by Robert Krumrey
We have been looking at the acrostic A.C.T.S. in our winter break sermon series. It’s something that Christians have used for years to help them pray in a more meaningful (and biblical) way. It stands for the following:
A - Adoration
C - Confession
T - Thanksgiving
S - Supplication (or the making of requests)
You can find this pattern throughout scripture from the encounters of individuals with God to specific teaching on prayer including the Lord’s Prayer or model prayer that is given to us by Jesus in Matthew 6 and Luke 11. Over the last three weeks you’ve heard sermons on the first three of these themes and next Sunday we’ll finish up the fourth and final theme.
Our hope has been that these sermons would help mature your prayer life and deepen your daily experience of the living God. So what does this look like when you “try this at home”? My suggestion is that you start with reading a text from scripture. Most of us struggle to adore God and confess sin and make proper prayer requests if we try to do this in a vacuum. We need the initiation from God first through his word and then we can respond with prayer back to him.
For example, let’s say you read a text like the following:
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Ephesians 4:32
Adoration
There are several prompts in this very short verse of scripture that can help us know how to ADORE God. Ask yourself what any verse in the Bible says about the person of God. What he is like? The answer to this question will be scripturally informed ways to praise God for who he truly is. Our prayerful response to this verse could be, “God you are kind and tenderhearted. You are forgiving. You have proven this by sending your Son. I couldn’t approach you with worship and adoration, if you hadn’t first shown your kindness toward me in Christ. I praise you for being so good.”
Confession
Once we get a better look at the character of God we now look at our own character. This ushers us into a time of CONFESSION. Our prayerful response to the verse could be, “God, I am NOT tenderhearted and forgiving. Especially toward _____________. This shows my lack of love for others. A love that I cannot exhibit without your intervention into my life. Please forgive me and grant me repentance by your grace so that I can be tenderhearted and forgiving toward others just as you were to me.”
Thanksgiving
After confession, we should feel a weight being lifted off of our souls. A reminder that we have been completely forgiven in Christ because of his death on the cross which was an all sufficient payment for our sins and sinful condition. If we are still feeling as if we are under condemnation, we go back to confession. Confessing that we are lacking in our ability to believe in the gospel that has set us free from sin’s penalty and power. Once we feel like we’ve functionally (positionally this is true regardless of feelings) moved into that place of knowing the forgiveness that comes to us in Christ, we now move into THANKSGIVING. “I thank you God for your tenderhearted forgiveness that you have given me at the cross. For the gift of your Son Jesus and all that his death, burial, and resurrection mean to me both in this life and the life to come. Thank you not only for forgiveness for sin, but also for the victory over sin that is mine through God the Son in the power of God the Spirit.”
Supplication
Now that we have Adored God, Confessed to God, and Thanked God, we can make requests (SUPPLICATION). Continue to allow the scripture reading to prompt you in these prayers as well. “God give me grace to be tenderhearted and forgiving toward _______________ . As you have been kind to me, help me be kind to _______________. I pray for my spouse, my children, my church, my pastor, my discipleship group members, my friends . . . that they would come to know your tenderhearted forgiveness in Christ OR that they (if they are Christians) would be given grace to show tender and forgiving hearts to their spouse, children, church, coworkers . . .
This kind of devotional reading of scripture can be an incredibly helpful tool for deepening your prayer life. If I don’t do this, I find myself praying the same things over and over. Those same things tend to be “make life comfortable for me and the one’s I love, Amen”. These prayers are not all bad, but they are certainly not informed by scripture and completely in line with the person of God and his mission on the earth of saving the lost and conforming them the the image of Christ.
There’s no better time than the present, pick a scripture right now and use it to inform a time of prayer using the A.C.T.S. acrostic!