"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 is going to happen, it will be granted him. Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you. Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions." Mark 11:23-25.
If faith can move mountains, the landscape should appear differently. Flat plains should be readily evident where mountains once stood. But perhaps Jesus referred to figurative rather than literal mountains; mountains which represent obstacles. Doubt is certainly an obstacle, but Jesus also mentioned the challenge of forgiveness. Both are seemingly immovable mountains that we each face.
Our doubts are echoed in the words of the father of a demon-possessed boy: “I do believe; help my unbelief” Mark 9:24. These doubts also apply to forgiveness: how can we forgive when we have been so greatly wronged? Surely these are looming, immovable mountains.
Doubt and unforgiveness are mountains at the very heart of our being. How can God through Christ forgive someone like me? Surely my past and even present behavior are mountains too great to move. Doubt says that I am too bad to be forgiven, and to be given the hope of the life of the age to come.
The promise that, “all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you,” applies to personal forgiveness before it can apply to what we ask for others. Until we come to terms with God’s absolute forgiveness and acceptance of us, we will be ineffective in what we pray for others.
Jesus says, “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions” Mark 11:25. Our ability to forgive others is inseparably bound to our own forgiveness. The measure we give is the measure we get. Ironically, accepting personal forgiveness from our Father is prerequisite to being a forgiving person.
May forgiveness on all levels where it is needed be mountains moved today in faith.
©Steve Taylor, 2023 --Used by permission
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