“Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” Mark 11:24 ESV¹

Read Matthew 21:18-22 & Mark 11:12-14, 20-24

I have been praying since I was a wee, little girl. My relationship with God began with prayer. And over the years, my relationship with God has been sustained by prayer. In my five decades of almost constant prayer, I have had thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of prayers answered. But that doesn’t mean I have never been disappointed in my prayer life. What often baffles me is God’s almost immediate answers to many of my little, insignificant prayers, like helping me find my lost car keys, but in other bigger, more important pleas, like healing my loved one from cancer, He doesn’t seem to hear. This is frustrating especially when God promises over and over in His word that if we will but ask, His answer will be, “Yes.”² Following is a passage where Jesus made such a claim.

“In the morning, as [Jesus] was returning to [Jerusalem from Bethany], He became hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, He went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And He said to it, ‘May no fruit ever come from you again!’ And the fig tree withered at once. When the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, ‘How did the fig tree wither at once?’” (Matthew 21:18-20). “And Jesus answered them, ‘Have faith in God. 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. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours’” (Mark 11:20-23).

This passage seems to communicate that anyone who asks God for anything will get it. After all, whoever means whoever, and whatever means whatever, right? Whether faced with a fig-tree-sized problem or a mountain-sized one, anyone approaching God asking for help should hear, “Yes.” Yet, so often our experience doesn’t seem to line up with this astounding declaration by our never-changing, promise-keeping God. So, what exactly was Jesus teaching here?

To Whom Was This Promise Given?

This event took place early in Jesus’ Passion Week—the week that would include His crucifixion and resurrection. Jesus had just spent the night with the Twelve in Bethany, presumably at the home of His good friends, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. In the morning, Jesus and His closest disciples returned to Jerusalem so that Jesus could continue His final week of ministry, teaching, healing, and preparing His followers for what was soon to come.

It was to His closest disciples that Jesus promised, “‘Whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith’” (Matthew 21:22). This pledge is not for everyone. One cannot expect God to cater to his/her needs solely on the basis of his/her good deeds. One cannot influence God to pour out blessings on him/her just because he/she faithfully adheres to religious rituals. And one cannot force God’s hand into meeting his/her desires because his/her pleas are sincere and promise-laden. Only those who are abiding in Christ and have the Spirit of Christ residing in them can expect to have all of their prayers answered in the affirmative.

Later in the same week of the above account, while in the midst of sharing The Last Supper, after Judas, the Betrayer, left their company, Jesus again promised those closest to Him:

“‘If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you’” (John 15:7).

Only those who are in a continuing, intimate relationship with Christ can expect God to comply with their requests.

“Jesus said …, ‘I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me’” (John 14:6).

This assurance of answered prayer applies to all of Jesus’ intimate followers, everyone who has devoted his/her life to Christ, past, present, and future. But only to these.

How Can One Be Sure His/Her Prayers Will Be Answered?

Only in Christ, can humans be right with God. And only when people are right with God can they expect their prayers to be answered. Why is this so? Without the guidance of God, humans don’t know how to pray.

“The Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26).

Humans can only adequately and correctly pray with the help of the indwelling Spirit. When people pray without the help of God, they invariably resort to making selfish, short-sighted requests. Such prayers will not be answered in the affirmative because the one making the request will likely be asking for something that is not right for him/her or for others. Only God knows what is best for everyone always. Only God in a human can lead him/her to pray for what is right.

The closer to God one gets, the more like God one thinks. The more like God one thinks, the more one’s desires match God’s. The more one’s desires match God’s, the more one’s prayers will reflect the heart of God. The more one’s prayers reflect the heart of God, the more one can be assured his/her prayers are heard and will be answered in the affirmative.

Jesus, being 100% human as well as 100% God, was absolutely confident that His Father would answer all of His prayers. He shared this assurance with His followers, as He was resurrecting Lazarus, as He prayed:

“‘Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that You sent Me’” (John 11:41b-42).

We are 100% human but, if we are truly saved, we have God, the Holy Spirit, living in us. As we become increasingly more sanctified, we become increasingly more like Him.

“And we all … beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

It may be hard to believe that we can be anything like God. But because God lives in us, if we indeed belong to Him, we can know that this is not only possible but it is expected. The Apostle Paul prayed and taught likewise:

“For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in Heaven and on Earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory, He may grant you to be strengthened with Power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have the strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:14-19, emphasis mine).

“Equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Ephesians 4:12-14, emphasis mine).

Because we have the ability to be filled with all the fullness of God, we can have the same assurance Jesus had concerning answered prayers. If Jesus had the power to command a fig tree to dry up and it did, we, with Christ in us, have access to that same power. If Jesus promised we can ask God to move mountains for us, we, in Christ, can expect that our request will be accomplished. Our faith rests in God.

“[God] is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the Power at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20).

Our confidence must be based on belief in God’s ability and trust in His promises. Our faith cannot be in our power and our focus cannot be on our desires. Jesus did not give His followers permission to go around cursing vegetation and transforming the landscape for their amusement or for their glory. God does not give us blank checks to satiate our lusts. Answered prayer is God’s loving response to His people for their good and His glory alone. (If you are truly His child, you already know that. If you are right with God, that is all you really want anyway).

So, Why Did Jesus Curse the Fig Tree?

If answered prayer is ultimately for God’s glory and for the benefit of His people, why would the Father smite a fig tree at Jesus’ request? On the surface, this prayer seems shallow and self-centered and appears to be uttered primarily under the influence of a bad attitude. Yet, much more was going on in this instance.

Jesus did not curse the fig tree because He lost His temper. Like when He cleansed the Temple³, Jesus had a greater purpose in mind. The cursing of the fig tree was not only an illustration of the power of prayer, but what happened to this tree was a picture of the fact that Jesus would not continue to put up with that which looked good on the outside but was worthless on the inside. Although it was too early in the year for full-fledged figs to be available on that tree (see Mark 11:13), in that climate, there should have been something available on it to eat.

“Fruits generally ripen from August – October depending on cultivar and climate. Some trees produce what is called a breba which are fig fruits that develop during the spring on the previous year’s shoot growth, followed by the main fig crop that develops on the new shoot growth and ripens in late summer or fall. In cold climates, the breba crop is often destroyed by spring frosts.”⁴

Israel isn’t in a harsh, cold climate. There should have been breba on that fig tree. The Jews were God’s chosen people. They had God’s blessing and His Law. The LORD had poured out His great love upon them. The Messiah came through them. Spiritually, the Jews had the perfect climate for producing a spiritual breba crop. They should have been producing some kind of spiritual fruit for the glory of the LORD. They should have been providing something for those from the lost world who were searching for more. They should have been ready to believe when Jesus came to them. But the majority of those who claimed to be right with God didn’t recognize Jesus as the Messiah. And even when those Jews who were less likely to properly identify Jesus repented and believed in Him, the self-righteousness of the Jewish religious leaders prevented them from doing the same.

In Christ, we have everything we need to do and to be all God expects of us.

“His Divine Power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them [we] may become partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire” (2 Peter 1:3-4).

Spiritually speaking, we as Christians have the perfect climate for producing a spiritual breba crop. Regardless of the season, we should be producing some kind of spiritual fruit for the glory of the LORD, and we should be providing something of spiritual nourishment for those from the lost world who are searching for more. Through the illustration of the cursed fig tree, Jesus drew the attention of His disciples to the power of prayer. Jesus’ authoritative promise concerning prayer should be His followers’ number-one go-to for producing abundant, all-season fruit.

Why Did Jesus Give This Promise at This Time?

There is a reason Jesus chose at this exact time to make a pledge to answer the prayers of His most intimate followers. It was then that they would most need such assurance. After Jesus’ ascension back into Heaven, “there arose … a great persecution against the Church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles” (Acts 8:1). Of that time, Jesus told His closest disciples, the ones who remained in Jerusalem, what would happen to them in the city.

“‘[Your enemies] will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved’” (Matthew 24:9-13).

Jesus encouraged those most devoted to Him with:

“‘When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved’” (Matthew 10:19-22).

Though answered prayer isn’t primarily for our personal convenience and happiness but for our holiness and the advancement of God’s Kingdom, God often answers prayers for personal comfort. He does so to prove His abundant care for His children and His desire and unhindered ability to act on behalf of those who love Him. As His people practice the habit of continually praying over everyday needs, God reveals Himself to His children so that they will instinctively turn to Him when they need His intervention in more universal, urgent matters. God answers the prayers of His saints ultimately so that they may be victorious over whatever attempts to stand in the way of their accomplishing His purposes for their lives and the world around them.

