Trusting God's grace means trusting God's love for us rather than our love for God. [...] Therefore our prayers should consist mainly of rousing our awareness of God's love for us rather than trying to rouse God's awareness of our love for him, like the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:26-29).
Interpretation
Trusting in God's grace emphasizes His love for us over our own efforts to love Him.
This quote by Peter Kreeft highlights the importance of relying on God's unmerited grace and love rather than focusing on our own attempts to earn His favor. It suggests that true prayer should be about recognizing and awakening our awareness of God's unwavering love for us, rather than trying to gain His attention through our own expressions of love, as illustrated by the biblical reference to the priests of Baal who struggled to attract divine acknowledgment.
In practice
During a sermon on faith, this quote can be used to emphasize God's love for humanity.
Remembering the facts of death and Heaven gives us an even more pressing reason to learn to pray: We do not have an infinite amount of time. We are one day nearer Home today than we ever were before. I guarantee you that after you die you will not say 'I spent too much time praying; I wish I had watched more TV instead.'
Like apes, we breed, sleep, and die. Yet like God we say, "I am." We are ontological oxymorons.
The modern mind always tends to reduce the greater to the lesser rather than seeing the lesser as reflecting the greater.
Our soul, like Mary's body, is to receive God Himself if only we, like her, believe, consent and receive; if only we speak her truly magic word fiat, "let it be." It is the creative word, the word God used to create the universe.
Protestants believe that the sacraments are like ladders that God gave to us by which we can climb up to Him. Catholics believe that they are like ladders that God gave to Himself by which He climbs down to us.
One of the few things in life that cannot possibly do harm in the end is the honest pursuit of the truth.
When you look at the Cross, what do you see? You see God’s awesome faithfulness. Nothing – not even the instinct to spare His own Son – will turn him back from keeping His word.
Most of us have hoped and prayed for something to happen a certain way, but it didn't. And when this happened, we had a choice to make: to react with offense toward God or to trust Him anyway.
A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing; _x000D_ Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing: _x000D_ For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe; _x000D_ His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate, _x000D_ On earth is not his equal.
God involves us in his missions not because He needs us, but because He loves us. And in His mercy He has invited us to be involved in His sovereign design for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth.
My son, hold fast! Do not care for anybody to help you. Is not the Lord infinitely greater than all human help? Be holy--trust in the Lord, depend on him always, and you are on the right track. Nothing can prevail against you.
My father has been faithful to the calling that God gave him: that is, to preach the Gospel... He has presented Christ to every person that God has put before him.
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