The Necessities for Effective Prayer

A man kneeling in prayer on the Mount of Olives, heaven opened above Jerusalem

“Have faith in God… All things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them,
and they will be granted you.” Mark 11:22, 24

Introduction: A Strange Time to Teach on Prayer

It is Wednesday of Passion Week. Thursday is Passover, Friday the crucifixion, Sunday the resurrection. And with days left in His earthly ministry, Jesus stops to teach His disciples about prayer.

Why now? For three years, these men had lived within arm’s reach of God in human flesh. When they needed protection, He provided it. Direction, food, wisdom, all of it came directly from His hand. Why petition heaven when you can grab Jesus by the arm? Their prayer lives had quietly atrophied.

But everything was about to change. They were going to move from having the Son of God beside them to depending entirely on One they could not see, which is to say, they were about to become like us. And so this lesson, at this hour: all of heaven’s resources are at the disposal of the believer who prays.

Mark 11:22–25 “And Jesus answered saying to them, ‘Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, “Be taken up and cast into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you. Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions.’”

Before the five necessities, one Greek word is worth meeting: the word the New Testament uses for this whole activity:

προσεύχομαι (proseuchomai)

the New Testament’s main word for “pray”: the word in verse 24

πρός (pros)

“toward, facing”

Direction, motion aimed at someone. Prayer has an address.

εὔχομαι (euchomai)

“to wish, vow, petition”

The old word for solemn wishes and vows, desire given voice.

Payoff: Prayer, in its very anatomy, is desire turned toward God. Not wishing into the air, not positive thinking, not self-talk. Petition with a face on it. Which is exactly where Jesus begins: “Have faith in God.” Everything that follows hangs on the direction.

The Setting: The Withered Fig Tree

The lesson hangs on a strange miracle. The day before, Jesus had cursed a fig tree (full of leaves, empty of fruit), a living picture of Israel’s religion: profession without reality. Matthew tells us it died instantly (Matt 21:19). Passing it Wednesday morning, Peter marvels: “Rabbi, look! The fig tree which You cursed has withered,” and in Matthew’s account he asks how. How does that kind of power work?

Jesus’ answer: “Have faith in God.” Such power, whether for judgment or blessing, comes from God, and it is drawn down by believing prayer. Then He unfolds what effective prayer requires. Five necessities.

1. Remember: The Historical Necessity

Peter’s exclamation was an act of remembering a display of divine power. Mark says it plainly: “Peter, remembering, said to Him…” (Mark 11:21). The Greek is ἀναμιμνῄσκομαι (anamimnēskomai), from ana (“back, again”) + mimnēskō (“to call to mind”): to deliberately call something back up. That is where effective prayer begins. Why call on God now if He has not proven Himself before?

This is Scripture’s own habit. Deuteronomy commands “you shall remember” some fifteen times as Israel enters the land: the Passover, the Red Sea, manna, water from the rock. “Remember the former things,” God says through Isaiah, “for I am God, and there is no other… declaring the end from the beginning” (Isa 46:9-10). The psalms recite God’s deeds as fuel for both worship and petition (Pss 77, 78, 105, 143). Joshua stacked twelve stones out of the Jordan for one purpose: so that when children asked “What do these stones mean?”, the answer would be a rehearsal of what God did (Josh 4:6–7).

Memorial stones and an open journal radiating remembered works of God

Twelve stones out of the Jordan: remembrance is the fuel of faith. The more you have on record, the stronger your confidence when you kneel.

Living It: Practicing Remembrance

1Keep a prayer journal: requests and answers. Date what you ask; date what God does. A journal turns your own history into faith. Most answered prayers are forgotten within a month. Written down, they preach to you for decades.

2Open prayer with rehearsal, not requests. Before you ask for anything, recite two or three things God has already done, in Scripture, in history, in your life. That’s the psalmists’ pattern (Ps 77:11–12), and it changes the voice you pray in.

3Build your own memorial stones. Mark the big deliverances somewhere permanent: a list in your Bible’s flyleaf, a note on the fridge, an anniversary you keep. When doubt asks “has God ever come through?”, point at the stones.

4Borrow the church’s memory. Your own record is short; the church’s is two thousand years long, and Scripture’s is longer. Read biography and the Psalms when your faith is thin. Remembered mercy is transferable.

2. Trust God: The Theological Necessity

“Have faith in God.” The stress falls not on faith but on its object. The noun is πίστις (pistis): not a feeling and not a force, but trust placed in someone; and in the Greek the phrase is faith directed at God, not “God-kind-of-faith,” not confidence in your own believing. The command is: trust Him. His power, but also His purpose, His promises, His will.

That is how Jesus taught us to pray: “Hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done”: God’s honor before our requests. “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us” (1 John 5:14). James adds the negative: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures” (James 4:3).

