10 Jabez 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.
Jabez prayed for blessings, territory, protection, power. In the last part of his prayer he asked for deliverance from the devil.
When we are blessed by God with many things, the devil is not gonna be happy. He's gonna try to take things away from us; he came to this earth to steal, kill and destroy.
When our territories are expanded, the devil is gonna try to take back these territories. He knows that wherever we go, we are an influence to these territories that we have, and we carry God's blessings into them.
When we know God's hand is with us, the devil is gonna put his thoughts and lies in our mind. He's gonna twist the truth and stumble us.
Jabez prayed "that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!" He wanted to know that when the devil approach him, God is gonna stand in front. When temptation comes, he wants to be sure that God will deliver him away from sin.
When we are tempted, we tend to think that we are able to cope with it, just because we have been Christians long enough, that we have the "ability" to stay away from it.
Jesus was tempted, yet He did not sin! When Jesus was tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1-11), He quoted scriptures. He quoted the truth. We need not struggle with temptation, we simply turn away from it. The truth is that it is not about our ability to fight with temptations, coz with our humanly abilities we are defeated. It is about how we face it, do we turn to Him, who loves us so much that He chose to die for our sins, or do we depend on what we can do? He gave us a new life, a life free from oppression; we need not turn to our old ways anymore :)
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