will, not His will.  That should be the way you pray, asking God for whatever you wish to ask, but be humble in trusting Him to answer as He sees fit.

God answers the prayers of the righteous person (James 5:16), but by definition a righteous person is someone who is “right” with God and prays according to God’s will.  God will not always answer prayer especially if the person praying has not confessed sin (Psalm 66:18), or is not a giver (Prov 21:13), or is a husband who mistreats his wife (I Peter 3:7) or is like the person described in James 4:3.  Indeed, if you pray the prayer of Jabez for yourself, you must examine your motives.  Why are you asking God to expand your territory (expand your influence)?  Why are you asked Him to be with you in all you do?  Why are you asking Him to be free from all trouble and pain?  If your motives are selfish, if you are thinking of self-centered things and not thinking about others and about honoring God with your life, then your motives are wrong and God will not grant your requests.  We don’t know why He granted Jabez these requests, but Jabez must have been a righteous man (he was described as a man “more honorable than anyone else”) whose motives for asking these requests were honorable in the sight of God. 

It is perfectly acceptable to pray like Jabez’ prayed and to make specific requests like he did and we know, according to the truth of Scripture, that God granted his requests.  Yet always pray with the mindset that you are asking for things that will bring honor to God, not yourself.