The Blessings You Really Need // God Wants to Bless You, Part 3

<p>Sure, God’s Word talks an awful lot about blessing. And yet when I tell people, ‘God wants to bless you’, most often I get one of two reactions: either, ‘Well, I’m not sure He’s really blessed me much yet’; or ‘I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s the right thing to do to ask God to bless me. Isn’t that selfish?’</p> <h4><span style="color: #ff9900;"><strong>WHY DON’T I RECEIVE?</strong></span></h4> <p>Well, if you were able to join me last week on the programme, you’ll know that we chatted about the prayer of Jabez. What an amazing little prayer that some unknown guy, tucked away in the middle of nine chapters of something as boring as genealogy, prayed. Here it is again:</p> <p style="padding-left: 40px;"><em>Jabez was honoured more than his brothers. And his mother named him Jabez, saying, ‘Because I bore him in pain.’ Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, ‘O, that You would bless me indeed and enlarge my border, and that Your hand might be with me, and that You would keep me from hurt and harm.’ And God granted him what he asked. </em>(1 Chronicles 4:9-10)</p> <p>It’s quite an astounding little prayer for a couple of reasons: The first is because on the surface of things, it appears to be entirely selfish; and second because despite that, God granted him what he asked for. So, either God is in the business of answering selfish, self-serving prayers, or there’s something else going on here.</p> <p>As I said at the beginning of the programme, there are plenty of people who believe in Jesus, who haven’t really experienced a whole bunch of blessing in their lives. Well, perhaps that’s not quite true; let me rephrase that … there are plenty of people who believe in Jesus who don’t feel particularly blessed; that’s probably more to the point.</p> <p>It seems we’re pretty good at ignoring the blessings that God gives us – you know, the basics: our health, the air that we breathe, the food that’s provided for us, the roof over our heads, our family, our friends, our job. Of course, not everybody listening tod