Mountains do not move because you asked them to move. According to Jesus in Mark 11:23-24, mountains move because of five things:
- A desire to see the mountain move.
- Speak specifically about what you want.
- Do not doubt in your heart.
- Have faith in God concerning what you said.
- Forgive others
Let’s talk about each briefly.
1. A desire to see the mountain move
Desire is always the starting point of accomplishment. It is desire that makes you take the necessary steps towards asking the mountains to move. Desire can be likened to vision – picturing the end even when the picture of the stairs looks blurry. So, there must be a desire to see whatever mountain before you removed. And such desire must be strong enough to move you to take the needed actions.
If you are comfortable with where you are or just feel like moving, you will be reluctant towards taking the necessary steps to leave your location. Discomfort with the status quo is a great motivation to change. When you are sufficiently uncomfortable with the mountain before you, you will get up and refuse that the mountain should continue to exist.
2. Be Specific in your request
A quick study of the prayers of Jesus shows that he was always specific in what he wanted. In that response to Peter in Mark 11:23, Jesus mentioned phrases like “this mountain,” showing an identification of the specific problem. Jesus also said, “Be removed and be cast into the sea,” showing what he wanted to be done to the problem. So, in the place of prayers, identify what your problem is and be specific in what you want concerning that problem.
We also see this specificity in the prayer pattern Jesus taught in Matthew 6. He talked about asking for daily bread, forgiveness of debts and deliverance from being overcome by evil.
So, God wants you to tell Him what you want and even how you want it. Irrespective of how large and heavy the trouble is and how difficult it is to move it, tell it clearly to God.
3. Do not doubt in your heart
It is possible to make lofty confessions with the mouth but remain doubtful in the heart. God hears the words from your mouth and the thoughts of your heart. In fact, what you say in your heart eventually becomes what you get in your hands. If you will move your mountain, you must set aside doubt from your heart.
Another word for doubt is fear. The fear that the mountain is too big and immovable, that the sea may not be deep enough to contain the mountain, that God has never moved a mountain before, that prayers do not work etc. often fills the heart and these stop the believer from receiving. If you must receive, you should not doubt.
Feeding your heart with the numerous examples of God’s mighty acts in the Bible and asking for the help of Christ and the Holy Spirit are ways to expel doubt from your heart.
4. Have faith
4. Jesus told us that if we have faith as tiny as a mustard seed, we shall tell a mountain to move, and it will be so. The confession of the mouth is important because it is an expression of faith. If there is no faith in the heart, the words can be loud and earthquaking in nature, but the mountain will keep staring at you after you have spoken. Therefore, care should be taken in building faith. For when faith is built, confession comes naturally.
Simply put, you can make confessions without faith, but when you have faith it is difficult to keep mute.
Faith can be built through constant meditation on God’s Word, careful consideration of the miracles of God in our times and tapping into the Spirit of faith.
5. Forgive others
Desires, prayers and supplications that arise from a clean heart always get assurance from God that they were heard. Forgiveness is an essential prerequisite for moving mountains.
Imagine having a 500kg bag full of rocks on your back and being asked to push a mountain. That would be almost impossible to do. This is what unforgiveness does to us – loads us with unnecessary weight that makes it impossible to move forward and accomplish God’s will for our lives.
Forgive others so God can forgive you. Then you can ask him to help you move your mountains.
Now, I have applied this principle in the spiritual, but this can well be applied in any given area of endeavour. Mountains move when there is a strong desire, specificity in speech, absence of doubt, a faith-filled heart and forgiveness for others’ wrongs.
