-
The acrostic ACTS stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. What would happen if each were removed from devotions? (For example, what would happen if adoration were removed from your prayers?)
-
If some parts were removed from a prayer. The prayer would become biased or one-sided. It should benefit all. First and foremost, it should Glorify God, next is for others (when we pray for others), and for us (when we pray for our personal happenings like confessing our sins, being thankful of all the blessings throughout the day, and just communicating like a father-daughter/son conversation).
-
I’m just amazed that Jesus will walk with us even though we are sinners, yes we are forgiven, but He will walk with us.
-
If we neglect adoration in our prayers, our perspective is very earth-based. We lose a sense of the greatness of God’s strength and love, and in this sense, we have no divine resources to cope with life. If we neglect thanskgiving, we become very demanding and unsatisfied people, always asking God for more, but unappreciative of what He has already given us or done for us. If we ignore confession, we encounter a blockage in getting near to God, because we have not consciously repented of our sins. If we ignore supplication, we become helpless – we only depend on ourselves and we don’t have the peace of God. Supplication has another component of intercession for others, and may I add that, if we neglect this, we become very self-centred people, unable to see, empathize with and pray for the needs of others. That is why the full spectrum of A-C-T-S should characterize our prayer lives.
-
If each were removed from my prayer, then it would be just self-centered prayer and not God-centered.
-
Sometimes it’s not what we think we know until someone else says something that makes you look at it differently.