A.C.T.S. Part 1

I really don’t know who started it, or when it all began, but the A.C.T.S. method of prayer is a useful tool given to Christians as an aid to prayer. The acronym is simple and easy to remember and while not the catch all of all prayer, it certainly is a good place to start.

A is for adoration. C is for confession. T is for thanksgiving, and S is for supplication. We are all usually quick to supplicate, (make requests) but not so quick to do the other three.  How quickly we forget that thanksgiving part mentioned in Php 4:6, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;”

 

Just recently, I have dusted off this method of praying in my own devotional life, and it’s been eye opening and refreshing to me. I start out with singing a praise hymn or chorus and then move on to confessing my sins of the past day. There are days when my preceding days sins hit my like a ton of bricks with my name stenciled on them, but other times the specifics escape me, and I begin to think more highly of myself than I ought! It’s times like this that I reach for the Lutheran hymnal and use the general confession as a guideline.

  

Almighty God, my Maker and Redeemer. I a poor sinner confess unto you that I am by nature sinful and unclean, and that I have sinned against You in my thoughts, my words, and my deeds, and by what I have done and left undone. Therefore I flee for refuge to Your infinite mercy and ask You for Christ’s sake to grant me forgiveness of all my sins, and by Your Holy Spirit increase in me, true knowledge of You  and of Your will, and true obedience to Your word, to the end that by Your grace I may come to eternal life, through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.

 

This confession is typically used on Sunday’s, but I’m finding I need it a lot more than once a week. How about you? I’m Duane Matz and that’s today’s Living Word