For the disciples to thrive in the difficulties with which they would soon be placed because of their association with Christ, they needed to know God had promised His listening ear and had guaranteed powerful answers to their believing prayers. When our lives are particularly difficult, don’t we need the same assurance? And when our tribulations are resulting from our connection with Christ, how much more comforting it is to rely on the promise of God that:

“‘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. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours’” (Mark 11:23-24).

Why Did Jesus Bring Up Mountain Moving?

“When the disciples … marveled, saying, ‘How did the fig tree wither at once?’” (Matthew 21:20), “Jesus answered them, ‘Have faith in God. 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 11:22-24).

Jesus pointed to a nearby mountain to emphasize to His disciples that faith is a necessary condition for receiving that for which we ask in prayer. The faith that sees answers to prayer is not in faith in faith itself but faith in God. It is God who has the power over all creation and everything and everyone in it. Jesus, being Creator and Lord over the fruitless fig tree, could, by His word and for His purposes, snuff out the very life He had placed in it initially. And God, who effortlessly determined the original placement of any mountain, physical or metaphorical, can just as easily move it to another location.

“Jerusalem is located roughly in the middle of a range of low mountains running north to south throughout central Israel between the Mediterranean and the Jordan Valley, stretching from the Jezreel Valley in the north all the way to Beer Sheva in the south. Topographically, Jerusalem is not built ON a mountain. Rather, it is built IN the mountains, and the city is, in fact, surrounded by seven mountain peaks higher than itself.”⁵

“Eight miles to the south of Jerusalem, outside of Bethlehem was the Herodian. The Herodian was a fortress built by King Herod. To build this fortress, Herod literally moved a mountain. Through slave labor, he took two small hills and converted them into one great mountain. It is possible that when Jesus talked about moving the mountains that his original hearers had the Herodian in mind. It might have seemed impossible but they had seen with their own eyes that it was not impossible to move mountains. It was a monumental task but not impossible. It involved many years of harsh labor, and it was not accomplished in a day, in a month, or even in a year.”⁶

King Herod moved a mountain for his own honor on the backs of laborers for whom he had little concern. It took years to complete but Herod, as evil and egotistical as he was, had a vision and believed it could be done. Because of that belief, a mountain was eventually moved from one place to another.

Jesus invited His followers to ask Him to move mountains for them. This kind of mountain moving brings honor to the King of Kings but Jesus does not command His servants to struggle to perform such feats in their own strength. Jesus’ followers don’t need to exert themselves physically to move mountains, they need only have faith to ask the One who spoke physical mountains into existence to move what stands in the way of them doing His will. In believing God cares and God can, Christ’s disciples can frequently participate in something just as amazing as literally moving mountains. The only necessary ingredient for such miracles is faith.

“‘Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in Heaven give good things to those who ask Him’” (Matthew 7:7-11)!

When we pray, we are communicating our desires to a Loving Father and an All-Powerful God. He is able and wants to do what we ask. So, what hinders God’s Spirit from accomplishing unbelievable acts and answering unimaginable prayers? Our doubt. When our fleshly spirit distrusts the competence and longing of God, our spirit is at war with His Spirit. Instead of immediately working toward answering our prayers, the Holy Spirit must either strive to convince us of God’s trustworthiness, or He will have to wait until we believe He can and will come to our aid before He acts on our behalf.

Again and again in the Scriptures, in the words of different people and with the pen of various authors, God draws our attention to the necessity of faith in connection with the kinds of prayers He answers.

“[A person must] ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways” (James 1:6-8).

“Without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6).

“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him” (1 John 5:13-15).

“‘Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in Me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it’” (John 14:12-13).

How Can We Acquire Mountain-Moving Faith?

Earlier in Jesus’ earthly ministry:

“The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’ And the Lord said, ‘If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you’” (Luke 17:5-6).

Faith isn’t some nebulous notion. Faith is absolute confidence in fact. It is being fully convinced that God is who He says He is and will do what He says He will do. What you do in response to God’s promises reveals what you believe. What your faith says God is, He will be because He is so much more than we can fathom.

Belief doesn’t just appear out of thin air. Belief must be developed. Faith is increased not by an injection of believing power but by experiences that test and solidify one’s faith. Often, it is when the Holy Spirit convinces someone to pray according to God’s will for a particular thing, and when it happens, his/her faith increases.

