Several years ago, Dr. Bruce Wilkerson helped a lot of people to discover a prayer that was tucked away in the Old Testament book of 1 Chronicles 4:9-10.  It has become widely known today as The Prayer Of Jabez!  All Scripture is powerful and meaningful for our lives.  This particular Scripture is very meaningful to us, because it gives us the words that we want to say, but are just never quite sure how to say them!

This is what those two verses say: “⁹ Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, “I gave birth to him in pain.” ¹⁰Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request.”

There is much to learn from these two verses of Scripture.  Let’s see if there is anything that we can learn that might help us to grow in our relationship with our Creator and Sustainer!

The first things we see is that Jabez was an honorable man.  In fact the Scripture says that he was more honorable than all of his brothers.  This means that he was a man of his word.  His words and actions complemented one another.  His walk and his talk matched and gave him a reputation of integrity!  If we want to pray powerful prayers we must seek to be honorable men and women, whose walk and talk match!  Take a moment and think about some of the steps that you need to take, so that your walk and talk can match in a way that will honor God and open your life to growth and blessing.

Tomorrow we will take a look at another step that we need to take, if we want to pray powerful prayers.  Until then, work on being a man or woman of honor, by making sure that your walk and talk match up for God’s glory!  Remember James 5:16 “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”