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The Necessities for Effective Prayer
(Mark 11:22–25)
And Jesus answered saying to 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 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.” (11:22–25)
In this brief passage our Lord reminded the disciples of the goodness God displays by granting access to heaven’s power through prayer. The lesson took place on Wednesday morning of Passion Week as the Lord and the disciples were walking from Bethany to Jerusalem. As noted in the previous chapter of this volume, on their way to Jerusalem from Bethany the previous day (Tuesday), Jesus had previewed the future destruction of the temple by cursing a barren fig tree (11:12–14).
The question arises as to why the Lord would insert a lesson on prayer at this point. There was, however, a critical need for that instruction. In just a few days Jesus, God in human flesh, would no longer be physically present with the disciples. And though Jesus repeatedly stressed the importance of prayer and taught them specifically the elements of prayer (Matt. 6:9–13), His presence with them had restrained the urgency of their prayer lives. There was little reason for them to pray to God for what they could ask for and receive directly from Jesus. He provided provision, direction, protection, correction, and the patient instruction they needed.
But the familiar experience of His presence was about to change dramatically for the disciples. They were going to go from having Christ present all the time to not having Him present at all. They would become like believers of succeeding generations, who depend solely on prayer to access God’s power and provision for their needs. Like them, the disciples would become totally dependent on one whom they could not see (cf. John 20:29; 1 Peter 1:8). That would be a monumental alteration of their lives, and they needed to know that their Lord Jesus would sustain them through the means of prayer (John 14:13–14; 15:16; 16:23–24, 26).
This important lesson reveals five components of effective prayer: its historical, theological, spiritual, practical, and moral components.
THE HISTORICAL COMPONENT OF PRAYER
On their way back to Bethany Tuesday evening in the darkness, the disciples had not noticed that the cursed fig tree had died. But “as they were passing by … the [next] morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up” (11:20). Noticing that Peter commented, “Rabbi, look, the fig tree which You cursed has withered” (v. 21). The transition from that comment to the Lord’s teaching on prayer seems somewhat abrupt. The connection, however, is that the cursing of the fig tree demonstrated the power of divine judgment. Peter, along with the rest of the disciples, was “amazed and asked, ‘How did the fig tree wither all at once?’” (Matt. 21:20). They wanted to know how that display of divine judgmental power occurred. The Lord’s reply was that the power came from God (see the discussion of v. 22 below), and they could access it through prayer.
The disciples’ reference to the miraculous withering of the fig tree illustrates the historical foundation of effective prayer. God, who can miraculously affect a tree, will powerfully provide for His people. Confidence in prayer starts with remembering how God has displayed His power in the past. There would be little motive to call on the Lord for help in the present or future if He had not demonstrated His power in the past. More than a dozen times in Deuteronomy, Moses charged Israel, poised to enter Canaan, to remember what God had done for them in the past (4:10; 5:15; 7:18; 8:2, 18; 9:7, 27; 15:15; 16:3, 12; 24:9, 18, 22). In Isaiah 46:8–10 God challenged Israel,
Remember this, and be assured; recall it to mind, you transgressors. Remember the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, “My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure.”
In Psalm 77:1–10 Asaph expressed his despair over God’s apparent forsaking of him. But in the second half of the psalm, he encouraged himself by recalling God’s past acts of power:
I shall remember the deeds of the Lord; surely I will remember Your wonders of old. I will meditate on all Your work and muse on Your deeds. Your way, O God, is holy; What god is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders; You have made known Your strength among the peoples. You have by Your power redeemed Your people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. The waters saw You, O God; the waters saw You, they were in anguish; the deeps also trembled. The clouds poured out water; the skies gave forth a sound; Your arrows flashed here and there. The sound of Your thunder was in the whirlwind; the lightnings lit up the world; the earth trembled and shook. Your way was in the sea and Your paths in the mighty waters, and Your footprints may not be known. You led Your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. (vv. 11–20)
In Psalm 105:5 the psalmist called on God’s people to “remember His wonders which He has done, His marvels and the judgments uttered by His mouth.” Overwhelmed with despair because of persecution by his enemy, David said, “I remember the days of old; I meditate on all Your doings; I muse on the work of Your hands” (Ps. 143:5). The Old Testament, New Testament, and the record of the history of the redeemed church provide a strong foundation of confidence that God hears and answers the prayers of His people (cf. Rom. 15:4).
