Mark 11:20-25 Move, Mountain, Move!
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: March 21, 2018, Mark 11:20-25
Note 1: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
Note 2: I explore a lot of ideas in this devotion that you may disagree with. Frankly, as I reread this devotion, I disagree with some of the ideas that I explored and think that some of my thoughts were silly. However, I am leaving them in my example to show you that your devotion time is an opportunity to speak with God about the ideas that reading the Bible has sparked. These devotions are between you and God. I am only showing you my private interaction with God so that you can see that a devotion is both Bible study and speaking with God all mixed together. God is fine with you exploring ideas with Him as long as you are humble enough to listen when He tells you that you are off track and chasing irrelevant ideas down a rabbit hole.
As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown 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 have received it, and it will be yours. 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.”
(Understanding the Text) When they pass the fig tree in the morning on their way back to Jerusalem on Tuesday, they see that it is totally dead. Why had they not noticed it the night before? I think that it was either dead or dying at that time. They probably had not noticed it because it was dark when they passed it. Thus, I think that the tree was probably nearer to Bethany than to Jerusalem. Also, the night before, they were probably tired and excited by the events of the day. They had been disappointed the night before when Jesus did nothing after His triumphal entry, but He had renewed their hopes by His cleansing and occupation of the temple that day. He had restored their faith that He knew what He was doing, except for Judas who looked at Jesus’ activities and thought that Jesus was not taking advantage of His opportunities.
Judas thought he knew better than his Master about how his Master should act. Judas saw lost opportunities. What Judas did not see was the lesson of the fig tree. Was this fig tree a lesson for Judas as to the power that Jesus had and that Judas needed to follow his Master rather than plot to use his Master? Pastor Gary Venden says that the fig tree represents the Jews, and I agree, but I wonder if it was also a more personal way to try to reach Judas. Jesus had tried love and wisdom and signs to no avail with Judas, so maybe He was trying to give him a warning about the results of putting on an outward show without true obedience. Maybe, He was trying to teach Judas to respect his Master even if he did not love Him. This makes more sense to me than the tree only being a parable of the Jewish nation’s rejection by God. I think it was partly for Jesus’ own disciple to turn away from the path that he was traveling.
(Note 3: This is an example of how further Bible study can change your mind. After reading more texts in the Old Testament and realizing how God uses trees to symbolize nations and considering other allegories and warnings there, it makes more sense that this is a warning for a group of people and not just one disciple although there is no reason that it could not have served more than one purpose.)
(Understanding the Text / Revelation of God) When Peter points out the tree, Jesus does not give a lesson about bearing fruit. That lesson had been given the day before, and Jesus expected His disciples to remember it. Instead, Jesus homed in on the power required to make a tree totally dead within 20 hours, as dead as if it had died years before. Jesus told Peter that this kind of power was not much. He said that it only required one thing-faith in God. He used this opportunity to give a lesson in prayer. He was revealing to the disciples something about His own total trust in His Father. Jesus was telling the disciples that if they trusted in the same way, their prayers would be answered. They had probably not associated the cursing with a prayer, but Jesus did so. Jesus told the disciples that when they prayed for something, they should believe that it was already theirs, and it would be.
(Application) I think there may be two requirements for this lesson to be true. First, I have to be living in a relationship with Jesus so that I know that what I pray for is the right thing, and then, I need to have the experience to trust Jesus to answer in His own way rather than in the way I expect. Does that mean that I need to pray for the objective and not the specific manner in which the objective should be answered? I still do not understand prayer well enough.
(Understanding the Text) Jesus may have also been giving Peter a lesson here in the negative effects that could result from the power Peter would have through the Holy Spirit. Jesus was showing Peter that there was destructive power as well as creative power through the working of the Spirit. Peter would be put in the position of not only being the channel for the healing of people, but also for killing people through the power of the Spirit. Was this lesson to show Peter that Jesus had also taken part in this negative aspect of the Spirit’s power so that Peter would have confidence when the Spirit chose to withdraw life from Ananias and Sapphira? Was Jesus showing the disciples that they were going to be given the power of life and death? Maybe, this was one last lesson that the disciples needed to learn before Jesus left them and the Spirit filled them.
Jesus was also showing them that they had to have humble hearts when they asked God for something in prayer. He was showing them that they could not harbor resentment and anger against a fellow human if they wanted to have the proper relationship with the Father. At first, this advice about prayer seems unrelated, but because of the context, I know it must be related to the effects of the cursing of the tree. I think that Jesus is giving a condition about God answering prayer whether in a positive or negative way. Jesus is telling the disciples that the prayer answer and power is dependent on being in a right relationship to God and man. We have to be in a right connection in order to receive power through the Spirit. This sounds similar to all the times Jesus told someone that he/she had been healed because of his/her faith. Faith is the conduit through which God’s power flows to us. If we do not forgive a fellow human being, that sin (that attitude) restricts our connection to God so that our prayers, which are our conduit to and from God, are ineffective and powerless.
I need to think about this more, but it seems that answers to prayer have to do with an open two-way connection with God through our faith and living in sync with Him. Has sin jarred us out of God’s dimension so that we have trouble connecting to Him and through Jesus, the Father is realigning us back to His dimension? Then, through the Spirit, is the Father anchoring us back into His dimensional space? When the time of the second death comes, is that when the Father let’s go of all those who have rejected a connection to Him and they fall away from Him into oblivion? It’s a thought.
(Prayer) Teach me more about prayer and faith so that I can understand the principles that You were teaching in this passage better. Help me to understand and properly apply both the positive and the negative aspects of the power that You have given me through the Spirit’s presence in my life. There is much in this lesson that I only understand theoretically. Give me a working practical grasp of the lessons that You were teaching here.