Rating: 
Summary: Encouraging and Uplifting
Review: After 3 encounters with the Jabez book-in conversation and seeing it lying on a table at my in-laws home-I knew that I would be reading this book. Since, I have been more encouraged and hopeful in my walk with God than I had been in a long time. I have since begun reading the Jabez devotional. Another winner. Read them and seek His blessing indeed!
Rating: 
Summary: The Prayer of Hope
Review: This book has been very helpful in the way of helping me to understand that it's alright to ask God for more and that it's God's good pleasure to bless you. It's a shame to think that there are blessings that we never receive simply because we do not ask. Who doesn't want to be blessed by God (those who believe) and why should we think that God doesn't have enough to bless us with? What I appreciate about Bruce's prayer "that you would bless me and enlarge my territory", is that it's not just about a financial blessing that most of us may desire, it's about enlarging his territory to help others and to do God's will for him. The bible says we don't receive because we don't ask. Some people don't ask because they don't have enough faith to believe that God will answer their prayers and some people don't ask because they don't believe that they deserve to be blessed. Doesn't God bless us so that we can be a blessing in other people's lives? I know there is a lot of suffering in this world and nobody knows your own sufferings more than you and God. We can ask "why?" this one has and this one doesn't and "why?" this one suffers and this one doesn't from here until eternity and never get the answers. Rather than criticizing and blaming God for the things that we perceive to be wrong in this world maybe the answer is to thank God when it's not you who is doing the suffering and doing without and asking God to "bless you and enlarge your territory" so that maybe He can use you to be a blessing to people who are less fortunate. I am thankful for the Prayer of Jabez and I hope it is a blessing to everyone who reads it!
Rating:
Summary: God has a blessing waiting for you....
Review: This book is a MUST have for all christians as they walk with God and learn the importance of claiming all that God has in store for you. I was given the book by my mother and encouraged to read the book. After completing it, I passed it on to someone else who needed to again be reminded how good God is, and how many blessing he has in store for his children.
Rating:
Summary: Totally inspiring!
Review: I was moved by the very spirit of this book! I have been praying for direction in my life and God sent it through my friend in this book! I will begin teaching the teenage edition to a youth class in my church this fall....our goal??? To take our entire community for Christ!
Rating:
Summary: Be prepared for changes after you read this book
Review: I was curious and frankly a little skeptical about this little book because my religion is intensely personal. I figured "Hey, what can it hurt to try what he says?" So, I did. After the thirty day "trial period" I slowly realized there had been some changes in my attitude toward people, my willingness to speak out regarding my religion, and even in my reading habits. No one was more surprised than I. I do recommend the little book and hope it brings a blessing to others as it brought to me.
Rating: 
Summary: A Formula that is Not Jesus Centered
Review: The one good comment I can make about this book is that the author emphasizes daily prayer and contact with God. This of course is a good thing! My major concern is that the book is definitely God centered but is NOT Jesus centered. It also concerns me that it appears to offer a "formula" to get blessings from God. Near the beginning of the book the author tells a fictious story about a man who gets to heaven. St. Peter shows him a box of all the blessings he did not receive because he did not ask God for them. This seems to be flawed theology. Yes, the Bible does say, "ask and you shall receive", but the fact remains that there are many blessings in our lives that we did not consciously ask for. Being born in a Christian home is a blessing, but certainly those of us who exprience this did not pray for it, as we could not pray before we were born! It also says in the Bible that God knows what we need before we even ask Him and also that He will answer before we finish praying! (Matthew 6:8, Isaiah 65:24)
Rating: 
Summary: Pastors need to read this book
Review: As a pastor I read this book because so many of my parishioners have read it. It is a quick, light read that will teach you more about the people you love in your congregation than it will about prayer. Ask yourself: why is this book so phenomenally successful? Will this book make you a better prayer? Probably not...but it will make you a more effective pastor if you take its message to heart and share it with your church.
Rating:
Summary: Great prayer. Great book. But read with a Spirit-led mind.
