Daily Encouragement for the Family of God by Kenton Cheek
9 March 2025
Reading From Mark 11:19-33
“Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”
—Mark 11:22-26
I am encouraged by my Lord to have faith in Him. My prayer is that my faith would increase and grow stronger as I trust in Him, taking Him at His Word. This means that I choose to trust that what He has told me in the Bible is true and I trust Him enough to partner with the Holy Spirit in building my life upon His principles. Jesus warns against doubt. In this passage He reveals that doubt will spoil any attempt we make to function in faith. We must believe that what we say will happen and it will be ours.
This Scripture does not stand alone; I must seek the whole counsel of the Word of God.[1] Psalm 37:4-6 instructs me to, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.” This means that if I am delighting myself in the will of the Lord, then whatever I pray according to His will it shall be done. Commitment to Him is also a key element of healthy relationship.
This concept is echoed in John 15:7 and I John 5:14 where the Apostle John shares with us, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” And in his epistle, “This is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.” Positive answers to prayer are conditional upon our healthy relationship with God and asking according to His will. How do we know what the will of the Lord is? There are no shortcuts; we cannot microwave a solid, healthy, life-giving relationship with God.
We discover the will of the Lord by turning away from sin and reading, studying, meditating and putting into action His Word the Bible. The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 12, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Unfortunately the opposite of this guidance is also true. If we conform to the pattern of this world and are not transformed by the renewing of our minds, we will not be able to know His will. I must be born again to have the Holy Spirit living within me, revealing and guiding me into all truth as I grow spiritually by getting to know God. I come to know Him through His Word. Jesus prayed to the Father in John 17:17, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your Word is truth.” Then I will be able to pray the will of God and have His will manifested in my life.
Another principle I find in this passage of Mark is that I must forgive others in order to receive forgiveness from the Lord for my own sins. Thus, extending grace and mercy to others has a direct connection with my own righteousness which I receive from Jesus Christ. I see one result of righteousness in James 5:16, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” The NIV says, “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” Confession and forgiveness allow me to be cleansed by the blood of Jesus. By grace through faith in God the Son, I have right standing with God the Father. I grow in my relationship with Him through experiencing the revelation and guidance of God the Holy Spirit and my prayers are heard and answered.
“Lord Jesus, I confess that I am a sinner in need of Your grace and mercy. Thank You for forgiving me of my sins. Enable me by the power of Your love and Your Holy Spirit to forgive others and walk in holiness. Show me the way forward in faith. Reveal Your will to me in the pages of Your Scriptures. Illuminate Your truth by the light of Your Spirit. Let me know Your will. Thank You Father. In the Name of Jesus Christ I pray these things. Amen.”
What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for,
“Who has known the mind of the Lord
so as to instruct him?”
But we have the mind of Christ.
—II Corinthians 2:12-16
[1] Acts 20:27
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