Short Prayers of the Bible
Short Prayers
It is my hope by sharing these short prayers that it will help encourage you in your prayer life. It is not always the lengthy prayers that are honored. Remember when Jesus instructed the disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees,
Luke 20:45-47
45 Then in the audience of all the people he said unto his disciples,
46 Beware of the scribes, which desire to walk in long robes, and love greetings in the markets, and the highest seats in the synagogues, and the chief rooms at feasts;
47 Which devour widows’ houses, and for a shew make long prayers: the same shall receive greater damnation.
The Prayer of Jabez! The name Jabez means, “He causes sorrow”!
We will learn that faith in God accompanied by short prayers can turn sorrow into blessings!
This is the first short prayer I want to share with you. This is a very inspiring prayer and full of faith. Jabez believed in God and God heard his prayer.
1 Chronicles 4: 10 And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested.
When I look at this prayer there is so much here, I could write a book about it myself. There has actually been a book written about it by Dr Bruce Wilkerson. After reading the book and finding a lot of inspiration I decided to share just a bit of it here with you.
I say short prayers all day long! Sometime it is just a prayer to keep my mind on Christ. Sometimes to keep me in His love. Sometimes to bless my lost family with the understanding of how they need salvation. In most of these as I go about my day, they are very short prayers and to the point. They are all from the heart and I am very sincere in them and God knows our hearts.
The first thing we need to recognise is who Jabez called on. The God of Israel! the God of Creation! The God of the living! The Lord God Almighty! The one and only God!!
If we are going to find ourselves in His favor we must recognise Him in these ways! He has to be our all in all. Our fullness.
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him (Hebrews 11:6).
We have to believe in who He is, God! It is a simple thing to say, yes, I believe in God but to truly believe is to accept and receive Him as God!
The next thing he did was to ask God to bless him!
“Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed”
What a bold request! When we come to God we must come to him in humility, understanding who he is. When we ask God to bless us we need to be praying in a spirit of humility and love. The scripture says ” Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: (1 Peter 5:6).
We can certainly come to God with a request for blessings! If we are walking in his love and goodness we will be seeking blessings that conform to His will! These are things that will end up being a blessing to others as well as ourselves. Oh God, bless me indeed that I may become a blessing to others!
Enlarge my coast is part of his blessing request! To enlarge his coast can mean more than one thing. I have heard it referred to as a financial thing but I think it has as much or more meaning to us in a spiritual area. May our witness be enlarged, may the number of sinners converted be increased. As disciples of Jesus it is our commission to make disciples. This is certainly a part of enlarging our borders of opportunity! So much can be said here including being successful in ministry, but we will leave it there for now.
“That your hand would be with me”.
Oh, that the hand of God would be with us!
And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait: let us fall now into the hand of the Lord; for his mercies are great: and let me not fall into the hand of man (2 Samuel 24:14). This is another on of those short prayers that will get results!
We will find more mercy in the hand of God than in the hand of man. When sinners submit to the hand of God, even when he is angry, they have more reason to hope than offering themselves to man.
“And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah; and he girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel” (1 Kings 18: 46) When the hand of God is upon us we find favor from Him and he enables us to do things we are not normally able to do. Elijah ran before a man in a chariot and went before him! He out ran Ahab to Jezreel! The hand of God was upon him!
This next part of the prayer is similar to another very notable prayer.
“and that thou wouldest keep me from evil”
This reminds me of our Lords Prayer.. When Jesus taught the disciples to pray. In that prayer in Matthew 6: 9-15., Jesus said and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
David, in the book of Psalms is found to cry out to God on many occasions to deliver him. One of those is this cry, “Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man: preserve me from the violent man”;(Psalm 140:1) Deliver me from evil, again we find this wording. All through David’s writings he is asking God to deliver him from the evil..
Even before Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, the early saints of God and the prophets already understood the necessity of praying for deliverance from evil. Evil has abounded since Satan was cast out of Heaven It is very important for us to understand that we fight continually with evil! In the very beginning evil prevailed against God’s creation.
“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned”:(Romans 5:12)
“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour”: (Peter 5:8)
We really need to understand, this is not a game but a very real and present evil that we have to depend upon God to deliver us from. We alone are not able to overcome this but with God we can become more than conquerors! By submitting and following the teachings of God we can overcome by the strength of His Spirit! “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world”. (1 John 4:4) So, if we have Him in us, we can overcome!
We need to meditate on God throughout our day and say short prayers from our hearts. Our Father who is in Heaven honors heart felt pleas from His children!
“That it might not grieve me”.
This was written long before Jesus taught about the work of the Holy Spirit and how that He would abide in us. Even before this dispensation people realized the importance of not being grieved. When we are grieved we do not function right and operate in anxiety or in some cases, depression. When Jesus left He told the disciples to tarry at Jerusalem and wait on the promise of the Father! Just before His departure He gave them something! “And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:” (John 20:22 )
We have received the spirit of God and he now abides within us! He will be here on earth until our resurrection or ascension! Jesus said, ” and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen”. How is Jesus with us? He is not here on earth! He is with us through the work of His Spirit who abides in us. Paul said “For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? but we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:16) How do we obtain the mind of Christ? Through the Spirit within us!
This leads me to the point of not being grieved. The scripture says, ” And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption”. (Ephesians 4:30) It is important not to grieve the Holy Spirit! If you have ever been saved and walked in a closeness with God, you understand this statement. For when we grieve the Holy Spirit he convicts us of our wrong! We know we have grieved Him, we do not need someone to tell us!
“Quench not the Spirit”.(1 Thes: 5:19) The original writing here suggest, “Stop quenching the Spirit” Or, stop hindering Him! He is the third person of the Godhead! He is God in the Spirit! He has a personality and it is like God Himself! When we grieve Him it causes us grief in our spirits and hinders us from performing His will. The Holy Spirit is a gentleman and will not force His will on us. We become ineffective! Always look to and be led by the Spirit of God and you will find rest for your souls!
“And God granted him that which he requested”. How wonderful is this? The man whose name meant sorrow, had found the heart of God and had his request was honored! May all our prayers be from our hearts and may we seek the heart of God when we pray!
Thank you for reading this article on Short Prayers. I hope in the near future to publish more short prayers of the bible here. If you have questions or comments please feel free to leave them below.
