Mark 11:22-25 NASB95
[22] And Jesus was saying to them, “Have faith in God. [23] 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. [24] 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. [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.
The literal accurate translation of verse 22 is “Jesus was repeatedly saying to them, “Continually have the faith of God.” In light of that, verse 23 is a telling description of what God’s faith looks like. Remember, Jesus was not trying to pop his disciples up to get more faith. He was inviting them to join the faith of God in every situation.
God “calls those things which are not as though they were.” Romans 4:17 This is what true childlike faith is about. It’s abandoning the feeble effort of our own personal faith and plunging ourselves into the vastness of the faith of God. If an earthly father tells a tale to a little child about some reality, the l child believes it, not because the child believes, but because his father believes it. If his father believes it, it must be true. If we are going to explore the wonders of the kingdom of heaven, then we must change and become like a little child who is content with what God believes about everything. A little child does not have to overcome the stark facts of impossibilities. They know know there is such things as impossibilities.
Verse 25 is a strange verse as if it was just pulled out of the air and placed into this teaching about abiding in the faith of God. It doesn’t seem to belong, and yet if you pay close attention, you’ll realize it is a perfect fit. To walk in childlike faith (embracing the faith of God each moment), we have to protect the childlike innocence in our hearts. The enemy is always trying to distract us with some form of impurity so that our childlikeness is compromised. One of his great and unfortunately successful ploys is the issue of resentment and unforgiveness. If our minds and our emotions are cluttered with the childishness of bitterness then our childlikeness and our childlike faith that believes whatever God believes, gets snuffed out. Instead of the innocence that believes in the realm of reality that God says is real, cynicism and doubt take over. That’s why the language in verse 25 is “continually forgive if you have ANYTHING against ANYONE.” In the kingdom of heaven, it is the little child that is the mature adult spiritually.