How to Move Mountains With Prayer
Have you ever felt like life's problems were larger than you could handle? Jesus teaches us that we have the power of prayer to move mountains. However, what does that metaphor mean? This blog explains that sometimes God doesn't want to change your circumstances. Instead, He wants to change you in your circumstances.
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23 Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be taken up and thrown into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 25 And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses."
What is the most daunting and insurmountable problem you've ever faced? Was it something in your family? Your business? Health? Or even the most significant problem we all deal with is how we respond to the love of God through His Gospel?
We see that brought to life in our Scripture passage through a metaphor, "moving mountains through prayer." But how can we take that metaphor and apply it to our lives? How can we pray with such fervor that the mountains of our life give way?
Three Patterns of Mountain-Moving Prayer
1) Jesus' Creative Invitation Into Fruitfulness
"As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, 'Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.'" Mark 11:20-21
The context of this is that right before our passage, Jesus had cleaned the temple for the second time. He said, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations?' But you have made it a den of robbers.'" Mark 11:17
Jesus' concern is the lack of fruitfulness that is prayer flowing from the temple, so He cleanses it. Then He's so concerned with the lack of fruitfulness of God's people that He curses a fruit tree in nature to illustrate what was happening in the spiritual realm. The negative of cursing the fruit tree was to lift the positive of opportunity for Christ in our lives.
Before we go any further, let's address the following: What is fruitfulness?
From a biblical perspective, being fruitful is living out God's desired will. So there's fruitfulness in how I relate to my spouse and marriage. There is also a desired will of God in the way I relate to my children. There is also the ethics that I practice in business.
This is also revealed, not just in the desired will of God, but the spirit in which I do these things. Therefore, I want to manifest the fruit of the Holy Spirit in how I interact with God and how others desire God's will.
2) The Greatness of the Object of Your Faith
JESUS: "Have faith in God." Mark 11:22
Before Jesus talks about moving mountains, He directs us in our orientation. "Have faith in God." I recognize that sounds very elementary, but what Jesus is lifting isn't about the size of your faith but instead the object.
“It’s unnatural for a Christian not to have an appetite for the impossible.”
Like mountains, some problems we face will seem impossible. The knot is wound so tightly, how could it ever come undone? Our lives can become so complex and burdensome that there is no human solution available. We've all been there, and maybe you are right now.
However, when you face a problem, something inside you cries out with a longing to make it right. "God, work in this circumstance and move in my life. Please, restore this brokenness and move this mountain."
God has written eternity on our hearts, and we long for another land where everything is made right. However, it speaks to the nature of God for His people when we express the longing we're designed for.
3) Embracing the Two-Part Posture of Mountain Moving Prayer
a) The Nature of My Belief
JESUS: "Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be taken up and thrown into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.’” Mark 11:23 (ESV)
Jesus is touching a longing that's inside of us. The longing for God to make things right! And isn't that what God has promised in His word; A day will come when He makes things right.
JESUS: "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." Mark 11:24 (ESV)
What does believe mean?
Believing: have faith in (with God as the object), believe in, have confidence in someone or something, entrust. One of the keywords of that definition is "entrust," which is a word for surrender.
You can only have the kind of faith that Jesus is referencing here with a surrendered heart. Faith comes from hearing the Word of God (Logos) and applying it to our lives (Rhema).
JESUS: "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this, my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples." John 15:7-8
Sometimes God doesn't want to change your circumstances. Instead, sometimes God wants to change you in your circumstances.
Now, you may ask: Pastor, is that Biblical? Did you make that up?
We see it throughout Scripture. Take, for example, Joseph. He grew up in a large dysfunctional family with brothers who were so jealous of him that they sold him into slavery. He experienced layers of injustice, but what was unique was that Joseph kept pressing into God. The more he pressed for a season, the more things got worse. However, God develops Joseph through a posture of heart so that he is second in command of Egypt one day. God invested and developed him to be set up for change.
Jesus wants you to understand the power of His Gospel moves mountains, but often, it's the mountain within us that He's moving just as much as the mountain that's part of our outward circumstances.
b) My Willingness to Forgive
JESUS: "And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses." Mark 11:25
“[Wraith] is an old word for a ghost, a spirit that can’t rest. Ghosts, according to legend, stay in the place where something was done to them, and they can’t get over it or stop reliving it. If you don’t deal with your wrath through forgiveness, wrath can make you a wraith, turning you slowly but surely into a restless spirit, into someone who’s controlled by the past, someone who’s haunted.”
As the people of God are conduits of the power of grace, we have received grace, but with that comes the expectation that we give grace. We have received mercy with the expectation to give mercy.
When Jesus invites us to forgive, we are demonstrating God's beauty and glory and posturing ourselves to move mountains. So it's not only about what God is doing through your prayer life; it's about what God is doing in your prayer life.
Unforgiveness keeps you in a place where the past controls you. When Jesus hung on the cross in suffering and said, "Father, forgive them," He modeled what we're invited into.
When Christ hung on that cross, He took on our sins and died to bear our sins and set us free so that we can be a conduit of grace. We're clogged individuals, and without His sacrifice, we'd miss the riches of what God desires to do in us and through us to move mountains.
TL;DR
How can you be a person who moves mountains through prayer?
Living out God's desired will produces a fruitful life.
Make your faith in God the object of your life and prayers.
Surrendering our hearts to faith in God means knowing His word and applying it to our lives.
Forgiving others as a conduit of the same grace God extends to us.
Related Reading
A Caution For How We Approach God by Rev. Paul Lawler
Why Doesn’t God Answer My Prayer by Rev. Paul Lawler
Three Keys to a Better Prayer Life by Rev. Paul Lawler
