22 And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.
23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.
24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
25 And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
26 But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.
Introduction
We pulled into a parking lot of a Christian bookstore on Friday morning in Del Rio and immediately noticed a huge black sign hanging from the door that read, “Closed.” We pulled up closer to the store to find out when it opened, and we saw that there were two additional lines written on the sign. These lines read, “Our Father’s ears are never Closed to the prayers of his children.”
What I thought was an ordinary “Closed” sign was actually an open invitation to pray. You and I know from the reading of the scriptures that our Father’s ears are never closed to the prayers of his children. Many times in the Bible we are issued that invitation to pray.
Through the prophet Jeremiah, the Lord said, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not” (Jeremiah 33:3). Jesus said, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8). Again, Jesus said, “If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 18:19). James said, “Ye have not, because ye ask not” (James 4:2). He also tells us, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not” (James 1:5).
Again and again in God’s word we are issued the invitation to pray. Prayer is at the very heart of our relationship with God. In fact, it would be safe to say that if you do not pray, you do not have a personal relationship with God. You cannot keep a relationship with a person you do not talk to at least occasionally. The more you talk with people, the deeper your relationship with them grows.
Likewise, you cannot maintain a relationship with God unless you talk to him in prayer. The more frequently you talk to him in prayer, the deeper your relationship with him becomes. If you want to have a close personal relationship with God, you must learn to pray.
Prayer is one of God’s greatest gifts to us. The privilege he has given to us to go into his presence at any time with any problem is a privilege that is afforded only to people—especially to the people of God, his own children.
The Bible describes a powerful prayer life in the book of Mark. Mark chapter 11 gives us the ingredients to a successful prayer life—the things that we must do if we are going to be powerful in our praying. Jesus begins by saying, “Have faith in God.” It is our faith and trust in God that is the foundation for all of our Christian life, but especially for our prayer life. “For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith” (Mark 11:23).
Jesus is talking about mountain-moving prayers. The mountain is symbolic of any obstacle—any grand objective that stands before you. Jesus is saying that there is enough power in prayer to move mountains, to remove the greatest obstacles, and to overcome the greatest of hindrances if we pray in the right way.
Then he tells us the two essential ingredients to effective, successful prayer: faith and forgiveness. We must learn to pray in faith and with forgiveness. If we can pray in those two ways, then we can offer up powerful, mountain-moving prayers to God.
1. We must pray in faith.
In verse 24, Jesus talks about faith. “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” That’s faith.
Jesus then talks about forgiveness in verses 25-26. “And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.”
We are apt to miss the thrust of what Jesus is saying here. He is simply saying that if you want to pray effectively, you must believe that God is going to respond to your request, and you must pray with a heart that is open to forgive other people of the wrongs they have done to you. When you pray like that, your prayers have enough power to move any mountainous obstacle or problem that confronts you.
Jesus begins by saying that we must learn to pray in faith, but what exactly is faith? It is one of those words that we throw around in life and especially in the church so much that it has a tendency to become cliché. We can’t really get a grip on it. We can’t really get our teeth into it or know what faith is.
What is faith? It is not believing that whatever you ask for or request will be done. It is believing that God knows and will do what is best. It is entrusting yourself to him, in his love and wisdom. Your faith, therefore, is in God—not in prayer. Faith is more than just intellectual ascent. It is more than just believing that something is true. Faith involves a matter of commitment. It involves a matter of trust. It is the surrendering your life or the yielding of your will to God. It is having such faith and confidence in God that you are willing to trust him with your very life.
Perhaps the best illustration of faith that there is in all the Bible is found in the third chapter of the book of Daniel. It’s the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Do you remember those three Hebrew lads? They were in the distant land of Babylon, and King Nebuchadnezzar sent out a decree that all the people must bow down and worship his golden image. But these three Hebrew lads had such a loyalty and devotion to Jehovah—the true and the living God—that they refused to bow down. So King Nebuchadnezzar had them brought into his presence and he threatened that if they did not bow down and worship the golden image, they would be cast into a fiery furnace.
They responded with a marvelous expression of faith. They said, “Oh King, we believe that our God is able to deliver us. And not only is our God able to deliver us, we believe that he will deliver us. But even if he doesn’t deliver us from the fiery furnace, be it known oh King, that we will die worshipping and serving God.”
That is faith. It is yielding your life to God. It is surrendering your faith to God and saying, “I am willing to trust God no matter what.” Faith begins by believing that God is able. The three young men were basically saying, “Our God can do it. Our faith is always centered in God—in his power, strength, and ability—and we believe that God is able to do anything.”