More often, it is when one’s prayers are not immediately answered or not answered as one expects that God is attempting to grow his/her faith. Sadly, that which God intends to increase a person’s faith can be used by the enemy to erode that one’s faith if he/she does not have a proper understanding of what God is doing when his/her prayers are seemingly going unanswered.

Young faith expects God to answer in a particular way. Developed faith realizes God will answer in the best way. Immature faith often genuinely believes any kind of wait or suffering to be undesirable and thinks death should be avoided at all costs. Mature faith understands that suffering can be beneficial and realizes death to be actual gain and victory. Untested faith ignorantly prays to avoid hardship. Whereas, proven faith prays for God to supply His grace and His presence in difficulty.⁷

Annie Johnson Flint (1866-1932) suffered a great deal during her lifetime. As a child, she lost both of her parents. Then, as a young adult, she developed a severe form of arthritis. Because of her physical limitations, she wasn’t able to accomplish many of her hopes and dreams for her life. But in her infirmity, she drew close to God and her tested faith was matured. It was because of her physical weakness that she reached her fullest potential and was able to greatly increase the faith of others. This is one of her poems that illustrates how God’s unexpected answers to her prayers were better than her highest wishes.

“I prayed for strength, and then I lost awhile

All sense of nearness, human and divine;

The love I leaned on failed and pierced my heart,

The hands I clung to loosed themselves from mine;

But while I swayed, weak, trembling, and alone,

The everlasting arms upheld my own.

I prayed for light; the sun went down in clouds,

The moon was darkened by a misty doubt,

The stars of heaven were dimmed by earthly fears,

And all my little candle flames burned out;

But while I sat in shadow, wrapped in night,

The face of Christ made all the darkness bright.

I prayed for peace, and dreamed of restful ease,

A slumber drugged from pain, a hushed repose;

Above my head the skies were black with storm,

And fiercer grew the onslaught of my foes;

But while the battle raged, and wild winds blew,

I heard His voice and Perfect peace I knew.

I thank Thee, Lord, Thou wert too wise to heed

My feeble prayers, and answer as I sought,

Since these rich gifts Thy bounty has bestowed

Have brought me more than all I asked or thought;

Giver of good, so answer each request

With Thine own giving, better than my best.”⁸

What if it Seems Like God is Saying, “No!”?

God promises to always say “Yes” to the requests of His children. Therefore, when it appears God is saying “No,” what He is actually saying is “Yes” to something much superior. Think about it, every time we say “No” are we not saying “Yes” to something better?

If you are confident that you are right with God, and if you are absolutely certain there is no unbelief mixed into your prayers, yet your pleas don’t seem to be being answered, it is because God is lovingly fashioning something far exceeding the best you have imagined.

I have discovered that God quickly answers my simple prayers for things like finding my lost car keys because that is the best “Yes” He can give me in those situations. But He doesn’t always immediately respond to some of my more desperate requests, like the healing of my loved one from cancer, because He is in the process of preparing a greater “YES” where those items are concerned. At this point, I have no idea what God has planned in such cases but, as He is bringing my faith to maturity, I believe it will be better than my best idea.

In whatever you are currently experiencing, I encourage you to stand firmly on God’s character and hold fast to His promises. If you are assured that any promise, no matter how implausible by human standards, is from God, that assurance will carry you through any amount of waiting and through any depth of difficulty. When at last you see His answer and you break forth in rejoicing, you will discover your formally young faith has been more deeply developed. That will make the wait worth it.

 

 “‘You have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. In that day you will ask nothing of Me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He will give it to you. Until now, you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full’” (John 16:22-24).

 

 

 

¹ Scripture quotations marked with ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All Scriptures are taken from the ESV unless otherwise noted. To aid in understanding, I have capitalized references to God.

² See Matthew 7:7 & 21:22; John 11:22, 14:13-14, 15:16, & 16:23-24; and James 1:5

³ For my commentary on this event, check out: https://blueturtletrails.com/holy-house-cleaning/

⁴ https://www.permaculturenews.org/2016/09/30/dig-fig-essential-guide-need-know-figs-ficus-carica/

 ⁵ https://sareltours.com/article/mountains-surrounding-jerusalem

⁶ https://philressler.com/how-to-move-a-mountain/

⁷ (Paraphrased) Eric Ludy, The Two-Sided Ticket, Ellerslie Discipleship Training: https://ellerslie.com/be-discipled/

⁸ https://www.crosswalk.com/devotionals/desert/streams-in-the-desert-may-13th.html