Review: A number of friends at my own campus Christian club recommended this book. I did not give the book much thought.So when I first got the book using my graduation gift money, I feel, "Will this book get me anything?" Then I prayed 1 Chronicles 4:9-10 - which is the focus of this book - and then, suddenly God revealed to me that He wants to bless me, but I had to "let Him", because there were a few things in my life I did not want Him to touch, later revealed after I prayed the prayer of Jabez. Although I cannot disclose them on a public site, I prayed He will give me power to deal with these. The fact He revealed them showed that God will bless you, but sometimes you need to allow God to work in your life so that you can experience even more blessings from Him. The prayer is not necessarily material blessings, as it might look on the surface. It's only two months since I got the book and I'm already experiencing results. But where the results come from? The Lord, of course. Get the book - but read it with a Spirit-led mind. It will be money well-spent. And, do not worry about those who criticize the book. Even Christ Jesus had his critics when He first opened His ministry 2,000 years ago. And I am 100% sure that this prayer will do a lot in my own life as it will do in yours.
Rating:
Summary: 7.4 million christians can't be wrong
Review: So I read the book (Prayer of Jabez) a few weeks ago and it strikes me as odd that this book is popular. It's not a particularly profound or a new idea (people have been touting the power of prayer, positive thinking, future-vision, etc.) for as long as I can remember, and the prayer itself is a rather simple plea although the author tries to present it as complete solution to spiritual growth. (I mean he doesn't say it, but wilkinson almost implies that this prayer is all that is needed to align one's self with god and the internal destiny of the spirit and its intended blessings...in other words, forget all that other theology and the other 65 books of the bible...i got it all simplified into a bite size formula). Its apparent that the prayer is asking for a greater blessing of spiritual responsibility, yet most people seem to be frightened of being called in closer to god then they are already standing. For some reason the people turned on by the book seem to have their sights set on success in their own terms, but the prayer is asking for success on god's terms which might differ quite a bit from what we have in mind for ourselves. I get the feeling this prayer is being mumbled more at the crap tables and slot machines of life then anywhere else. What I mean is, it is being prayed as we work for that job promotion or that child to be accepted to a great university or as we buy that new biotech on the Nasdaq...I guess we can want something so bad that we believe it is providence and that is where this prayer comes in. But then its merely a superstitious saying no different then 'baby need a new pair of shoes!' as the dice are released from our greedy little hands. but this prayer is really a prayer to be made aware of what blessings are before us and using those blessings wisely...not a prayer of redistribution of blessings. don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with desiring something and making that goal a priority, but this prayer seems to run askew to asking god to grant us our desires...this prayer asks god to grant us god's desire. Maybe god does really desire for me to get that Cadillac Escalade but somehow I think God is not nearly as much of a car buff as I am. I think we all know that (sometimes very faint) voice that God uses as his personal messenger for his will and this prayer is asking that the messenger's voice be amplified drowning out all the other mixed messages flying around. Now knowing that, the earnest recital of this prayer is kind of scary...for many of us hesitate to give god the reigns and let him direct us to those infinite blessings. Jabez was not messing around...who amongst us can say the same thing? The Jabez book is strangly similar to another book (a book rivaling jabez popularity in the new age world) The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Wilkinson's four truths are different though. His aredisguised within a prayer and up for some interpretation...but they are none the less as short and pithy as ruiz' agreements. I do like the fact that Wilkinson makes no empty promises of happiness or particular results (Ruiz sounds like an infomercial selling spiritual get rich quick schemes with his four agreements)...Wilkinson's Jabez only promises that earnest application of the thoughts and perspective instilled with Jabez' prayer will be life changing. If someone changes internally there will usually be external evidence that something life-changing occured, but its the inner affirmations of the prayer and not the actual prayer that is working here. In other words, not so much God hearing and answering a prayer, as our own inner spirit getting in touch with the blessings that are abounding just within our reach but out of our sight every moment of our lives. (new agers would say that the blessings are a vision intended for the third eye). No doubt about it...this book has some real meat in its svelte 93 pages, but like recipes adapted for mass consumption...something might have got lost in the sauce on the national level. Is the Jabez movement the evidence of a rennaisance for god and the spirit or merely a fad springing from America's desire to recitfy its puritanical foundation with unrelenting manifest destiny? what do you think?
Rating:
Summary: One of the finest books I have read
Review: I have circulated my copy of this book to members of my church congregation with instructions to pass it along to the next read. I used the text as a basis for a sermon on a Sunday on which I substituted for the pastor. The follwoig Sunday the pastor also provided a copy for circulation. I highly recommend it for Christians and all who profess to be interested in mankind. It should give them insight on their needs for interelations in both private and public lives. I am 78 years of age and understand the need for this enlightenment
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