Not only is faith believing that God is able to answer our prayers—faith is believing that God will answer our prayers. Faith has such confidence and assurance in God that it is convinced already that the things we pray for will come to pass. At the same time, faith in God is so strong and steadfast, it believes that even if God chooses to answer differently or if God chooses to delay his answer, that person, in faith, will remain submitted to him.
You see, my faith in God is much stronger than an answer that I might or might not receive. If I pray for something and God does not respond as I expected him to respond, that’s not going to shake my faith in him. My confidence is in God and God alone; it’s not in whether one prayer or another prayer is answered. So often we think prayer is a way to manipulate God and to get what we want. We think it persuades God to do things he didn’t want to do in the first place. Prayer is not trying to outmaneuver, manipulate, or persuade God to do what he doesn’t want to do. Prayer is yielding my life to God, surrendering myself to him, and saying, “Lord, this is my desire, but my faith in you is so strong that even if you do not deliver me, I will trust you. I will believe you anyhow.”
How strong is your faith? Does it require a “yes” answer to every request? If so, you may not have the kind of faith that Jesus is talking about here—the kind of faith that believes and trusts God no matter what happens.
Real, genuine faith is related to our desires, however. Did you notice what Jesus said? You pray and he will give you your desires. There’s a vast difference between our whims, wishes, and desires. A desire is something that is very special and very basic to you. The Lord does not promise to grant every momentary whim and every passing wish of our lives. What he does say is that if you pray in faith, he will grant to you the desires of your heart.
In the book of Psalms, the psalmist said, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4, ESV). You have to delight yourself in the Lord first, and then God will grant you the desires of your heart.
What does it mean to delight yourself in the Lord? It means that you are so surrendered and so committed to him that whatever God’s will is, you want it for your life.
If you want to paraphrase that 37th Psalm, the verse really says this: “When you want what God wants, then you can have what you want.” That’s not double-talk. That’s saying that when you come to the place where you surrender your life to the will of God—where what God wants is truly what you want—then God begins to work in response to your prayers.
Prayer is a way of bringing our lives into harmony with the will of God. It’s a way of surrendering ourselves to the purposes of God. We must line up our lives with God before we can ever be effective in our prayer life. If God answered every passing whim, and if God granted every spontaneous request, your life, my life, and our whole world would be in tremendous chaos. Unless we can recognize that God has a wisdom that is beyond ours and pray with a sense of surrender that his will be done, we are not really praying in faith.
When I pray without apology, I ask God for certain things. But I try always to pray not only with the words but with the heart that cries, “Thy will be done.” I recognize God knows way more than I do, and that there may be somebody else praying over here for something entirely different. As God works in the world, I am willing to surrender my will to his will. When I do that, there is effectiveness in praying.
Nobody has ever had every prayer answered. Jesus didn’t. He prayed in the garden, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26:39). He was willing to trust God even if the answer he wanted didn’t come.
The apostle Paul didn’t have every prayer answered. He prayed for the thorn to be removed from his flesh, and it wasn’t removed. In response he said, “I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then I really become strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10). Paul was willing to take God’s answer and God’s response, even though it wasn’t what he asked for.
The early church prayed for its leaders. James was killed by the king and Peter was spared. Sometimes God answers our prayers as we request and sometimes he doesn’t. But always, if we are praying in the Spirit, “Thy will be done,” and if we delight ourselves in the Lord, then God answers that prayer according to his will—according to what is best for us.
For those three Hebrew young men, the real desire of their heart was to honor God. The real desire of their life was to glorify him. They thought that God would deliver them; they knew that God was able. God did not deliver them from the fiery furnace, but God carried them through the fiery furnace. The end result was that the desire of their heart was granted and they glorified God. In fact, God got more glory by their going through the furnace than if they had never experienced it to begin with.
Prayer then is harmonizing our lives with God. It is surrendering our will to his will. When we can believe and trust in God so much that we can take a “no” answer, when we can recognize that he knows better than we do, and when we can be confident that his will is the best thing that could happen to us, then we begin to have mountain-moving faith in prayers.
Prayer is more than just asking. It most certainly is that. It is at least that. There are some things that we receive from God only by asking. Salvation is one of them. The Bible says, “Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13). You can’t work for salvation; you can’t earn salvation; you can’t buy salvation—you receive it. It is yours for the asking. You can pray and ask God to save you. The Holy Spirit is yours and mine for the asking, and you can receive him only by asking. Jesus said, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke 11:13).
