Along with an attitude of constant prayer, I believe
Christians should have set times of prayer every day if possible. For the
person who claims to have no time for prayer, I must ask if their relationship
with God is genuine. Can anyone honestly say they love another deeply but
refuse to communicate with them when the means are readily available? If the
daily schedule truly is full, I suggest setting the alarm a little earlier; God
will reward the effort far beyond the loss of a few minutes of sleep.
I will admit that being retired allows me the privilege of
spending considerably more time in prayer than I could while working. However,
anyone who really wants to can carve out a bit of time to attempt something
like I am going to suggest. I am going to draw from my book, A
Life of Prayer, for these suggestions. I adapted them from the
well-known acronym ACTS for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication.
I added an “I” for intercession. I follow the ACTSI pattern every day with the
people and circumstances currently on my heart.
“A” is for adoration. I have expanded this to include
several more “A” words. I begin my prayer time expressing my adoration
for God because of all He has done for me. I acclaim Him as my Lord. I admire
Him for His excellence. I often use Scripture passages such as 1
Chronicles 29:11-14 or Revelation
5:12-13 or others to recite the glory due to God. I then turn inward to accept
God’s grace and mercy I so badly need; I affirm His authority over my
life and my family; I align myself with His will for my life. I often
pray Scripture that supports each of those actions. That’s a bunch of “A” words
to ground my prayers in God’s Word and His will for me.
The “C” in ACTS is for confession. I begin by agreeing with
Scripture that I am not worthy to receive all the wonderful things God has
granted me. I confess that without the robe of Jesus’ righteousness upon me, I
am a needy, fallen creature. I try to recall any faulty actions or inactions
that occur to me and ask for forgiveness. I confess that without the Spirit’s
help, I am powerless to live as I am supposed to as Christ’s brother. This is
the essence of confession: we tell God what He already knows about us. This act
has a cleansing effect for me.
What follows naturally from confession is the “T” for
thanksgiving. I thank Jesus that He bore my sin – paid the penalty that I owed.
I thank the Lord for His time on earth demonstrating how I am supposed to live.
I thank the Father for being willing to send His Son. I thank God for giving us
the Word so we can get to know Him and learn what He expects of us. I thank God
for the innumerable blessings He has bestowed throughout my life: my wife, my
children and grandchildren, our financial security, our health (relative though
it may be), my opportunities to serve Him, the air I breathe, the beauty of the
earth, and even the trials He sends because I know they are designed to help me
grow up into Christ.
The “S” in ACTS is for supplication. As you might imagine,
by this point in my morning prayers I have already spent a bit of time. I
believe this is important because I need to have the right attitude before I
ask God for anything. The “A” and the “C” and the “T” should have put me in my
place relative to my Heavenly Father: His humble servant expecting nothing but
reveling in His incredible grace. I try to follow the advice of Graham
Cooke who said we should seek God’s will concerning our requests before we
begin to pray for them.
This practice should be used before praying for someone’s
healing, I ask God several questions before I begin to pray for healing. Is He
calling the person home to be with Him; healing would postpone that wonderful
reality. Has He allowed the sickness to bring about growth in the person or
someone around him. If you are praying for a person’s deliverance from another
type of trial, the same approach would be appropriate. If you are asking for a
material blessing – a car, a new home, or anything physical – you should wait
to hear from God whether it is something He wishes you to have. If you truly
believe prayer is a dialogue, you can wait for God’s response before you pray
for anything specific.
While you are waiting for clarity about a request, you can
still pray “generic” prayers such as God’s blessing or the person’s openness to
whatever God is doing or for peace within the circle of the person’s family and
friends. It is possible to pray that God’s will be done even when we don’t know
what it is. That is how we align ourselves with whatever God wants to do in the
situation. This underscores the need to be listening as well as speaking during
our prayer time.
I once had a dear
friend who had terminal cancer. Our whole church prayed fervently that God
would miraculously heal him. He did not. In the midst of those prayers though,
we saw our friend’s witness grow immeasurably as he testified to God’s grace in
his life, and we turned our prayers into thanksgiving. That man undoubtedly
affected more people in his last couple years than in all the time before that.
We still miss him, but we marvel at the living lesson of God’s grace that he
showed everyone he came in contact with because of the cancer he ultimately
succumbed to.
I have added an “I” to ACTS to emphasize the intercessory
nature of many prayers. It is a form of supplication, but it involves asking
on behalf of someone else. When someone else is undergoing a serious trial, I
can intercede on their behalf by asking God to strengthen them. When someone is
seeking God’s will about a life circumstance, I can ask God to make His plan
known. When someone is undertaking a vital ministry task, I can pray for God’s
special anointing on their work. As my prayer life has grown over the years, I
find myself asking less for myself while increasingly interceding for others.
There is nothing wrong with asking God for personal blessings. However, as the
Spirit grows agape-love in your heart, you will find you are more concerned
with the welfare of others than of your own.
There is another type of intercession that my sister
introduced me to years ago. I think it perfectly fulfills the command to pray continually.
My sister told me she prayed what she called prayer bombs. For example, when
she hears a siren, she immediately prays that the blood of Jesus would cover
the situation whatever it may be. When she sees people arguing or being
difficult in public, she prays God’s peace upon them. I took the idea to heart,
and as one example, every time I drove past an abortion clinic on my way to
school, I prayed that the women inside would change their mind and keep their
baby. I admit I also prayed that the whole place would go out of business. (No,
I did not pray for a real bomber to make that happen.)
There is one other type of prayer that I occasionally use:
warfare prayer. The Apostle Paul often uses warfare imagery to describe our
lives as believers. One of the clearest examples is in Ephesians: “Put on the
full armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the stratagems of
the devil, because our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the
rulers, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness,
against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
We are in a cosmic battle against God’s arch enemy. There are times when rather
than praying for something, I feel led to pray against something.
Sometimes I must pray against the enemy’s efforts in my own life. Other times,
often lately, I feel compelled to pray against the powers of darkness at work
in our society either specifically or generally. These prayers are a necessary
part of our work on behalf of the Kingdom of God.
That is how I make prayer meaningful in my life. I have a
prayer prompter in my computer version of the Faithlife/Logos
Bible study program that presents my list of prayer concerns daily, weekly,
or on a custom schedule. I pray for each of them as they come up and add
whatever else God lays on my heart. I am not suggesting you copy my practice exactly.
However, I can testify that being intentional in my prayers and being
disciplined to do something every day has been a blessing to me, and I trust that
many others have also been blessed because I prayed. Whether you have only a
few minutes each day or you have hours to give to prayer, doing so will make your
life better, and the kingdom of God will advance if you pray like you mean it.
Related Posts: A Prayer
Primer; In Jesus’
Name; Moving
Mountains