People struggle to know how to pray. While most people have a sense of shame or skittishness about it, they won’t ask for instruction. But here’s the thing: even the Disciples (those disciples, the ones who followed Jesus everywhere and became the foundation of the church) asked how to pray. Our Lord provided the Lord’s Prayer as a perfect concentration of the types of petitions we ought to ask for in prayer.
Still, in modern days, there has arisen an acronym to help people know how to move through prayer: “ACTS.” You may have heard of it. It stands for “Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication.” As you move through prayer, you can work through this acronym as a way to structure your thoughts and express your desires to God.
I was (and am) unsure of where this acronym came from. I thought it might be a contemporary invention, similar to the “A.B.C.’s” of conversion (Accept, Believe, and Confess). It seemed pious enough, but I wasn’t sure if it had any precedent.
As I found out during my studies for preaching the Lord’s Prayer, while the acronym itself may be contemporary (again, I don’t know where it came from), the structure itself has roots early in the church. I was reading some works by the church fathers and came across what is essentially a version of the “ACTS” model in the works of Origen, which means that what I’ll provide below could be an explanation of that practice. (Caveat: Origen was later condemned for some doctrines he taught, but his teaching in many areas has still been accepted by Christians through the centuries). He does not follow the same pattern exactly since he places “thanksgiving” before “confession” but the content is the same.
Adoration
At the beginning of prayer, in a preface, glory should be ascribed to God according to one’s ability, through Christ who is glorified with him, in the Holy Spirit who is to be hymned with him.
Thanksgiving
After this we should each place thanksgiving, both general, enumerating all the benefits that are extended to so many, and for which thanks are given, and those particular blessings which each has personally received from God.
Confession
After thanksgiving, it seems to me that we should become a pungent accuser of our own sins before God, first so that we can ask healing, to be delivered from the disposition that instigates sin and second to gain forgiveness for past actions.
Supplication (Petitions/Requests)
After confession, it seems to me that we should add in the fourth place petition for what is great and heavenly, for ourselves and for people in general, and also for our family and friends.
Moving from the adoration of God to thanksgiving for his benefits to confession of our own unworthiness and faults to requests for holiness is a simple, yet profound, movement of the soul as we draw near to God. In following this pattern, one need not feel the “skittishness” that often creeps in as you approach the Lord. It is good for you to praise him, good for you to give thanks to him, good for you to thereby recognize your own sins against him, and, finally, good to ask things from his hand.
I hope this “short guide” to prayer is helpful to you as you seek the things that are above.
You can see his (and others’) treatments of prayer (and the Lord’s Prayer in particular) here.
Reformed. Baptist. Growing. 