{"id":26939,"date":"2023-08-15T09:05:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-15T09:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/2023\/08\/15\/free-from-harm\/"},"modified":"2023-08-15T09:05:00","modified_gmt":"2023-08-15T09:05:00","slug":"free-from-harm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/free-from-harm\/","title":{"rendered":"Free from Harm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My Dear Shepherds,<\/p>\n\n<p>I shouldn&rsquo;t be telling you this, but we have a false security system at our house. We have some little decals on our doors that warn potential intruders that we&rsquo;re &ldquo;Protected.&rdquo; There are vestiges of a sophisticated system around the house, but nothing&rsquo;s actually connected. The house came this way. I&rsquo;m hoping any potential robbers will see the signs and leave us alone.<\/p>\n\n<p>I suspect we pastors tend to approach church security this way. I don&rsquo;t mean our buildings. They may be better protected than the congregations they shelter. I mean our own hearts and the well-being of our flocks.<\/p>\n\n<p>A false security system got Israel in deep trouble. &ldquo;They were taken captive to Babylon because of their unfaithfulness&rdquo; (1 Chron. 9:1). When God eventually allowed them to return to their homes they needed to reconnect to his protection. That&rsquo;s why the Chronicler taught them Jabez&rsquo;s prayer:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, &ldquo;Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and <strong>keep me from harm <\/strong><\/em><strong>[evil, wickedness, disaster]<em> so that I will be free from pain <\/em>[grief, distress]<\/strong><em>.&rdquo;<\/em> (1 Chron. 4:10)<\/p>\n<p>\n\n<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>I realize now that I didn&rsquo;t pray this kind of proactive, protection-pursuing prayer very often during my years shepherding a church. I seldom thought of it, to be truthful. Nor, looking back, do I remember hearing a prayer like this in worship services or prayer gatherings. Perhaps we&rsquo;d have avoided a lot of the conflict and turmoil of recent wilderness years if we had.<\/p>\n\n<p>The Chronicler reminded the Jews of two specific disasters that would&rsquo;ve been prevented if they and their leaders had prayed well. The first was the sorry story of Israel&rsquo;s rout by the Philistines and Saul&rsquo;s devastating response:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>Saul died because he was unfaithful to the LORD; he did not keep the word of the LORD and even consulted a medium for guidance, and <strong>did not inquire of the LORD<\/strong>.<\/em> (1 Chron. 10:13-14a)<\/p>\n<p>\n\n<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>David&rsquo;s army-counting debacle is retold in chapter 21. No prayer there either, until David pled for God&rsquo;s mercy. Neither Saul&rsquo;s nor David&rsquo;s defeats were at the hands of enemies but were the consequences of failing to pray, even when warned, as sin crouched at their doors.<\/p>\n\n<p>Jabez&rsquo;s prayer sounds like the prayer Jesus taught us, &ldquo;Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.&rdquo; This short petition requires us to pay attention to God&rsquo;s klaxon horns and bright red warnings to turn from our sins and take stock of our vulnerabilities. God will not tempt us, but he will remove temptation&rsquo;s roadblocks if failure is the only way to bring us to our knees. Prayerless, we leave our gates ajar, our flocks unguarded, and ourselves dozing at our posts. &ldquo;Watch and pray,&rdquo; Jesus warned, &ldquo;so that you will not fall into temptation.&rdquo;<\/p>\n\n<p>Jabez prayed for God&rsquo;s blessing to offset the dismal name his mother had given him, which meant, &ldquo;Oh, the Pain.&rdquo; When we and our people pray, personally and congregationally, &ldquo;deliver us from evil,&rdquo; we will sense and see the safety God gives. We will not be characterized by the pain of guilt and regret. &ldquo;No harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.&rdquo;<\/p>\n\n<p>Standing before your people, you can raise your hands upward and send them out with this:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy&mdash;to the only God our Savior be glory &hellip;.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\n\n<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Be ye glad!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My Dear Shepherds, I shouldn&rsquo;t be telling you this, but we have a false security system at our house. We have some little decals on our doors that warn potential intruders that we&rsquo;re &ldquo;Protected.&rdquo; There are vestiges of a sophisticated system around the house, but nothing&rsquo;s actually connected. The house came this way. I&rsquo;m hoping <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/free-from-harm\/\">Read more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":26941,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"tax_ctp_authors":[2277],"tax_ctp_books":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[131],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[5024],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-26939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-lee-eclov","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-soul-of-the-preacher"],"acf":{"scripture_references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Free from Harm - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My Dear Shepherds, I shouldn&rsquo;t be telling you this, but we have a false security system at our house. We have some little decals on our doors that\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/free-from-harm\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Free from Harm - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My Dear Shepherds, I shouldn&rsquo;t be telling you this, but we have a false security system at our house. 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