Moving from Doubt to Faith

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.
–Mark 11:23

Rising 29,029 feet in the air, Mount Everest is the tallest peak on earth. On May 29, 1953, mountaineers Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first explorers to scale Everest. It wasn’t Hillary’s first attempt. The story is told that after failing to reach the summit two years earlier, Hillary shook his fist at the mountain and said, “I will return and conquer you because as a mountain, you can’t grow, but as a human, I can.”

You and I may never climb Mount Everest, but we face other kinds of mountains in our lives. In fact, the Bible uses the imagery of a mountain to refer to challenges that seem impossible to overcome. For example, after the Israelites returned from exile in Babylon, God chose Zerubbabel to rebuild the temple. This was a monumental task. But in Zechariah 4:7, the Lord said, “What are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become a plain.” With God’s help, the mountain of rebuilding the temple would be leveled into a molehill.

God can do the same for challenges in your life. Maybe right now you’re facing a mountain called discouragement, lust, or loneliness. In Mark 11:22–23, Jesus said, “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.” With God’s help and your obedience, you can conquer the mountain in front of you.

But notice that this promise is available only to those who do not doubt in their hearts. All of us have doubts from time to time–doubts about life, doubts about God, and doubts about the promises of God’s Word. When I was in college, I experienced serious doubts about whether the Bible was truly the Word of God, to the point that I considered not only letting go of my call to be a pastor but also letting go of Christianity altogether. Doubt is universal.

Nothing will prevent you from conquering the mountains in your life any more than doubt. So this week, we’re going to discover how to move from doubt to faith so we can overcome other challenges in our lives.

Today’s devotion is adapted from “Moving from Doubt to Faith,” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2021.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org.