Prayer

There are so many ways to pray. We can pray with our eyes open or closed. We can pray aloud or silently. We can speak our prayers or sing them. Any way to communicate with God is appropriate when you are seeking Him. And since, we are looking for what prayer is, I decided to look to a speaker, teacher, and author on this very subject, as well as the Bible. Truth be told, if I wanted to, I could probably write a book on prayer just going through all of the prayers exemplified in the Bible. But there are enough resources out there to do a deep dive on prayer if you would rather. This is a peak into pushing out all of the chaos and chatter in the mind, and focus our hearts on God. Prayer is time spent conversing with the One True God. He is seeking relationship with us, and we are seeking relationship.

Reading different resources, I found a great acronym that has helped me enrich my prayers. This acronym that I will explain is used in various settings from adult ministry, kids ministry, and home. One resource led me to a short explanation of it, which I am going to add to here.

But first, what is prayer? Greg Ogden defined prayer as “transparent dialogue”. He states, “It is a conversation with God in which we address Him and in quiet are addressed by Him.” He goes on to describe four types of prayer which is easier to remember by the acronym ACTS.

According to Ogden, the ‘A’ stands for “adoration: appreciating God for who He is apart from what He has done for us.” Beginning our prayer with adoration places us in the right mindset for coming to the Almighty Creator of the Universe. He is much much bigger than we give Him credit for. I think that we get a skewed image of Him because of how near He comes to us and because of how He seeks to have a relationship with us. We see Him seeking us, and we place more importance on ourselves than what should be placed. He is holy and pure. He is Spirit and Life. He is able to wipe out everything with a mere thought. He brought about everything with mere Word. We give Him adoration and admiration and glory and honor for who He is: the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.

Following adoration, we find ourselves, according to Ogden, at ‘C’ for “confession: acknowledging to God our specific sin and seeking His pardon.” Now that we put our hearts right, appreciating who God is, which is perfection, we can now see our standing compared to Him and His statutes. He set before humanity commands to follow for our good. We still mess up. And so we humbly come before God, telling Him what He already knows, but what He wants us to tell Him in relationship. We confess the wrong thoughts, words, and deeds. Again, He knows everything (1 Jn. 3:20). We can’t hide anything from Him. There is no good reason to lie to Him or ourselves. Just come out and say the truth so that you can receive healing and forgiveness.

After we confess, we come to the ‘T’ in the acronym. The ‘T’ stands for “thanksgiving: appreciating God for His benefit to us.” We thank Him for all of the things He has done, is continuing to do, and will do for and through us and others. This is where I thank Him for forgiving me, remembering in 1 John 1:9, which says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (ESV).”He forgives AND cleanses us. This is definitely worth thanking Him. Also, if He has answered any past prayers, this is where I try to remember to acknowledge that and thank Him for them. Even when I am feeling so down, and I feel as though nothing is going well, I thank Him for the basic things like Jesus, salvation, life, breath, and such.

Finally, we come to ‘S’. This is what Ogden calls “supplication: interceding for ourselves or others according to God’s will.” This is not a ‘name-it-and-claim-it’ type of prayer. Notice the last four words of this definition of supplication: “according to God’s will”. God is perfect. He knows everything. He knows what will happen if what you ask for is answered in the affirmative. He knows your heart better than you do. He knows your motivation behind your supplications. As difficult as it is being tempted by our fleshly desires, we must fight against the sinful, selfish desires and look to Godly, selfless requests. If you are anything like me, you can reason just about anything as “good”. However, God knows what is best. Jesus teaches us to “ask, seek, and knock” in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), but in John, Jesus says:

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give it to you. (John 15:16, ESV)

Earlier on in that chapter, Jesus was teaching His disciples about abiding in Him. If God’s people truly abide in Jesus, they will desire what He desires and will pray according to His words, and those prayers will be pleasing to Him. When we abide in Jesus, His words abide in His believers, which transforms our thinking to that which is more akin to His will than to ours. We become more and more sanctified as we abide in Him and get His words in us. So the things that we ask for, according to God’s will, will be answered in turn. God is so good to us. He gave Paul some inner circle intelligence to pass on to us. In Romans 8, he says, “and we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose (v.28, ESV).” God weaves everything together or good for His children. The good in this context does not refer to earthly comfort but conformity to Christ, which is shown to us as we continue to read Romans 8. Good also refers to a closer relationship with God, bearing good fruit for the kingdom, and final glorification. It is also to share with God the burdens of each other. As we bring forward the thoughts that we have for others around us, we share with Him our hearts and seek guidance in helping.

Before, during, and after conversation, remember to listen to Him speak as well. Conversations are not good when they are one-sided. Relationships are not good when they are one-sided either. And the ultimate goal to prayer is building up our relationship with God. That love is not a stagnant, but it is continuously flowing. God is so good to us.

Gotta go fill up my cup…..