You do not work for the Holy Spirit; you do not earn the Holy Spirit; you can’t buy the power of the Holy Spirit—the Holy Spirit is yours for the asking. Wisdom from God also comes only by asking.
James taught in the first chapter of his book about how to endure suffering and hardship, and he realized that some people would not know how to implement his teaching in a practical way. He said, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (James 1:5). Wisdom comes by prayer.
If you desire knowledge, or if you want an education, you go and study. You can work for knowledge. You can work for an education. You can earn it. But wisdom—real spiritual insight—comes as a gift from God. It is yours for the asking.
If you want to be saved, ask. If you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit, ask. If you want wisdom, ask. If you want forgiveness and cleansing, ask.
The Bible says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). There are some things that come to us only as we ask. But prayer involves more than asking.
Jesus didn’t just say, “Ask, and it shall be given.” He also said, “Seek and you shall find.” Let’s suppose that you are struggling with a matter of Christian stewardship and you do not know what you ought to do. You do not know how much you ought to give to God. The solution to your problem is not to ask. You can get down on your knees and you can pray from now until doomsday and you will not find a better answer than what is already recorded in the Bible. What you need to do is not just ask—you need to seek. You need to pick up your Bible and you need to start reading. If you will read the Bible, seeking out the answer in God’s word, he will tell you what you ought to do concerning Christian stewardship. Don’t just pray and wait until some answer comes from the heavens. God has already given the answer. Seek it out and you will know what you are to do.
If you are struggling with your behavior as a Christian—if you don’t know whether things are right or wrong—then don’t just pray about it. Get your Bible out and start reading the word of God. You will discover marvelous guidelines for moral, ethical, and social behavior in the Bible. Sometimes instead of asking, you need to seek, for when you ask, you receive, and when you seek, you find. There are some people who need to spend time on their knees with an open Bible in front of them.
Jesus said, “Ask and you shall receive.” He said, “Seek and you shall find.” But he also said, “Knock and it shall be opened unto you.” Just as asking is praying, and seeking is praying, knocking is also part of our prayer life.
That means that if you want to see somebody saved, the answer is not just to get down on your knees and ask God to save them, the answer is also to seek that person out, knock on their door, and share faith in Jesus Christ with them.
If you need to be reconciled to somebody, don’t just get down on your knees and say, “Lord, bring us back into a right relationship with one another.” Get up off of your knees and seek that person out. Knock on their door and say, “Brother, will you forgive me for the wrong I have done to you?” There is a time to ask, there is a time to seek, and there is a time to knock, and prayer involves all of it.
Real, genuine faith trusts in God so much that it responds and does what God says to do. If you offer unto God the real desires of your heart—not the whims or longings of the moment, but the real desires of your heart—and if you pray believing and trusting God no matter what, then that kind of faith can move mountains. Keep your life open to surprises.
I was walking down the corridor of the hospital the other day, and I came to an intersection where there was a lady in a wheelchair being taken down the hall. She recognized me because she and her husband are regular watchers on television. She called my name and we stopped and visited for just a little while. As we talked, she asked me, “Is there anything God can’t do?” Without thinking I said, “No, there is nothing that God can’t do.” She stopped me and said, “Yes, there is something,” and I thought of it at the same time she did. The scriptures tell us there is one thing God can’t do: God can’t lie.
And the God who can’t lie tells us: “Pray believing; pray trusting; pray in surrender, and there will be power in your prayer life.”
2. We must pray with forgiveness.
As you stand praying, if there is anything between you and another person, you must forgive that person. For if you do not forgive them, then your heavenly Father will not forgive you.
Many of you—and the people all around you—have been hurt in life. Hurt in business dealings. Hurt by a family member. Hurt by a neighbor. Hurt in a marriage. And that hurt has left bitterness, resentment, and anger deep in your heart. Even at night when you go to bed and ought to be resting in the peace, quiet, and comfort of your own home, you are seething on the inside as you remember those past grievances and the wrong that was done to you. You keep thinking in your heart and mind, “One of these days, I will get even. One of these days, they will have to pay for that.” Consequently, we sometimes live our lives with a terrible anger and an unforgiving spirit.
Jesus said that if you want to be powerful in your prayer life, you are going to have to deal with that anger, resentment, and bitterness, and you are going to have to learn to forgive those who have hurt you.
There are a lot of reasons why we need to forgive people. We need to forgive them for our physical well-being. When you have anger in your heart, it causes your blood pressure and your heartbeat to go up, and it interferes with your digestive system. Being an angry person, and holding bitterness and resentment in your heart is another form of slow, gradual suicide. Do you want to destroy your health? Do you want to ruin your life? Then just be an angry and unforgiving person. You need to learn to forgive for the sake of your physical well-being.
