Asking, Believing and Receiving

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MARK

ASKING, BELIEVING AND RECEIVING

Mark 11:19-25

19 When evening came, they went out of the city. 20 In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. 21 Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!" 22 "Have faith in God," Jesus answered. 23 "I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 25 And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins." 

NIV

These words of Jesus have been used for years by those who would name it and claim it, at least verses twenty two through twenty four, leaving of course verse twenty five out. Yet this is a great truth about having faith in God. It also is very true that we have the right as followers of Christ to ask for anything in Jesus’s name, the rub is the part about believing that we have received it. It would seem that doubt is a much stronger thought than belief. This may be due to our conditioning of not getting what we desire most of our lives. We always want more then we have, but somehow most of us never achieve it and we learn to live in want. When we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and become a Christian we might well bring that same conditioning into our spiritual experience. Of Course we also may have some negative thoughts about those “crazy people” who go around naming and claiming things. Sometimes they do present the weird side of Christianity. But how are we going to deal with these words of Jesus? He did say them, and it is in regard to what he had said to that tree and what happened to it, based on what he said. He did not do anything else but speak to it, and surely he did not doubt what would happen. True, he is Jesus and we are not, but he told us in essence that we could do the same thing. In Fact, we could do more, like moving a mountain and having it thrown into the sea. Let’s see one of those name it and claim people do that. Now, it could be an analogy about mountains in our life, but that would be a stretch. In the context of the narrative, Jesus is talking about having authority over the physical aspects of life. But the key to being able to having faith in God and believing that what we ask for we will receive, and not having any doubts about it, has to include the part about not holding anything against anyone. It also should include the part that James wrote about us not having because we ask with the wrong motives. Now Jesus did not mention that here, but that is still  a part of the whole word we should not take anything out of the context and make a whole doctrine out of one or two verses. But still this is what Jesus said and we should be able to simply accept the fact that we should be about to ask, believe and receive as long as we forgive, not holding anything, which includes a whole lot, against anyone, which includes everyone, which is a whole lot of people. So in actuality we need to examine what includes holding something against someone, thus not forgiving them. That might take a book, instead of a devotion to examine or explore. But the truth remains; it is the key to asking, believing and receiving.