Moving the Mountain

In each of our lives, there's at least one person, right now, that we're really troubled about. Things aren't going well for them, and we're worried, and so we pray. But even while we're praying for this person, how many times, when we're in this situation, praying for this person, somehow, we find it impossible to accept that anything's going to happen.

It's almost as if all we're doing is paying our respects to them before God. We really wish the mountain would move, but we know it won't. And if we're having such a hard time praying for people that we're really worried about, our hearts are really in those prayers.

What's the use of the prayers we pray for people because we feel we ought to, or because we promise that we would? Moreover, we know that the foundation of all ministry to other people has to be prayer for them. We know that the basic way into really having fellowship under the yoke with Jesus, whoever lives to make intercession, is praying for people. Yet, for some reason or other, we just can't seem to get into it.

Mark 11. Jesus answered 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 will come to pass, it will be done for him.

Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you receive it, and you will. There are two mountains, especially, that we have to move. The first is the mountain of our own inadequacy.

And the second is the mountain of that problem in somebody else's life, which as far as we can see, is hindering God's purpose in them, blocking the flow of life through them into the body or out into the needy world. Now, of course, we have no business messing around with a problem, that mountain, of a problem of somebody else, if we're not seriously somehow engaged in dealing with the mountain of our own inadequacy. Daily, we need to be crying out to God for help.

Give us bread, Lord. You got to give me something to give these people who are coming to me. A friend of mine is coming on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him.

If you don't give me your Holy Spirit, more of your spirit, a fresh outpouring of your spirit, I'm going to be utterly incapable of giving anything good to them. Certainly, we have to be living all the time in Luke 11, all the time. Ask, and it will be given 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. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more? Will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? But, there's got to be something wrong with our conception of the kingdom of God if the only mountain we're ever trying to move is the mountain of our own inadequacy. God, give me more bread.

God, help me. Pour out your spirit upon me. Give me power.

Surely, we have to reach a point where this crying out to God, this continuous crying out for more of his spirit should become our second nature, like breathing, like eating, so that we now also can be genuinely concerned for the need of our brother and the need of our sister. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, Lord God, in their life too. Luke 22.

Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, plural, all of you guys, that he might sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you, singular, you, Simon, that your faith may not fail and when you are turned again, strengthen your brethren. And he said to him, Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.

He said, I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow this day until you three times deny that you know me. Peter's weakness was a mountain our Lord had to move. He saw Peter heading for a stumble.

Warnings weren't doing any good. Peter wasn't listening. The one effective thing that Jesus could do for Peter was to pray.

And notice carefully, that's what Jesus does. He does not gossip about Peter. He doesn't complain all the time about Peter.

In fact, he does the opposite. He charges Peter, this weak disciple at one of the weakest moments in his life, with responsibility for the other disciples who at that point aren't as weak as he is. Simon, Simon, Satan has demanded to have you, all of you, that he might sift you like wheat.

But I prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail and when you are converted, strengthen your brethren. I prayed for you, Simon. Jesus prayed for Peter with faith.

Also with hope. Also with love. See, it wasn't some kind of prayer formula that he memorized or picked up someplace, learned in a book or went to a seminar to pick up and mumbles the magic words in front of the Father and then the prayer rolls out the other end of the machine.

But this was living prayer, growing out of the situation where he right then was. He takes Peter in all his inadequacy, all his bluster, all his pride, all his vanity, all his cowardice, puts him up before the Father and begins to surround him with three things. First of all, he surrounds Peter with faith.

He believes his Father for Peter. He takes the mountain of Peter's unstable nature, picks it up and casts it into the sea. Now, if we are praying for somebody, what good is this going to do if we're unwilling to believe that the mountain is going to move? God give us faith as we pray for people.

Lord, I confess to you that I've been gossiping about this person much too much. I've been always making those snide remarks. I've been critical.

I've been hard. I've been judging. All those things I've been doing, Lord God, and now I repent of this attitude.

And I focus my attention on that thing which I think I see in their life, telling nobody but you. And by faith I command that to be rooted out and cast into the midst of the sea. Father, before your throne, I believe for their healing and for their freedom in this matter.

As Jesus is praying for Peter, he's also surrounding him with hope. He's looking beyond, into the future, to that place where Peter is no longer going to be stuck in the valley of his own vanity, but standing on the solid rock where the mountain has been now moved. I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith may not fail.

