Speak to Your Mountain

March 26

"If you believe, you may speak to this mountain, 'Be ye removed and cast into the sea and it shall be even as you say,'" Matthew 21:21.

Obviously, not many believers desire to create the upheaval of literally moving mountains into the sea. Our mountains are ones of fear, doubt, anxiety, depression, anger, vindictiveness, self-recrimination...and the list could go on.

Simply speaking to these negative, destructive emotions is not sufficient unless the words we say to them are rooted in our faith in Jesus, unless we truly believe that HE, at work within us and our circumstances, can make a difference for good in our lives. HE CAN, but the promise states very clearly, "If you believe..." Our God places a lot of value, a lot of importance on what we believe. He is not responsive to half-hearted faith, for if He were, half-hearted faith would be perceived as attaining reward. He does not want to give us that impression.

He is in the process of refining those who profess faith in Him, He wants them to own and employ a true, indefatigable faith that cannot be denied! He wants those who name His name to "Know whom I have believed and be persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him..." II Timothy 1:12. If He rewards paltry faith, we will attain paltry results. He want us to know we are "more than conquerors," Romans 8:37, and as such that we can indeed "move mountains" in our own behalf and in the behalf of His Kingdom and its purposes.

If we cannot employ the faith-power to topple the mountains of doubt and despair within our own limited sphere, how can He expect to use us to implement His purposes in the broader world, to be His conquering army of faithful believers who wrestle with the enemy for the souls of men in a fallen world that is steeped in more and ever-more corruption? How can we be soldiers who are trained in fierce combat with all that opposes God if we have not first put down the things within our own sphere that would defeat us?

So, we are challenged sorely! No shadow boxing, no cardboard swords, no paper helmets! We must be fully equipped (Ephesians 6:11) for the fight for the hearts and minds of men—and we cannot be effective in that monumental effort if we have not first been successful in conquering "the little foxes that spoil the vines" (Song of Solomon 2:15) of our own life and faith! Jesus allows us to struggle with our doubts, our depression, our anxiety—in order that we will be ready to do battle in the behalf of His Kingdom and that we will be successful in pulling down the one enemy whose defeat is imperative!

When we remove that 'mountain,' that one obstacle in our lives, we will have readied ourselves to pull him down wherever we find him because we will have proven our metal and we will have proven our faith—indeed, we will have proven Christ and His promises! We will know our metal is strong, our faith is unshakable and our Christ is faithful!