Scriptures: John 10:10, 1 Chronicles 4:9-10, Proverbs 10:22, Jeremiah 45:5, Matthew 6:13

God wants to make a difference in your life, so that you can make a difference in the lives of others. God wants to work in you, with you, through you and for you to manifest His glory in your life. Several years ago, author Bruce Wilkinson detailed this biblical teaching in a book about a man named Jabez. In this message, Dr. Merritt unwraps what we can learn from the brief, 80-word biography of Jabez in the Bible. You wouldn't have thought that Jabez would have amounted to very much. His name literally means, "he who gives pain." His is among more than 500 other names in the first few chapters of 1 Chronicles--yet he is remember not for what he did, but for what he prayed.

"You can learn a lot about a person by the kind of prayer that he prays. We learn that Jabez is not hesitant or bashful to pray not only for God's blessings, but God's best and biggest blessings. To bless in the biblical sense means to ask for a supernatural favor. When you ask for God's blessing, you are not asking for more than what you could get for yourself if you just worked harder. You are asking for something that only God can give. If you can't ask God to bless what you are doing, then you had better start doing something else." --Dr. Merritt

Keywords: prayer, Jabez, success, enlarge, territory, blessing, riches, work, materialism, ambition, passion, best, greatness, humility, border, influence, responsibility, Indian, Eagle egg, purpose, plan, God