Welcome to Timeless Truth with Pastor Jim Thomas. In season 2, Pastor Jim is leading us in a study of Mark. Today’s passage is Mark 11:22-26
What parallels can we draw between the Fruitless Fig Tree and our spiritual lives?
Bearing spiritual fruit never goes out of season for healthy believers. And in talking about prayer as Jesus did, rather than reducing prayer to magic and superstition, the equivalent of rubbing a fictional genie’s lamp and expecting an angel of God to come out in a puff of smoke awaiting our orders, Jesus is here indicating that if you want fruit to show up in your life, you can pray and ask God to start producing the fruit of the Spirit in your life.
For some of us that would be tantamount to the throwing of a mountain into the sea because of what an incredible change it would mean in our life. What do I mean? Well, if you have trouble with your temper and God gets a hold of your life and you start to change into a patient person, that’s like moving a mountain. If you are always negative, you can’t ever say a nice word about anyone but you go to God in prayer, asking Him to change your heart, He can do it. And that’s just like moving a mountain. It means when you have felt like a victim ever since that horrible injustice you suffered, that broken relationship, that repeated stumble over your addiction, or that lost job, placing your faith in the God of grace means the mountain that blocks you from moving forward in Christ can indeed be moved; not in our limited strength, but by the authority of the infinitely powerful God of the universe!
Biblical view of how prayer “works”:
- Prayer works when it gives us a greater sense of the majesty and glory of God.
- Prayer works when it leads us to a sharper sense of God’s presence in our life.
- Prayer works when it leads us to true repentance and confession of sin.
- Prayer works when it arouses in us an awesome sense of the forgiving grace of God.
- Prayer works when it engenders profound thanks for every day that we live and makes us realize that life is a gift to be received with gratitude and a race to be run with courage.
- Prayer works when it leads us to pray for others.
- Prayer works when it propels us to action on behalf of the weak and vulnerable.
- Prayer works when it leads to new discipline in our Christian pilgrimage.
- Prayer works when along with our asking for our needs to be met, we spend time communing with God as our Heavenly Father.
“The branch of the vine does not worry, and toil, and rush here to seek for sunshine, and there to find rain. No; it rests in union and communion with the vine; and at the right time, and in the right way, is the right fruit found on it. Let us so abide in the Lord Jesus.”
James Hudson Taylor
Spiritual fruitfulness looks like a life of heartfelt worship, resolute prayer, rigorous godliness, self-sacrificial and self-giving service to God and others. It looks like trusting God, following Jesus, and holding fast to the promises that are yours in Christ!
