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.
Our Lord's first obedience was to the will of his Father, not to the needs of men; the saving of men was the natural outcome of his obedience to the Father.
In God's faithfulness lies eternal security.
We let ourselves be molded and transformed by Christ and continually pass from the side of one who destroys to that of the one who saves.
As you walk through the valley of the unknown, you will find the footprints of Jesus both in front of you and beside you.
The more I am in a position to be tried in faith with reference to my body, my family, my service for the Lord, my business, etc., the more shall I have opportunity of seeing God's help and deliverance; and every fresh instance, in which He helps and delivers me, will tend towards the increase of my faith.
Whenever we take a step towards Jesus, we come to realize that he is already there, waiting for us with open arms.
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