THE THEOLOGICAL COMPONENT OF PRAYER
And Jesus answered saying to them, “Have faith in God. (11:22)
The Lord’s response to Peter’s comment, “Have faith in God,” is a call to trust in God and not doubt Him (Matt. 21:20). The theological component of prayer is not concerned with the nature of personal faith but the character of the living God. To have an effective prayer life requires trusting God’s power, purpose, promise, plans, and will. Prayer focuses on honoring God’s name, advancing His kingdom, and accomplishing His will (Matt. 6:9–10). In contrast, selfish prayer will not be answered. “You ask and do not receive,” James warned, “because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures” (James 4:3; cf. v. 15). In his first epistle the apostle John stressed that prayer must be consistent with God’s will: “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us” (1 John 5:14; cf. John 14:13–14).
In his letter to the Philippians, the apostle Paul provided an example of trusting God because of what He has done:
Now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole praetorian guard and to everyone else, and that most of the brethren, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear. (Phil. 1:12–14; cf. 1 Peter 4:19)
God’s faithfulness in allowing Paul’s powerful witness to the Word of God despite his circumstances encouraged other Christians in Rome to trust in God and boldly preach the gospel.
THE SPIRITUAL COMPONENT OF PRAYER
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. (11:23)
Trusting God is not merely an abstract, theoretical exercise in systematic theology; it is personal and practical. The Lord’s promise in this verse is startlingly broad and generous. It is introduced by the word truly (amēn), which, as it is here, is used more than one hundred times in the New Testament for emphasis. The term whoever applies the principle related here to all believers.
The particular mountain to which Jesus referred is not identified. It may have been the Mount of Olives (from which the Dead Sea is visible) or the temple mount (Mt. Moriah). Most likely, however, the reference was to a hypothetical, not literal mountain. Jesus was not referring to physically casting an actual mountain into the sea as if that would occur commonly. No one has ever seen such happen by prayer. His statement, “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,” was hyperbole, an analogy or figure of speech intended to teach a spiritual principle. In extrabiblical Jewish literature, rabbis who demonstrated unusual ability to solve very difficult problems were sometimes referred to as removers or rooters up of mountains.
The Lord’s point is that when confronted by an overwhelming issue without an apparent human solution, if a believer does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, his prayer request will be granted him. The doubt to which Jesus referred is not, as many false teachers assert, doubting one’s faith. Faith in itself has no power; it merely accesses God’s power. The caution here is against doubting God’s nature and power. James writes that those who pray “must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways” (James 1:6–8).
The faith required to activate God’s power need not be great faith. Peter’s faith was strong enough to enable him to climb out of a boat in the midst of a raging storm on the Sea of Galilee (Matt. 14:29). Yet his faith failed before he reached Jesus (v. 30), causing the Lord to label it “little faith” (v. 31). The father of a demon-possessed boy expressed doubt as to whether Jesus could deliver his son (Mark 9:22). After Jesus said to him, “All things are possible to him who believes,” thus rebuking his weak faith (v. 23), “immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, ‘I do believe; help my unbelief’” (v. 24). That weak, imperfect faith was enough; Jesus cast the demon out of the boy (vv. 25–27). The Lord also rebuked the disciples for having little faith in God’s provision (Matt. 6:30; 16:8–10; Luke 12:28), protection (Matt. 8:26), and power (Matt. 17:20), as well as in their own ability to humbly forgive others (Luke 17:5–6).
No one’s faith is perfect, unmixed with doubt. But even weak but confidently prayerful faith in the person and power of God is enough to draw down heaven’s power.
THE PRACTICAL COMPONENT OF PRAYER
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. (11:24)
The practical component of prayer is obvious, yet necessary. In order to receive all the things that God promises through prayer, one must first ask for them. James put it simply: “You do not have because you do not ask” (James 4:2). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said,
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 he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him! (Matt. 7:7–11)
But Jesus’ promise, “All things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you,” is not a carte blanche guarantee to grant all greedy, selfish requests. It is true that “no good thing does [God] withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Ps. 84:11). But those and similar promises are qualified; all prayer requests must be consistent with God’s will. After chiding believers for not asking God for what they need, James cautioned, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures” (4:3). Jesus cried out to the Father in Gethsemane, “Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me;” but then added, “Yet not what I will, but what You will” (Mark 14:36).