Prayer is not cornering God. It is submission to Someone wiser: I want what He knows is right and true and good and best.

Living It: Practicing Trust

1Pray God’s honor first. Follow the Lord’s Prayer order literally: name, kingdom, will, then bread. Spending the first minutes on who God is re-sizes every request that follows.

2Pray the promises, not just the problems. Find a verse that actually covers your situation and pray it back to Him. Praying Scripture is how you stay “according to His will” without guessing.

3Run the motive check. James 4:3 in question form: if God granted this, who ends up served? Ask it honestly before you ask Him. Rewrite the request until you can pray it with a clean answer.

4End every big request in Gethsemane. “Yet not what I will, but what You will” is not resignation. It’s trust with its hands open. Close hard prayers the way the Lord closed His.

3. Believe: The Spiritual Necessity

Mark 11:23 “Whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him.”

The key word here is the one translated “doubt,” and its anatomy is the whole point:

διακρίνω (diakrinō)

translated “doubt”. Literally, to judge between two verdicts

διά (dia)

“between, apart”

Division, being pulled two directions at once.

κρίνω (krinō)

“to judge, decide”

The courtroom verb, rendering a verdict.

Payoff: Biblical doubt is not the presence of questions, it’s a divided verdict about God: one moment ruling “He is able and good,” the next ruling against Him (cf. James 1:6–8, the double-minded man like a wave of the sea). Which means the doubt to fight is doubting God, not doubting yourself. Your confidence was never the power source anyway.

Three things keep this staggering promise from being twisted:

The mountain is a figure of speech. The rabbis called great problem-solvers “rooters up of mountains.” Jesus means humanly impossible difficulties. He never relocated literal geology, and He isn’t teaching us to try. The prosperity preachers have it exactly backwards: your words and your faith have zero power. God has all the power; faith is only the empty hand that receives it. And little faith is enough. Peter walked on water with “little faith,” and his sinking cry “Lord, save me!” was still answered (Matt 14:30-31). A desperate father prevailed with “I do believe; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). The threshold is a mustard seed (Matt 17:20). Struggling faith still draws down the power of God.

A mountain lifted by light and carried toward the sea while a small figure prays below

“Be taken up and cast into the sea”: the impossible moved, not by the size of the faith, but by the size of the God it holds onto.

Living It: Practicing Undivided Faith

1Name the mountain out loud. Vague burdens produce vague prayers. State the impossible thing specifically (the marriage, the diagnosis, the debt) and ask for it specifically. You can’t watch God move a mountain you never named.

2Aim your doubt at the right target. When wavering comes, sort it: Am I doubting God’s ability, or my worthiness? The second isn’t doubt at all; the power never depended on you. Confess the first, ignore the second, and keep praying.

3Pray the honest prayer of Mark 9:24. “I believe; help my unbelief” is a prayer God answers. Bring the faith you have, not the faith you wish you had. A mustard seed outweighs a mountain.

4Keep asking until the verdict settles. A divided mind reunifies by returning to the evidence (necessity #1) and the promises (necessity #2), daily, repeatedly, like the persistent widow (Luke 18:1–8). Persistence is how wavering faith becomes settled faith.

4. Ask: The Practical Necessity

“All things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you” (v. 24). Mark pairs the big word for prayer (proseuchomai, prayer turned toward God) with a humbler one: αἰτέω (aiteō), the word for a lesser petitioning a greater, a child asking a father (Matt 7:9–11). Not negotiating. Not earning. Asking. James is blunter: “You do not have because you do not ask” (James 4:2).

“All things” is staggeringly generous, and never unqualified. Scripture supplies the boundaries: according to His will (1 John 5:14), not to consume on our desires (James 4:3), abiding in Him with His words abiding in us (John 15:7: if His Word shapes you, He is editing your wish list), in His name (John 14:13-14).

The model is Gethsemane: “Abba, Father, all things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will” (Mark 14:36). Pour out the whole heart. Storm heaven. Then close the prayer the way the Lord did.

Heaven's storehouses open, treasure pouring toward small empty hands

All of heaven’s resources at the disposal of the believer who prays. The only qualification is empty, asking hands.

Living It: Practicing the Ask

1Actually ask. Audit a week of your prayers: how much was worry rehearsed in God’s direction, and how much was a direct request? Convert the worry into petitions: specific, out loud, on the record (Phil 4:6).

2Ask like a child, not a negotiator. Aiteō is the child’s word. Drop the deal-making (“if You do this, I’ll…”) and the résumé (“I’ve been faithful, so…”). Come as a son to a Father who already delights to give (Matt 7:11).

3Let the Word edit the wish list. John 15:7’s condition, His words abiding in you, is practical: the more Scripture you take in, the more your requests start sounding like His will. Feed the intake and watch your asking change.

