Prayer is, paradoxically, both a gift and a conquest, a grace and a duty. Does that not mean, is it not a special case of the truth, that all duty is a gift, every call on us a blessing, and that the task we often find a burden is really a boon?
Peter ForsythPrayer is the atmosphere of revelation, in the strict and central sense of that word. It is the climate in which God's manifestation bursts open into inspiration.
Peter ForsythPrayer is a weapon, a mighty weapon in a terrible conflict. Our prayers are to be a continual, conscious, earnest effort of battle, the battle against whatever is not God's will.
Peter ForsythThe Living God alone can make us living men; the mighty God alone can make us mighty men; the loving God alone can make us consecrated men.
Peter ForsythWe shall come one day to a heaven where we shall gratefully know that God's great refusals were sometimes the true answers to our truest prayer.
Peter ForsythOur great need is not ardour to save man but courage to face God - courage to face God with our soul as it is, and with our Saviour as He is; to face God always thus, and so to win the power which saves and services man more than any other power can. We can never fully say "My brother!" till we have heartily said "My God!", and we can never heartily say "My God!" till we have humbly said "My Guilt!" That is the root of moral reality, of personal religion.
Peter ForsythPeople complain that the religious ground is unsure who have never compelled themselves to examine it with a tithe of the care spent on a contract; but they have taken current suggestions in a dreamy and hypnotised way. They will not attend, they will not force themselves to attend, gravely to the gravest things.... they read everything in a vagrant, browsing fashion. They turn on the most serious subjects the holiday, seaside, newspaper habit of mind
Peter ForsythPrayer is never rejected so long as we do not cease to pray. The chief failure of prayer is its cessation.
Peter ForsythThe blood of Christ stands not simply for the sting of sin on God but the scourge of God on sin, not simply for God's sorrow over sin, but for God's wrath on sin.
Peter ForsythThe greatest element in life is not what occupies most of its time, else sleep would stand high in the scale. Nor is it what engrosses most of its thought, else money would be very high. The two or three hours of worship and preaching weekly has perhaps been the greatest signal influence on English life. Half an hour of prayer, morning or evening, every day, may be a greater element in shaping our course than all our conduct and all our thought.
Peter Forsyth