Wednesday, August 23
Faith, prayer, forgiveness
Scripture: Mark 11
Mark 11:24–25 For this reason I tell you, whatever you pray and ask for, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 25 Whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven will also forgive you your sins.”
Observation
Jesus used the event of the withered fig tree to teach His disciples about faith, prayer and forgiveness.
Prayer is an act of faith. We ask God to act because we believe He can and will. Jesus taught us to pray that God’s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. When we pray accordingly, we can believe that God will do it. In fact, it is so certain that we believe it is as good as done and can speak of it in the past tense: we believe that we have received it. One commentator (E. Stauffer) wrote of prayer: “God’s omnipotence is its sole assurance, and God’s sovereignty its only restriction.”
Just as faith is essential to prayer, so is forgiveness. Whenever you pray, forgive. Forgive so you can be forgiven. Again from the the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to pray, “forgive us as we forgive others” and added commentary to that effect in the verses that follow (Matthew 6:14-15). As forgiven people, we must forgive or we risk our own forgiveness. And we must forgive if our prayers are to be effective.
Application
This encourages me to pray with faith in God. And if I can’t believe it, maybe I shouldn’t pray it—or at least should say, “I believe, help my unbelief.” I will pray today with more faith.
I’m struggling with forgiveness. I have a friend that I want to forgive and believe I have, but I’m struggling to know what that means practically. Does it mean that we resume relationship as though nothing happened even though he has not repented or changed? I certainly don’t want to hang on to anger, bitterness or animosity—and I don’t believe I am. I feel like my heart is clean. But I also don’t see any way to restore the relationship short of genuine repentance on his part. And that isn’t happening. He wants to have his cake and eat it too—stay in his sin but act like nothing happened and we all resume our friendships. So what does it mean for me to forgive him? That’s what I’m wrestling through—and Jesus says a good place to do that is in prayer.
Prayer: Lord, I love You. Help me be a better pray-er—to pray with more faith, and more forgiveness. And show me how to forgive my friend—and help him truly repent.
More: Jeremiah 45-46, 1 Peter 1