Jesus repeatedly stressed that truth to the apostles in the upper room:
Whatever you ask in My name [i.e., consistent with His person and purpose], that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it. (John 14:13–14)
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)
You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. (John 15:16)
Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you. Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full.… In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I will request of the Father on your behalf. (John 16:23–24, 26)
Believers are called to pour out their hearts before God in persistent, passionate prayer (Ps. 62:8), but their prayers must always be qualified by the desire that His will, not theirs, be done. Such prayers acknowledge that His will is greater, purer, wiser, more generous, more gracious, and more merciful than anything they could ever imagine.
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.” (11:25)
This truth repeats Christ’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 6:14; Mark 11:26 does not appear here in the earliest and most reliable Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, so was borrowed from Matt. 6:15 and inserted later by an unknown scribe). Standing was a common posture for prayer (cf. Matt. 6:5; Luke 18:11, 13), along with kneeling (2 Chron. 6:13; Ps. 95:6; Luke 22:41; Acts 20:36), lying prostrate (Num. 16:22; Josh. 5:14; 1 Chron. 21:16–17; Matt. 26:39), and spreading or lifting up hands (Isa. 1:15; Ps. 28:2; Lam. 2:19; 1 Tim. 2:8).
The Lord’s command, “Forgive, if you have anything against anyone,” expresses the moral component of prayer. Forgiveness of others is required of believers so that their Father who is in heaven will also forgive their transgressions. The forgiveness in view here is not the eternal forgiveness that accompanies salvation, which is not based on works (Acts 10:43; Eph. 1:7; cf. Rom. 3:23–24, 28; 5:1; Gal. 2:16; 3:11, 24; Titus 3:7) and cannot be lost. As was the case in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 6:14–15), Christ referred here to relational forgiveness—the sins that are part of believers’ daily lives and disrupt their enjoyment of fellowship with the Lord. Jesus’ washing of the apostles’ feet in the upper room illustrates the difference:
So He came to Simon Peter. He said to Him, “Lord, do You wash my feet?” Jesus answered and said to him, “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter.” Peter said to Him, “Never shall You wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, then wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.” Jesus said to him, “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.” (John 13:6–10)
Appalled at the thought of the Lord Jesus, God in human flesh, performing the task of the lowest of slaves by washing his feet, Peter protested. But when Jesus told him it was necessary if he were to have any part with Him, Peter, in his typically impetuous fashion, leaped to the other extreme. He asked the Lord to wash his entire body, not merely his feet. But Jesus replied that those who had been bathed, that is, washed clean of sin through eternal salvation (cf. 1 Cor. 6:11; Eph. 5:26; Titus 3:5), need only to have their feet washed. The complete cleansing of the redeemed at salvation does not ever need to be repeated. But they still need the daily cleansing of sanctification from the defilement of the indwelling sin that remains in them and attracts iniquities.
To attempt to pray while harboring an unforgiving attitude against another person is self-defeating. Since the Bible commands believers, “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you” (Eph. 4:32); to fail to do so is a sin. And since the psalmist wrote, “If I regard (i.e., look upon with favor and refuse to confess and forsake) wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear” (Ps. 66:18), such a person’s prayers will not be heard. The choice believers face is clear: hold a grudge or have their prayers heard. To put it another way, one cannot accept the full, gracious forgiveness of God and then be unforgiving of someone else (cf. Matt. 18:23–35).
The disciples got the message on the importance of prayer. After Jesus ascended to heaven forty days after His resurrection
They returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. When they had entered the city, they went up to the upper room where they were staying; that is, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers. (Acts 1:12–14)
Those prayers would be answered on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles. Thus empowered, the apostles proclaimed the gospel, thousands were saved, and the church was born. If the church is to see God’s power unleashed in the lives of its members and in its corporate ministry, it too must “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17).