ACTS PRAYER MODEL

(A) Adoration

(C) Confession

(T) Thanksgiving

(S) Supplication

-THERE IS NOT PRESCRIBED FORMULA IN THE BIBLE ABOUT HOW WE SHOULD PRAY...

-THE ACTS MODEL DOES 3 THINGS.

1. IT HELPS US DEVELOP OUR PRAYER LIFE

2. remind us of the elements of prayer

3. shows us the priority we ought to give to each.

ADORATION

-PRAISE TO GOD.

-pray is first and formost an act of worship

-It stands to reason then that our prayers should be filled with adoration of God.

-The Psalms are filled with little samples of prayers…inspired by the Holy Spirit.

-In these prayers…we find that they are heavy with praise and adoration of God.

Psalm 146 ESV

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul! I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. The Lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the Lord!

2. CONFESSION

-Probablay one of the more ignored asspects of prayer

-CONFESSION OF SIN

-THIS IS SO IMPORTANT FOR SEVERAL REASONS

-It fosters repentance.

-It reminds us who we are and who we are approaching in prayer

-Reminds us of the sGospel

-Reminds us how short we fall of his holiness and how much we need the forgiveness found in CHRIST

1 John 1:9 ESV

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

3. THANKSGIVING

Second, prayer should include confession of our sin; as we remember who we are when we come into God’s presence, we see that we have come short of His holiness and have need of His forgiveness.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 ESV

give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Remembering the grace and mercy God has shown toward us.

Psalm 100 ESV

A Psalm for giving thanks. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

4. SUPPLICATION

-This is the one we are good at

Third, when we pray, we should always give thanks, remembering the grace and mercy God has shown toward us.

-bringing our requests for the needs of others and ourselves to God.

Psalm 4:1 ESV

Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!

Psalm 5:8 ESV

Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies; make your way straight before me.

Psalm 6:4 ESV

Turn, O Lord, deliver my life; save me for the sake of your steadfast love.

Fourth, prayer rightly includes supplication or petition, bringing our requests for the needs of others and ourselves to God.

IT IS NOT SELFISH TO PRAY FOR YOURSELF…INFACT IT IS COMMANDED OF YOU AS A BELEIVER.

Matthew 6:11 ESV

Give us this day our daily bread,

Luke 18:1–18 ESV

And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’ ” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them. And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him, saying, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Luke 18:1–8 ESV

And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’ ” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

it is not a sin to pray for yourself....but you should also pray for others.

John 17:1–26 ESV

When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

I think this is a helpful acrostic for remembering both the elements and the priorities of prayer. Unfortunately, we often spell our prayer life something like S.C.A.T., because we start with supplication and spend very little time, if any, on adoration, confession, and thanksgiving.

The Lord’s Prayer

When we look at the Lord’s Prayer, we see adoration at least implied in the petition “Hallowed be Your name.” Jesus acknowledged that God’s name is holy. We certainly see confession in the petition “Forgive us our debts.” And there are supplications. However, it seems that the T is conspicuously absent. Where in the Lord’s Prayer do we find any overt expression of gratitude to God? It’s not there. That’s strange, for as the apostle Paul taught, thanksgiving should always be included in our prayers: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God” (, emphasis added).

Even though thanksgiving is not explicitly mentioned in the Lord’s Prayer, I think it is implied in the petition: “Give us this day our daily bread” (). My reason for making this assertion is simple: we are to be alert not only to the need that we have daily for food, but to the reality of God’s daily provision for our needs. That realization, of course, should induce us to an attitude of thanksgiving.