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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?)
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I see these as steps of humility leading us to interact with God as He deserves. Instead of coming into His presence asking for things first, we praise Him simply for who He is. We then let His Word and Spirit search our hearts for any unconfessed sin, agreeing with Him and repenting thereof. Thirdly, we thank Him for His goodness, kindness, and faithfulness in all our lives. and lastly, we then set our needs before Him, following the pattern in The Our Father and in Philippians 4:6>
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Removing adoration would leave more room for us to be more focused on ourselves, as well as forgetting who God is which puts our requests, confession, and thanksgiving all in their place.
Removing confession could lead to pride, and even broken relationship with the Father that we feel ashamed about.
Removing thanksgiving keeps us from giving God the praise and glory for what He’s done and is doing in our lives. We aren’t grateful.
Removing supplication could lead to us thinking we can do things in our own strength.
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Remove adoration and we remove an important aspect of worshipping God and reminding us of his character! Remove confession and we begin to take sin lightly. There is a priestly aspect of the work of Jesus taking our sin before the Father. Confession is our part of agreeing with Jesus of the seriousness of our sin and laying it before the Father. Remove thanksgiving and we allow pride to creep in. Thanksgiving reminds us how good God is and how He blesses us! Remove supplication and we may try to act in my own strength to get things done. Jesus WANTS us to ask.
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Adoration is places our perspective in the right place for prayer. Adoration reminds us who our God is and that even if we don’t get the answer to our prayer when and how we ask, we can trust that He is God and is good. In adoration we remind ourselves that He alone is enough.
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We’d be missing out on-each piece has it’s benefits and brings us closer to God and if we leave one of those out, we’d be missing out on that benefit to draw closer or to hear from God.
