When You Pray

In keeping with the theme of adding things to our lives for Lent, I want to encourage you to consider adding or growing your commitment to prayer. But as I talk about prayer, I don’t simply mean stopping to ask God for something or saying a quick blessing before you eat. What I mean is praying as a focused and intentional time of worship that goes further than just making our requests known to God.

We can use many different tools to help us grow in prayer. I like the acrostic A.C.T.S. – Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication. Each represents different types of prayer that align us with God, moving us toward agreement with Him that He is “great and greatly to be praised” while also voicing our needs, concerns, sorrows, and shame.

Adoration – is our agreement with God that He is greater and more glorious than anyone or anything else in all creation. When Jesus taught the disciples to pray, this is where He started, “Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name” (Matt 6:9-13). The Psalms are full of these proclamations of praise. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians praises God both for who He is, “God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and for all He has done to save His people from their sin (Eph 1:3-14).

Confession – is our agreement with God about our own sin and shame. This is a natural progression from praising God for His inherent holiness to being honest about our lack of holiness. Peter understood immediately when He realized the truth about Jesus. He responded, “Depart from me for I am a sinful man” (Lk 5:8). This moves us to prayer from a posture of humility, seeking God in grace and mercy rather than from self-righteous entitlement. Again, Jesus teaches His disciples, including Peter, to pray this way as they seek the Lord’s forgiveness. David models it for us by confessing his sin in Psalm 51, especially regarding its offense against God, “against you only have I sinned” (Ps 51:4).

Thanksgiving – is our agreement that God’s work according to God’s will in our lives is more than sufficient or satisfactory and should be celebrated. It will be difficult to sincerely thank God if all we can do is focus on what we don’t have or how He hasn’t worked. “Every good gift is from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). “Give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess 5:18). As bad as it may get in the day-to-day, there is always reason to be grateful. If you’re struggling to find one, let me remind you of what I learned from Jeremiah Burroughs: You could be in hell.

Supplication – is our agreement with God that we need Him not only to meet our spiritual need but also our physical needs. He alone is self-sufficient. We need Him. We are dependent on Him. So yes, in confession, we confess our sin and need for forgiveness, but in supplication, we confess our weakness and need for His protection and provision. We call on Him in need of His presence and guidance every day and moment by moment in the day. Paul closes the letter to the church in Ephesus with a call to pray in every way for all the saints (Eph 6:18-20). Even when we don’t have a specific request, we can pray for each other that God’s will would be done in us and through us for His glory, our good, and the advancement of the Gospel.
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