We need to move from Luke 1:37: “WITH GOD nothing is impossible” to “Nothing shall be impossible FOR YOU” (Matthew 17:20). The difference appears slight but “WITH GOD” describes us as being in God’s company as He does the “impossible”, as distinct from “FOR YOU” which describes God as doing them from within us and through us. The Spirit of God is not just “upon us” as He was before Pentecost but empowering us when we speak in the all-powerful name of Jesus!
In both verses the subject is the spoken word. Gabriel’s statement to Mary was that “with God nothing”: NO THING — NT Greek: “no word” that God speaks — can be nullified by the greatest obstacle. It is impossible that any word spoken by God through us will NOT come to pass! When we say “MOVE” to the mountain” it is impossible for it NOT to move!
Sure, it’s easier to say, “WITH GOD, nothing shall be impossible” than to say, “Nothing shall be impossible TO ME”. However, we need to be able to say the latter with absolute confidence. If the words we speak do not move the ‘mountain’ standing in our way, we need to have more belief in the promise made by Jesus before we speak. “I believe, therefore I speak” is much better than “I speak, so that I can believe.”
Speaking the Word of God over and over (as in Joshua 1:8) is good practice. But repeating miracle chants which supposedly guarantee the removal of every obstacle that stands in your way is self-delusion.
Unless you have confessed a particular promise so many times that you are speaking with faith from God — “The God kind of Faith” (as the late great Kenneth Hagen Senior so well translated Mark 11:20). Mark 11:20-24 records the steps we need to take that will move mountains. God-given faith in your heart and the promise of Jesus (not to mention your doubt-free heart and your forgiveness of those who’ve hurt you) into a plain!