A couple of quotes to ponder

Here's a couple of quotes today to get us reflecting on the doctrine of God and His grace in revelation.

'He who prays for something thinks, first of all, of his own need and want and embarrassment, and loses himself in the Being of his God no further than that with Him there is power and might by which God can come to the help of his suppliant’s need. On the other hand, he who worships loses himself in God, forgets himself, in order to think of God alone, to let the lustrous beams of God’s virtues shine upon him, and to cause to radiate forth from his own soul the reflex of the greatness of God as it mirrors itself in his deeply moved and wonder-wrapped soul.”
Abraham Kuyper, Near Unto God

All our controversies concerning doctrine relate either to the legitimate worship of God, or to the ground of salvation. As to the former, certainly we exhort men to worship God in neither a frigid nor a careless manner; and while we point out the way, we neither lose sight of the end, nor omit anything which is relevant to the matter. We proclaim the glory of God in terms far loftier than it was wont to be proclaimed before; and we earnestly labor to make the perfections in which his glory shines better and better known. His benefits towards ourselves we extol as eloquently as we can. Thus men are incited to reverence his majesty, render due homage to his greatness, feel due gratitude for his mercies, and unite in showing forth his praise. In this way there is infused into their hearts that solid confidence which afterwards gives birth to prayer. In this way too each one is trained to genuine self-denial, so that his will being brought into obedience to God, he bids farewell to his own desires. In short, as God requires us to worship him in a spiritual manner, so we with all zeal urge men to all the spiritual sacrifices which he commends.
John Calvin “The Necessity of Reforming the Church”