There are principles involved in the fulfillment of prayer. And if we are going to proclaim and execute God’s principles in the earth, then we will be required to live by those principles. Yeshua (Jesus) taught His disciples, “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” (Mark 11:22-23).¹ Then Yeshua added this admonition: “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” (Mark 11:25). If you do not forgive, then Christ cannot forgive you and neither can He answer your prayers. It is that simple. The answer to your prayer is tied up in your forgiveness of others (Luke 6:37).

The Lord is going to show us keys and principles of how to walk with Him. As a result, we are going to become a very forgiving people. Stacked up behind us is every prayer we have ever made, and it is dammed up behind this very principle of forgiveness. We do not need to revoice our prayers and proclamations. We simply need to explode the dam and let all those words come gushing forth like a wall of water that covers the earth. We are going to understand that when we speak there has to be a deep forgiveness that the Lord ministers to us. His presence comes to forgive us, to remove sin from us. And the only way that happens is through this principle that we must forgive others from the heart. These two things are tied irrevocably together.

Forgiveness is the first step. Until God can bring us to this point, He cannot do what we ask. The ages are framed by the Word of God, but your words will not be effective unless you are forgiven. It is His choice (Hebrews 11:3). Why? Because the whole point is that God wants our mouth to become His mouth, and the way that happens is by separating the precious from the vile (Jeremiah 15:19). This to me is tremendous. I always think of principles like levers; you just pull the lever, and it happens. Prayer is a lever. It is a principle. If we could pull the lever of prayer and prophecy, imagine what we could have! What a beautiful key of the Kingdom this is for us to have an understanding about prayer and how it works through forgiveness.

Both spiritual and natural level things worked for Yeshua, whether it was the weather, the wind, turning water into wine, or some great spiritual thing that transpired. What Yeshua said happened. And we are to speak things and see them happen too. The Lord is training us, and this is the first lesson: when we speak, we must forgive. Every time you pray or prophesy, if you have anything against anyone, let it go. Let it go. We cannot have anything against anyone. Why? Because if we hold a grudge or some bitterness, then our prayers will be hindered because we are violating God’s principle. But if we can forgive when we pray, it will vacuum the clutter out of our spirits. You cannot believe how cluttered we are and how much that hinders our prayers. But God is smart. He knows what He is doing. That is why He tied these two things together—when you pray, forgive.

¹ All Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible 1995 (NASB1995).