When evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city. In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!” “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.”

--Parallel verses:
‭‭James‬ ‭5‬:‭15‬-‭18‬
And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.

I once organized (with a lot of help) a large-scale event in six weeks and got a good turnout in the middle of COVID. This event was a Back the Blue rally, to support our police officers in the valley and in some ways, across the state. God put it on my heart very clearly to do this.

Now if people came up to me and said, “I think you should plan an event for the car dealers in the valley and in six weeks get a massive turnout. And you can make a lot of money”. I would tell them they are crazy. That is not how God demonstrates power or gives ability to his children.

What we accomplished was clearly in the power and by the hand of God.

Jesus here knew God wanted him to curse this fig tree to prove a point to his disciples. And so he goes on to tell them that obedience to God’s call is easy with faith. If it was God’s will for something to happen, and in order for that to happen a mountain needed to be thrown into the sea, we could use the power of God to cause the mountain to move. We just need to believe.

Some have taken this verse out of context and applied a “name it and claim it”, health and wealth gospel. This is not the point. If so, Jesus’ followers would have been rich and so also would Jesus have been, while on earth.

The point is to draw close to God in relationship, with the repentance of sins, so that we can live a righteous life. Then our requests will be in line with God’s heart and our hearts will believe in faith we can accomplish God’s works in his timing.

We see confirmation of this teaching in James: 1) Have a heart that is forgiven and has a clean conscience when you pray. 2) Pray for those who suffer. Pray in faith. And you will see God’s miraculous hand. (Not everyone will be healed, because if this were always the case, we would never die and go to heaven). 3) Prayers are effective, not if they are wordy, or complement others, or seem to be impressively long or verbose; instead, they are effective if they are righteous.

Lord, thank you for this teaching. I want to keep my conscience clean and my heart pure by obeying your Word, drawing close to you and keeping short accounts in areas of sin or disagreements with my brothers and sisters. Then my righteous prayers are fully heard and will have your mighty power!