Speak to the Mountain but Hold the Image

What is Prayer

Prayer is not begging an angry God. That is a slave mindset. Prayer is love and communion with a God who loves us without limit or condition. It is intimacy, a place of exchange and fellowship

If we are partakers of the divine nature, then prayer is not pleading for what we lack. It is alignment with God and with what He has already provided in Christ.

We still ask. Jesus taught us to ask for daily bread. But we ask as children who are sure of the Father, not as beggars unsure of a master.

What Does Outcome-Based Prayer Mean?

Outcome-based prayer does not mean a technique for getting results out of God. It means the outcome is already secured in Christ, and prayer is how we receive it and call it into our circumstances.

Faith is a response to the promises and character of God. It is not something we do to get God to move.

Keep that definition in view. Everything that follows rests on it.

The Journey: The Road from Bethany

Jesus and His twelve disciples are on the road from Bethany. Jesus is hungry, and He sees a fig tree in the distance.

And Mark adds a detail: “His disciples heard it.” You heard it. You were standing right there.

Nothing Seems to Happen

Now look at the tree. As far as you can see, nothing has changed. The leaves are still green. Nobody says anything. You all keep walking.

A whole day goes by. The temple, the tables overturned, the long walk back out of the city at evening (v15-19). You go to bed with that sentence still in your ears and a tree that looked exactly the same.

The Same Road, the Next Morning

Same road. Same bend. And Peter stops dead.

Mark says it was “dried up from the roots” (v20). From the roots. It began to die the moment He spoke, underground, where no eye could see. The leaves were the last to know.

Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.

The phrase can also be read “have the faith of God”. Either way, He is pointing at what you have just watched. Then He says “this mountain”, and you are standing on one.

You Know This Road

You have walked it. You prayed. You spoke to the thing. Then you looked, and the leaves were still green. The bill was still on the table. The report still said what it said.

That is the walk between the word and the withered tree. This message is about how to walk it.

Verse 23 opens up what was going on underneath that one sentence to the tree: those are the principles. Verse 24 gives us the practice.

The Principles of Outcome-Based Prayer

The principles are found in Mark 11:23. Jesus shows us how to speak to the mountain and believe without doubting in our hearts.

“Shall Say”: A Command, Not a Plea

This is a command issued, not a begging declaration. A person commands because he has faith in the power of God. You cannot command and beg in the same breath.

“This Mountain”: Be Specific

The command is aimed at a particular mountain, just as Jesus spoke to a particular fig tree. Vague prayer cannot be answered in a way you would recognise. Name the mountain.

“Be Thou Removed”: A Decree

“Be cast into the sea” and “no man eat fruit of thee” may sound like mere words. They are decrees. Jesus decreed because He is God. We decree in the name of Jesus, by His authority and not our own.

So Prayer Is Declarative and Directed

Prayer should be declarative, not beggarly, and aimed at the mountain that needs to move. Abraham’s God is the One who “calleth those things which be not as though they were” (Romans 4:17). We speak after Him.

“Shall Not Doubt in His Heart, but Shall Believe”

This tells us what was in Jesus when He spoke to the tree. He had faith, and no doubt in His heart, that what He said would come to pass. The words carried what the heart held.

Where Doubt and Belief Come From

Doubt comes when we vacillate between two opinions (1 Kings 18:21; James 1:6-8). The double-minded man is tossed like a wave.

Belief comes by the Word of God, heard repeatedly and internalised: “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).

The Word builds belief because it is backed by the character of God. What God says rests on who He is.

The Practice of Outcome-Based Prayer

“What Things Soever Ye Desire”: Start with a Clear Desire

Start with a clear desire. What things do you desire? Be specific about what you are bringing before God in prayer.

Desire is the starting point. What do you want to see God move in? Be clear about it. This is your mountain, your fig tree.

“When ye pray”: Bring the Desire to the Word

God expects prayer to be the way our desires are brought into manifestation. So find what God has said about it.

Find a scripture for the desire. Let the Word shape and authorise it.

Meditate on it deeply until it builds a picture of the outcome already achieved.

Then pray that outcome. Pray from the picture, with faith in the heart and no doubt.

“Believe that ye receive them”: See It as Done

When you pray, believe you have received. This is the imagination conceiving the future as finished. You are not trying to make something true. You are agreeing with what God has already said.

“And ye shall have them”: Expect a Gap, and Hold

“Shall have” tells us there may be a delay between the prayer and the manifestation. It will surely come, because the God who promised is faithful. The picture in your heart is what keeps you steady while you wait.

Expectation is the key. Because I am expecting, I am hopeful. When doubt tries to rise, I maintain the confession of faith that matches the picture I hold.

Abraham: The Picture That Kept Him Going

Where did “So shall thy seed be” come from? Genesis 15:5. God brought Abraham outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them… So shall thy seed be.”

When everything was hopeless, the stars were what Abraham held in his mind.

Hope creates a pull toward the future while we stand in the present moment.

He “considered not his own body now dead” (Romans 4:19). Doubt looks at circumstances and builds walls. Faith looks at God’s promises and opens doors.

The Anchor: Why the Picture Holds

Hope rests on what God said. What God said rests on who He is. So hope rests on the unfailing character of God.

When do you need an anchor? When the sea is tumultuous and the boat looks ready to capsize, or when the weather is so bad the ship must hold its position at sea.

That is what the character of God does in us when life is tumultuous or a promise is delayed. The Amplified Classic says this anchor cannot slip and cannot break down under whoever steps out on it.

The footing is in the text: God swore by Himself, and it is impossible for God to lie (Hebrews 6:13-18).

How Do You Set Your Hope in God?

By remembering:

When doubt rises, look back. Assure your heart from God’s track record.

Holding the picture makes the future bigger than the problem. And because it is anchored in a God who cannot fail, Abraham became persuaded:

Application: Monday Morning

Take one mountain this week: the bills, the doctor’s report, the job, the child.

1. Name it. One specific mountain, in one sentence.

2. Find the promise. One scripture that speaks to it. Write it down.

3. Build the picture. Meditate on that scripture until you can see the outcome as done.

4. Speak to it. Address the mountain directly, in the name of Jesus. Declare, do not beg.

5. Give thanks before you see it. Abraham was strong in faith, “giving glory to God”.

6. When doubt rises, remember. Rehearse what God has already done for you, and keep your confession.

Clear the ground. Jesus goes straight on to say: “And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any” (Mark 11:25). Forgiveness is part of the practice, not a footnote to it.

Romans says Abraham “staggered not”. Genesis 16 records Hagar. God’s testimony of Abraham was kinder than Abraham’s record. He will speak of you the same way.

Your anchor is not the size of your faith. Your anchor is the character of God.

The spoken word works to manifest the imagined world. But the picture comes from the promise, and the promise comes from the Person.

Prayer is communion, not begging.

Speak to the mountain. Be specific. Decree in His name.

Hold the picture God’s Word gives you.

When the sea is rough, drop the anchor: remember who He is and what He has done.