Mark 11:24: “So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” Today's episode discusses prayer with expectant faith, how we can ask God for anything, and how we are not bothering God when we pray to Him. He wants us to ask for big and small prayers. We need to trust that He loves us and wants to answer our prayers. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Just Ask, You Are Not Bothering The Lord
Mark 11:24 “So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
I saw this was the verse of the day today, and then I heard a brief description of it, and the man talking said that Jesus said this to his disciples on the Tuesday before Good Friday. Since today is Tuesday before Good Friday, I thought it would be a good verse. It is a verse I rely on often, and it is just after a verse that I love and struggle with. It is just after verse 23, which says, “Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you.” I struggle with that one because I have a hard time believing I could have enough faith to throw a mountain into the sea. I have also prayed for things that I truly believed would happen, and they didn’t, or they didn’t happen the way I thought they might.
However, today’s verse says, “Whatever we ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” So, this verse is not much different than the verse right above it. Here the Lord is telling us in two different ways that if we pray with expectant faith, our prayers will be answered. What really piqued my interest about this verse today is when Brad, from Passion, the man who talked about the verse of the day on the Bible app, said this verse came right after Jesus was explaining why the fig tree that he cursed had shriveled up and died. In Mark 11:12-14 it says, “On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it” When they passed by the fig tree the next day they noticed it had withered away to its roots. This is when Jesus started talking about our prayers being answered when we truly believe.
What this made me think of this morning is how powerful our words are. Actually, not just our words, but our prayers. Do you know you can ask for things that might seem impossible? Did you know you can pray for amazing miracles? Did you know that God loves it when we ask for big, amazing things? God is constantly telling our prayer group that we are not asking for too much we are asking for too little. This isn’t to say that God doesn’t care about the little aspects of our life. He cares about every detail. I think we get stuck in our heads too much when we are thinking about prayer. We don’t want to ask God about little things because we don’t want to bother Him. We don’t want to ask God for big things because we don’t want to ask Him for too much. I think we are too afraid of offending God or inconveniencing God.
What if we truly thought of God as our Dad? Is there anything too big or too small to ask your dad? I know we have all had different experiences with dads. Maybe yours was great, and you could ask him anything. This was my dad. I wouldn’t feel bad asking him to come over and fix a lightbulb, and I wouldn’t feel bad asking him to come watch my kids for a week. It’s not that I don’t know that would be inconvenient for him, but I know he would love to help in any way he can because he is my dad. Maybe you didn’t have that experience with your dad. Maybe you couldn’t rely on him to come through for you. If this is the case I want you to know our heavenly father isn’t the same.
He was not born with original sin. He was not a part of this broken world. He can be there for us in ways that no person ever could be. The closer we get to our heavenly Father, the more we will trust that we can ask Him anything. If you are still tentative with your prayers. If you are still thinking you are bothering the Lord with your prayers, you are asking for too much, or coming to Him too often, I invite you to take that to the Lord today. I invite you in this very holy week to ask the Lord what is getting in the way of your relationship with the Father. What is preventing you from trusting Him fully?
When I say trusting Him, I don’t just mean trusting that He will answer your prayers. I mean trusting that He wants to answer your prayers. Trusting that He loves you and that nothing you could bring to Him would be a bother because He loves you that much. Trusting that He cares about all the little details of your life. Trusting that you won’t be asking too much of Him if you ask for the impossible. Trusting that He isn’t too busy to deal with the things you consider little things in your life. God wants us to bring Him everything. He doesn’t get tired of us talking to Him. He could listen to us talk all day and not get bored, not get annoyed. When I just thought that I got this strong impression in my Spirit that some of you are thinking that very same thought. You think that because people you know have told you that you talk too much, God thinks the same thing. He doesn’t. He wants you to know He never tires of hearing your voice, of sitting and talking with you. He wants you to bring Him everything you have.
I feel like I can’t come up with the words to help you realize how important you are to the Lord. How powerful our prayers can be when we pray them with expectant faith. Expectant faith is when we pray like the verse says, believing that we have received what we asked for. My sister described it once as praying, not as if you are asking God for something, but praying like you know he will say yes. Praying like it is not a matter of if but a matter of when. When we can learn to pray like this, our lives will change. The power of the one living inside of us will be unleashed. I don’t think it is something that happens all at once, at least not from what I have seen. It is something that we practice, and over time, as we begin to see the power of this type of prayer, we begin to trust the Lord more, we begin to grow closer to the Lord, trust Him, and turn to Him more, and then we see our faith grow.
I pray I can help each one of you realize the power you have inside of you. I pray I can help you all believe that you can pray for miracles and see them happen. I pray that the Lord gives me the words and scriptures for these episodes that help teach each and every one of us to walk boldly with Jesus.
Dear heavenly Father, I ask you to bless each person listening to this episode today. Lord, we ask that you show us how to trust you more. We ask you to impress upon our hearts how much you love us. Help us believe that we are not inconveniencing you or bothering you with our prayers. Help us to truly believe you love when we come to you with our prayers. Help us to know there is nothing too big or too small a request for us to bring to you. Help us feel your love for us. Lord, I ask for you to put on our hearts anything that might be getting in the way of us growing closer to you and of us believing these things. We love you so much, Dad, and 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 will be on live for mentoring tonight at 8 EST, talking about the power of the Holy Spirit that we have living inside of us. If you would like to sign up for mentoring, you can click on the link below or go to my website, walkboldlywithjesus.com. If you want to check it out before joining, you can reach out to me on Facebook or email catherine@findingtruenorthcoaching.com, and I will send you the Zoom link. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow! Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day!
Today’s Word from the Lord was received in November 2023 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group or about these words, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today’s Word from the Lord is, “My children, I want you to call out to me. I long to bless you, to bless your families, to bless your communities, to bless your world. When you call to me, you open the floodgates of my love and my mercy. Ask for more you are asking for too little. I have much to give you. I have much to bless you with. Trust in me.”