Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance. It is laying hold of His willingness.
Martin LutherRead
To be convinced in our hearts that we have forgiveness of sins and peace with God by grace alone is the hardest thing.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True inner peace and forgiveness require deep conviction, which can often be challenging to attain.
This quote by Martin Luther emphasizes the profound challenge of genuinely accepting the concepts of forgiveness and peace that come through grace. It suggests that while these gifts are offered to us freely, the struggle lies within ourselves to truly believe and internalize that we have been forgiven and can find tranquility with God, highlighting the complexity of faith and human emotions.
Themes
ForgivenessGracePeaceFaithConviction
In practice
Example use cases
A pastor might use this quote in a sermon to illustrate the challenges of faith.
More from Martin Luther
All quotes βNow if I believe in God's Son and remember that He became man, all creatures will appear a hundred times more beautiful to me than before. Then I will properly appreciate the sun, the moon, the stars, trees, apples, as I reflect that he is Lord over all things. ...God writes the Gospel, not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.
Martin LutherRead
It is the part of a Christian to take care of his own body for the very purpose that, by its soundness and wellbeing, he may be enabled to labour, and to acquire and preserve property, for the aid of those who are in want, that thus the stronger member may serve the weaker member, and we may be children of God, and busy for one another, bearing one another's burdens, and so fulfiling the law of Christ.
Martin LutherRead
Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.
Martin LutherRead
We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.
Martin LutherRead
In a mouse we admire God's creation and craft work. The same may be said about flies.
Martin LutherRead
Similar quotes
It'll be no use their putting their heads down and saying "Come up again, dear!" I shall only look up and say "Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up: if not, I'll stay down here till I'm somebody else"--but, oh dear!' cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears, 'I do wish they WOULD put their heads down! I am so VERY tired of being all alone here!
Lewis CarrollRead
Why should not every individual man have existed more than once upon this world? Why should I not come back as often as I am capable of acquiring fresh knowledge? Is this hypothesis so laughable merely because it is the oldest? Because the human understanding, before the sophistries of the schools had dissipated and debilitated it, lighted upon it at once?
Gotthold Ephraim LessingRead
It has not yet become obvious to me that there's no real problem. I cannot define the real problem; therefore, I suspect there's no real problem, but I'm not sure there's no real problem.
Richard P. FeynmanRead
Repentance can become a very, very deep phenomenon in you if you understand the responsibility. Then even a small thing, if it becomes a repentance-- not just verbal, not just on the surface; if it goes deep to the roots, if you repent from the roots; if your whole being shakes and trembles and cries, and tears come out; not only out of your eyes but out of every cell of your body, then repentance can become a transfiguration.
RajneeshRead
Physically, man is but an atom in space, and a pulsation in time. Spiritually, the entire outward universe receives significance from him, and the scope of his existence stretches beyond the stars.
Edwin Hubbel ChapinRead
When all is said and done, we exist only in relation to the world, and our senses evolved as scouts who bridge that divide and provide volumes of information, warnings and rewards.
Diane AckermanRead