And when you're turned again, not if, but when, you're going to be turned again. And when you are, strengthen your brothers. God, deliver us from our hopelessness as we pray for other people, which is so often this.

So often we pray for people, but even while we're praying for them, we see them hemmed in by their problem. Locked underneath that mountain. What a difference it makes when we begin to pray for them in hope and look beyond where they are now and see that thing actually taking place.

We begin to visualize before the throne of God, the healing, the deliverance, the conversion, the softening of the heart, the quieting of the turbulent spirit, the change that has to take place. We picture them standing free before God. What a difference that makes.

As Peter is being prayed for by our Lord. He's being surrounded also with love. Love, which is going to go all the way to the cross for Peter, as if only for Peter.

It's not an empty prayer, prayed without some kind of commitment to this man. But Jesus is praying for Peter with a love that's going to go to that cross and suffer for Peter's sins. Going to take Peter's sin down into the grave.

And then it's going to be lifted up out of that grave, bringing Peter free from his sins into a new life. A love that holds on to Peter and won't let go of him. Now, if we're praying for people and truly surrounding them with the love of God, somehow this must mean that we're grabbing hold in some way of their burden.

In a mystery which links us with our Lord, we see that pain or that sin or that loneliness or that hardness of heart or whatever it is, and in the name of Jesus and before the Father's throne, we get under that thing and we start to live. Many times this involves some kind of action. For instance, if I'm praying for somebody who's got a financial problem and I got a little bit of money left, how can I pray for the solution of their financial problem if I don't share what I have? Or if I'm praying for somebody who's sick or in prison, you know, how can I do that unless I at least write them a letter once in a while or go and see them if it's possible? Or if I'm praying for somebody who has a terrible temper, then I better resign myself to getting a taste of the other end of that temper many, many times.

And if while I'm praying for this person, I'm concerned about my child or I'm praying for my mate or I'm troubled about my best friend or I'm really trying to pray for my enemy who's always giving me a hard time. And now as I'm praying for this person, it suddenly dawns on me that I'm holding a grudge against somebody else over here. Then before I go any farther, I got to stop and get rid of the grudge.

How can I expect my prayer to move that mountain if I don't first get rid of the grudge? Listen to this passage again, the very next verse that follows it. Jesus answered 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 will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you receive it and you will.

And whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone so that your Father also, who is in heaven, may forgive you your trespasses. Jesus moved Peter's mountain. I pray for you, Peter, that your faith may not fail and when you're turned again, strengthen your brethren.

Peter was turned again and he did strengthen his brethren. And we're going to move mountains. We're going to move mountains which up to now we've accepted as if nothing's ever going to happen.

People for whom we've been praying perhaps for years but praying really without faith, without hope, or without love. Pray at all times in the spirit and with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints and also for me that utterance may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak.

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving and pray also for us that God may open to us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ on account of which I am in prison that I may make it clear as I ought to speak. When we're praying for somebody, we're not just paying our respects to them before God. We're moving a mountain.

We're effecting change. We're sweeping obstacles out of the way of their path. We're breaking the chains of Satan that have them immobile.

We're brushing away the clouds that have blocked out the sunlight so that that light can now shine in. We're opening springs of living water before their feet so that they can drink. And Jesus answered 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 will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you receive it and you will. May the Lord get us beyond our mechanical, faithless, hopeless, loveless prayers and help us to pray for each other and for others the way Jesus prayed for Peter.

God help us really to start moving mountains. Let's wait on God. How often, oh God, the things we do only before you which no eye sees but your own are done in a way that we are indeed ashamed of.

We're asking that this particular area of each of our lives may receive from the hand of your Son, Heavenly Father, this day a touch of healing. We're just asking that you would deliver our prayer life out of its bondage and out of its dullness into your power and into your life. And oh Lord God, we pray that you'd help us not only to be moving mountain number one, our own inadequacy, help us to get over there to mountain number two and begin to use the privilege that you've given us, Lord God, and start setting our brothers and sisters free, breaking their chains, clearing their paths, surrounding them with comfort, helping them, Lord God.

Lord God, we pray that as you're stirring up prayer in the church across the earth, so you'll include us too. And you'll begin to teach us each year to pray as we've never ever prayed before. Beginning in our private prayer closets, our rooms, our basements, our backyards, our garages, wherever we go.

Help us to come alive.