You also need to learn to forgive for the sake of your emotional well-being. You are angry when you hold resentment and bitterness. You don’t have peace in your heart. The people you are angry and resentful toward are probably going on about life and having a good time. They are kicking up their heels. They are not worried about you at all, but they are holding control over your life. They are making you miserable while they are going on about their life because you have anger toward them. The man who makes you angry controls and dominates your life and steals your peace.
It is generally believed by counselors that depression is rooted in anger, in bitterness, and in the lack of forgiveness. You cannot effectively deal with depression until you have gotten the anger out and have dealt with it in your life.
Not only do you need to deal with anger and unforgiveness for the sake of your physical and emotional wellbeing–—you also need to eliminate it for the sake of your spiritual life. For Jesus said that unless you can forgive other people, then God will not forgive you. When you do not forgive other people, then you put yourself off from the forgiveness of God in your own life.
General James Oglethorpe was talking with John Wesley one time, and he said to Wesley, “I never forgive.” Wesley replied, “Well, sir, then I hope you never sin.” Dear friend, if you are holding anger, bitterness, and resentment in your heart, I hope you are living a perfect life, because you have closed the door to confession and cleansing from God. Until you deal with that anger in your own heart and that forgiveness in your own life, there is no need to go to God to ask him to forgive you of the wrongs that you do to other people.
Forgiveness is never easy. It is a whole lot easier to want to get even. It is a whole lot easier to make people pay for the wrongs they have done to us. It is so difficult to forgive. Do you know why? It is because when you forgive another person, you pay the price for their wrongs. You suffer the hurt that they brought upon you. You bear the sorrow that comes from their wrong, and they go free. That’s why it is so difficult to forgive. You have to pay for their wrong and they go free.
Let me illustrate it. Let’s suppose you have an expensive vase in your house and somebody comes in and in a moment of carelessness breaks it. If you forgive them, then you suffer the loss. It’s your vase. You lost it, and they go free. You could try to make them pay for it. You could try to make them feel guilty for doing it. There are a lot of ways you can make them pay for the wrong that they did. Instead, you choose to forgive them. If you forgive them, you are the one who suffers the loss and they go free.
Let’s suppose somebody says something nasty about you. You can try to get even with them, you can say something nasty about them, you can confront them and make them apologize, or you can forgive them. If you forgive them, you suffer from the wrong they said about you. You have to pay for it because the wrong has been said and they haven’t issued an apology and you haven’t tried to defend yourself. You suffer from the error they made and they go free.
That’s why we find it so hard to forgive. We want people to pay. We want to get even. And eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Make them pay. That’s what justice says and that’s what we think.
But you need to remember that forgiveness is exactly what took place at Calvary. Jesus died on Calvary’s cross. When he did, he took the brunt of your sin and mine. Jesus paid the price for us. Jesus suffered agony for our wrong and we went free. If we claim to be followers of the one who bore our sorrow, sins, and guilt to set us free, then we prove that we don’t even understand forgiveness if we don’t forgive other people.
I’m glad I learned a long time ago that life is too short to carry resentment, bitterness, and anger toward another person on my shoulders. I’m the one who suffers, and more than that, I cut myself off from the love and the grace and the forgiveness of God.
You say, “I just can’t forgive. You don’t know what that person did to me; you don’t know the hurt that I suffered.” When a person says, “I just can’t forgive,” what they are really are saying is, “I won’t forgive.” Let me assure you—you can forgive. If the Lord Jesus is able to save your soul, he is able to give you the capacity to forgive other people. We not only follow the great forgiver and Savior, we follow the great enabler. With God’s power and strength in your life, you can learn to forgive other people. God will give you the capacity to forgive if you really want it and ask him for it. Until you learn to believe, and until you learn to forgive, there will never be any real power in your life.
We went back to the bookstore after it opened and the “Closed” sign had been replaced by an “Open” sign. From the parking lot it looked like just an ordinary black sign that read, “Open.” When we got up close we noticed that there was a line above it and a line below it. The line above read, “Jesus wants you to” and then a great big “OPEN,” and down below it read, “your heart to him.”
Jesus wants you to open your heart to him. There is a great message in those two signs. The ears of our heavenly Father are never closed to the prayers of his children. Jesus wants you to open your heart to him. We open our hearts by faith and trust, and we open our hearts by daily prayer. Give your life to Christ. Trust him for salvation. Let him become Lord and Master and let him guide you and direct you all throughout your life.