4Pour it all out, then hand it over. Gethsemane gives permission for full honesty: sweat, tears, the whole cup. Hold nothing back in the asking; hold nothing back in the surrender. Both halves, every time.

5. Forgive: The Moral Necessity

Mark 11:25 “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions.”

“If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear” (Ps 66:18). But rather than demanding a full moral inventory before every prayer, Jesus gives one decisive test, and the word He chose tells you how to pass it:

ἀφίημι (aphiēmi)

translated “forgive”. Literally, to send away, to hurl from you

ἀπό (apo)

“away from”

Separation, distance put between you and the thing.

ἵημι (hiēmi)

“to send, to let go”

The throwing verb, release with force behind it.

Payoff: Forgiveness in this verse is not a feeling you wait to have or a long therapeutic process. It is a decision to release, the offense hurled away like a debt canceled (the same verb “forgives” debts in Matt 6:12). You do it “whenever you stand praying,” on the spot, as often as it takes.

This is not about salvation; that was settled at the cross. This is the Father’s daily, family forgiveness, the foot-washing of John 13, that keeps fellowship open and prayer unhindered. The man forgiven an unpayable debt cannot strangle his neighbor over pocket change (Matt 18:23-35).

The choice is stark: hold the grudge, or have your prayers answered. You don’t get both.

A man hurling a broken chain into the sea, the links scattering into birds of light

Aphiēmi: not a process but a release. The offense hurled away, and the hands finally free to be lifted in prayer.

Living It: Practicing Release

1Make the pre-prayer sweep. Take Jesus literally: “whenever you stand praying,” run the one test, do I have anything against anyone? A name will surface. Release it before the requests start.

2Forgive as a verdict, not a feeling. Say it in words: “Father, I release [name] for [offense]. I’m sending it away.” The feeling follows the decision, sometimes months later. The prayer channel opens at the decision, not the feeling.

3Re-hurl as often as it comes back. The offense will wash back ashore; that doesn’t mean the forgiveness failed. Aphiēmi it again. Seventy times seven is the Lord’s own arithmetic (Matt 18:22).

4Let the cross set the scale. When release feels impossible, reread Matthew 18:23–35 and put your own unpayable debt next to their pocket change. Gratitude for the big cancellation is what makes the small one possible.

Conclusion: Did They Learn It?

Within hours of the ascension, the disciples were back in the Upper Room, “with one mind… continually devoting themselves to prayer” (Acts 1:14), about a hundred and twenty of them. Then Pentecost. Three thousand saved, then five thousand, and the pattern of the whole book of Acts is set: prayer and power, prayer and power.

That pattern has not expired. Remember. Trust. Believe. Ask. Forgive.

“Pray without ceasing.” (1 Thess 5:17)

For Discussion

Jesus taught this lesson because the disciples’ prayer lives had atrophied while He stood beside them. What has your season of “God feels close” or “God feels distant” done to your praying, and what does that reveal?
Necessity #1 is remembering. What are three specific things God has done, in Scripture or in your own life, that you could put on your “memorial stones” list tonight? Where will you keep the list?
Diakrinō is a divided verdict about God, not the presence of questions. Where are you currently rendering two verdicts at once, trusting God on Sunday and ruling against Him by Wednesday? What evidence settles it?
Look at your last week of prayer honestly: how much was rehearsed worry, and how much was direct asking (aiteō, the child’s word)? What request have you been circling that you’ve never plainly made?
Aphiēmi means to hurl away: a decision, not a process. Whose name surfaces when you run Jesus’ pre-prayer test, “anything against anyone”? What would releasing it in words, tonight, sound like?

Sources & For Further Study

Text: Mark 11:12–14, 20–25; Matthew 21:18–22; 6:9–15; 7:7–11; 14:28–31; 17:20; 18:21–35; Mark 9:24; 14:36; Luke 18:1–8; John 13:1–17; 14:13–14; 15:7; Acts 1:14; James 1:6–8; 4:2–3; 1 John 5:14–15; Psalms 66:18; 77; 105; Isaiah 46:9–10; Joshua 4:1–9.
Greek: BDAG on προσεύχομαι, πίστις, διακρίνω, αἰτέω, ἀφίημι, ἀναμιμνῄσκομαι. Strong’s: proseuchomai G4336; pistis G4102; diakrinō G1252; aiteō G154; aphiēmi G863.
Helpful: D. A. Carson, Praying with Paul; John MacArthur on Mark 11 (the fig tree and the five necessities); R. C. Sproul, Does Prayer Change Things?; the Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 116–129 on prayer and the Lord’s Prayer.

Want this whole study as a printable PDF, ready for your small group? It’s free when you join the weekly list.

Go deeper on forgiveness. I wrote a whole book on the God who forgives past all counting: Seventy Times Seven. If this teaching met you where you are, the book walks the whole road.