Just Ask Reconsidering the ACTS Prayer……I remember just where I was sitting when I first learned about the right way to pray. It was in the upper room of the Indiana University Commons. I was twenty years old, and had just become a Christian. I was surrounded by my new Christian friends, and we were listening to an older man talk to us about prayer. The point of the message was to teach us the polite way to talk to God. The speaker pointed out that when we pray, we usually tend to petition God for what we need without giving much thought to praising Him, thanking Him, or to confession. This, he said, was very selfish. ……Enter the ACTS prayer.……ACTS is an acronymn to help you remember what order the elements of prayer should go in.

A is for Adoration, he said, and should always be the first thing we communicate to God.

C is for confession, which should be the next part of our prayers.

T is for Thanksgiving, to thank God for all He has done for us, and only after those three elements of prayer are completed should we move on to

S, which is supplication ├ö├ç├┤ asking God for what we need and want. ……This sounds really good, doesn't it? Very pious. Problem is, it's not biblical.……Acronymns aside, in my experience there are two kinds of prayer. The first kind happens when my heart is overflowing with fear, need, or joy and my mouth just opens up and tells God about what I'm feeling and what I need from Him. It is dependent prayer, and I am like a baby bird with my mouth open waiting for God to put something in. The other type of prayer is when I come to God dispassionately and religiously, thinking that if I just remember to appease Him with A├ö├ç┬¬ C├ö├ç┬¬ T├ö├ç┬¬ that He'll grant me what I ask for when I get to S. ……Many people will say that the ACTS prayer, or what I call "dispassionate" prayer, is simply a "spiritual discipline" that we must do to keep ourselves tuned up spiritually. But what does the Bible say about discipline? ……"It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?… We have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." ├ö├ç├┤ Hebrews 12:7-11……How do we grow in holiness and righteousness?

By rituals and spiritual disciplines?

No, by God's discipline.

What's the difference? ……Self-discipline is usually something difficult, yet doable, that makes us feel that we have sacrificed in some way. A way of praying, for example, that silences the heart's needs. A vow of chastity that silences a man's desire for physical intimacy. A missionary life that silences a woman's desire for marriage and children. It's a trade-off. We want God to be pleased with us, so we offer Him something we secretly desire. In this way, many Christians discipline themselves vainly, ignoring the provision of God and stabbing their Isaacs to the heart to pay a debt that has already been paid by Christ. ……God's discipline, on the other hand, is entirely outside of our control. His act of conforming us to the image of His Son is HIS work ├ö├ç├┤ not ours (Romans 8:29). It happens because He decided it would happen, and usually in ways that we would never choose for ourselves. A chronic illness leaves a man constantly exhausted and struggling to provide for his family. A woman watching her body age while her one desire for a child is thwarted year after year. A young man makes a mistake and loses the career he loves. War, cancer, depression, persecution├ö├ç┬¬ these are the things God uses in a Christian's life to make us perfect and complete in Him. ……"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."James 1:2-4……Again, how does God's discipline come? Through trials, and through our faith being tested. Could we (and honestly, would we?) inflict upon ourselves the kind of trials and tests that would actually give us the discipline we need? Of course not. That's like waiting for your child to give himself a spanking. ……"O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?"Galatians 3:1-3……The ACTS prayer, and other "spiritual disciplines" are simply methods for us to perfect ourselves by works of the flesh. They are not Biblical and they should not be encouraged. ……There's a story that is used to defend the need for spiritual disciplines. It goes like this: ……Once upon a time, a group of men from Chicago left their jobs in the high-rise office buildings, moved to the prairie, and bought some farmland. “We’re farmers!” They all declared to each other. And all summer long they would go to the field to watch their crop grow up. However, when September rolled in, their fields were filled with goldenrod and all kinds of wildflowers and weeds. “Where’s the corn?” they asked each other. And they wondered what they could have possibly done wrong. ……The moral of this little agrarian story is this: "Just because you're a Christian doesn't mean that you're going to automatically grow spiritually. You've got to do something. God isn't going to help you unless you help yourself." But the truth is that Christians are never described in the Bible as "farmers" who are responsible for their own growth. We are the grapes on the Vine. We're the seeds in the good soil. We're the crop, and God is the responsible farmer. And what He has planted and tended will grow (Phil. 1:6). ……"But wait," someone will say, "what about the verses that tell us to strive towards holiness?" ……Let's address this, because it is important. There are lots of verses about cleansing ourselves, and striving to be holy, and other such commands (2 Corinthians 7:1; Luke 13:24). If God does everything and we don't need to discipline ourselves, what do these verses mean? Well, a crop of corn develops like corn. And humans develop like humans. And Christians develop like Christians. And part of a Christian's natural development is the tendency to strive and cleanse and pursue holiness. But what we must recognize is that God is still responsible for that growth. ……I guess if there is anything I want you to take away, it's this: Please, Christians, stop being afraid of your own desires. Stop pushing your own needs to the side and laying your hearts on the altar. God has been fully satisfied by what Christ did on the cross. There's nothing left to do, or to give. If you truly want to give God something, give it like Hannah gave Samuel ├ö├ç├┤ out of thankfulness for what He's done for you, or out of love for who He is. ……But let's not give things up, adore Him, confess to Him or thank Him just because we think He needs something from us before He can feel good about blessing us. He isn't petty. There's no trade-off. He's a generous Father, and He knows our needs before we ask. ……So just ask.