Mark 11:22-24 “ And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast 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. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you receive it, and you will.” Today's episode talks about how important it is to remember that God is responsible for answering our prayers. It also talks about how we can not will ourselves to have more faith, faith is a gift from God. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Faith Is A Gift
Mark 11:22-24 “ And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast 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. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you receive it, and you will.”
I love this verse. I love it and it is confusing to me at the same time. I love it because it shows how powerful our faith can be. It is confusing because I can’t imagine having the faith to tell a mountain to be taken up and cast into the sea. Do you have passages like this in the Bible? Verses you really like and at the same time you aren’t sure what they mean or how to interpret them? Or maybe you really like them and you think they are true for other people but they are not true for you? I think today may be one of those days where we talk about the verse and yet you might be left with more questions than answers. We are on this journey together and I don’t have all the answers. I am learning right along side you.
I love to imagine what it would be like if I commanded a mountain to get up and through itself in the sea. Even though I can picture it in my mind, I don’t actually believe that I could do that. It feels way to big and too out there. A whole mountain, throwing itself into the sea, that seems a bit far fetched. I know God can do anything. I don’t doubt that God could cast a mountain in to the sea, I doubt that I could, even if I believed. It seems to always come down to that. I believe God could do anything, but I don’t necessarily believe He would use me to do it. Do you feel this way too? Yes, maybe God does want to heal people today, but not through me. I am not good enough for the that, I am not holy enough, I am not Catholic enough, Christian enough, strong enough, you get the picture. I am not enough for God to use in that way.
Man, what a number the enemy plays on us. He just whispers these stupid lies into our head and we don’t know any better and we buy them and believe him. Well, actually, they aren’t complete lies, which is where he gets us. Yes, we are not enough on our own to have God work through us. We aren’t worthy on our own, God makes us worthy because He created us in His likeness and image and because we have the Holy spirit inside of us. God wants to use us, even in our brokenness and the enemy knows this. This is why Satan left heaven. He knew from the beginning of time that God was going to make humans and that we were going to mess up and yet God was going to love us anyway. That was too much for Satan’s pride. This is probably why Satan attacks us in this way so frequently. He is constantly trying to tell us that we are not enough and we don’t live up to God’s standards. However, it is not God’s standards he is wanting us to live up to, it's his own. He is projecting his feeling onto us. He doesn’t feel we are worthy. God says otherwise!
I know it is possible to get to a point where you know God wants to use you for something. You might not know what but you know He wants to use you or He is using you. You no longer question if you are good enough for Him to use. You still might not understand it, as we don’t see ourselves through God’s eyes. We usually see ourselves through the lens of this world and that is not always kind. However, you start to see fruit in your life and you know God is using you. This is when this verse can get tricky, or at least it did for me. When you are convinced that God can’t or won’t use you, you don’t worry about this verse because you don’t think you will ever have that type of faith so the verse isn’t relevant to you.
What about when you do believe God is using you? What about when you do feel you have the faith of a mustard seed? What about when you feel you believe God is healing in this world and even believe He can use you to do it? When you believe all of that and then you read this passage you can get discouraged. Yes, I believe God can heal through me, but do I believe I can cast a mountain into the sea, not really. I don’t think this verse is about mountains though. I think God is just letting us know that faith is powerful and whatever we say, if we do not doubt in our heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you receive it, and you will.”
I think many of us struggle with this verse because we do have faith. Many of us have seen miracles, and if we have’t seen our own miracles, we believe the ones we read about in scriptures or we hear about on line or on TV. We know God can do miracles. We believe, and yet we don’t always get what we ask for. We feel there is not doubt in our heat and yet the healing we desperately wanted for our loved one did not come to pass. What do we do now? How do we reconcile with this verse as we know all that is written in the Bible is truth and yet this verse says if we believe with no doubt in our heart it will come to pass? This is where the enemy can come in and start whispering half truths again. See, God doesn’t really do the things you want Him to do. See, you aren’t good enough for God to heal your loved one. See, you don’t have the faith you thought you had. Why couldn’t you just have more faith? It is your fault this person died. The enemy loves to make us feel bad.
Have you ever had these thoughts? Have you ever wondered about this verse? Have you ever brought this verse to God and asked Him what it means? The last line in this verse says, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you receive it, and you will.” I get stuck on this one a lot. I take this one to God a lot. I had a friend, a prayer group member, and her name was Iris. Iris was young, kind, so full of life. I joined prayer group in 2018 and Iris got throat cancer in 2020. At this point I had been reading all the healing books I could for a year or two now. I had seen some success when I had prayed over people for healing. I truly believed that God would heal Iris. I believed that God would use me to heal her completely and that she would be back to prayer group in no time. In August of that same year, Iris went home to be with the Lord.
I was so confused and honestly, angry. I asked God why He didn’t heal her. I asked why He tells us that whatever we pray for in faith we will get and then He took my friend. I blamed myself. Have you done that before? Have you prayed for a healing or for a loved one to get better and then when they didn’t you blamed yourself for not having enough faith. I think this happens more often than we would like to admit. I also think sometimes other people may make us feel this way. Well, Jesus said if you have faith it will happen so maybe you just didn’t have enough faith. Honestly, I really struggle with understanding this passage and other ones like it.
I truly believe God can do anything, I know He can. There is no doubt in my heart. But then even as I say that the Holy Spirit brings up some pretty severe illnesses and I don’t doubt that God can do it, but sometimes I guess I doubt that He will do it. For instance chronic illnesses like Chrons disease. I know God can heal it, I honestly do. However, it is hard for me to picture Him doing it, if that makes sense. I feel I did not have any doubt that Iris would be healed and so I was confused when she passed away. I wondered if it was my fault. If she died because I didn’t have enough faith. If I could have saved her if I just had more faith. I know I am not alone with going down this line of thinking. Although I don’t have any answers and I still struggle to understand verses like this at times, God gave me two pieces of insight during my prayer time that were very helpful.
First, He did actually answer my prayers because Iris is healed now. There is no sickness in heaven. Iris is no longer suffering. She can eat food, swallow, and can talk again. I am sure she is up there singing with the angels right now. Second, God told me I can not manufacture trust. Trust is a gift and it is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. I can’t will myself to have no doubt in my heart. God gives us faith. There are things that build our faith, such as reading the Bible, learning about God and all He has done, and hearing about miracles that others have seen as well. If our loved ones, or anyone we pray over is not healed God does not want us to blame ourselves. God is the one responsible for healing people and He is also the one responsible for making our prayers fruitful. God has a plan and it is our job to following His promptings. It is our job to pray over someone if we feel called to do so. It is our job to step out in faith and say the prayer and then leave the outcome of the prayer to God.
Hopefully you understand this verse a bit better. As I said at the beginning of the episode, I am learning right along side you and have struggled with this verse. My prayer is that I did not leave you with more questions than answers and that if you do have questions you seek the answers. God is a mystery and we will not understand everything about Him while we are here on Earth. And yet, we can seek to learn as much as we can. If you only take one thing away from this episode I pray it is the reassurance that you are not responsible for the outcome of your healing prayers. You couldn’t have saved your loved ones by conjuring up more faith on your own. Faith is a gift from God.
Dear Heavenly Father I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we ask that you impart your wisdom about this verse on us. Help us to understand what this verse means. Help us to fight off the enemy when he is trying to tell us our loved one death is our fault. Help us to ignore His lies and replace them with the truth. Fill our hearts and minds with the truth Lord. Fill our hearts and minds with your love, your peace, your grace. We love you Lord, you are amazing! We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to meeting you hear again on Monday. Remember Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day!