I have written before about the acronym A.C.T.S. and its use in the discipline of prayer.
A.C.T.S. stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication.
Many of us struggle to keep our prayers God-focused rather than me-focused. The
tendency is for personal needs, concerns, and desires to dominate prayer times.
A.C.T.S. is a helpful device for giving structure to our prayers which can help
them be more balanced and biblical.
Adoration means to praise and speak well of God.
This portion of our prayer time should be focused solely on the Lord, how great
and good and holy and perfect He is in every way. This is not the time for
talking about how God has blessed you. It is time to solely focus on saying
good things about Him. Confession is
admitting our sins, faults, and continuing need for God’s grace. We are to
confess our sins, not just that we
have sinned (1Jn. 1:9). Be specific with God, express your grief for your
wrongs, and ask the Lord to be merciful to you. Thanksgiving is expressing gratitude for God’s blessings. This
where we pray about what God has done for us, the many ways in which we benefit
from His providence and grace. Count your blessings, name them one by one, and
tell God how grateful you are for each of them. Supplication is asking the Lord for the help and blessings we need.
This includes spiritual and physical requests both for yourself and others.
Jesus taught us to pray for our daily bread, and Paul’s letters provide helpful
insights in praying for our spiritual growth as well.
Some people struggle
to spend extended time in focused prayer. Here again A.C.T.S. can be very
helpful. Discipline yourself to spend 2 minutes praising God’s greatness, then
2 minutes confessing your faults, then 4 minutes thanking God for your
blessings, and finally 2 minutes asking God to work in your life. Repeat those
10 minutes of prayer 3 times a day, morning, noon, and night, and you will spend
half an hour in prayer every day, which is considerably more than you may have
been doing before. A.C.T.S. is a simple way to organize and balance your prayer
time, and I pray it will be a blessing to you. -JME
