Mark 11:20-24

Obviously this kind of faith about which Jesus is talking is something that very few people have ever had. The apostles who were with God (God in the flesh, Jesus Christ) for three and one-half years were not going around cursing fig trees, nor were they casting mountains into the sea. So they did not have it, and neither do you or I.

"Removing mountains" is an idiom of the people of that day that is the equivalent of saying "removing or solving great difficulties." A person of faith can solve, as it were, great difficulties. This faith is not something that can be worked up. It is not a sudden surge of feeling that one has, because we can look at Jesus as the epitome of this kind of faith and we know that Jesus' faith was solidly anchored in the fact that God is ruling. He is involved in ruling His creation all the time. He has not gone off somewhere.

God hears our requests. His involvement is so great that He sees the sparrows fall. His involvement is so great, Jesus described it that He knows every hair on our head. He knows what is going on. The Psalms say that He knows our thoughts from afar off. Is our faith in a God who is that involved in our lives? That is the kind of faith that leads to the kind of answers in which great mountains or great difficulties are removed.

Mark 11:20-24

So Jesus famously curses a fig tree, and He turns it into a lesson about asking God in faith for a thing to be done, and His disciples will receive it. He does not talk at all about curses or whatever. He just says, "Look, this is what happens when you say something and believe it and ask God to do something, and He responds."