2 Chron 7:12-14, Then the Lord appeared to Solomon at night and said to him, "I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. 
As a statement of due credit, we are using material adapted from The Battle Plan for Prayer Bible Study Curriculum, developed by Stephen and Alex Kendrick. We are considering several practical aspects of prayer as the means of the spiritual growth of the Lord’s Church on earth today. 
There is so much that is taking place in our society and in our nation which shows the urgent need for the Church to humble herself and to turn from her wicked ways and to seek the face of the Lord in earnest and reverent and effective prayer. This is not a time for complacency or laxness in the hearts of the people of God. Our nation, our church, our communities, our families, our marriages, our entire beings are in need of God’s forgiveness and healing. 
Accordingly, as we proceed, we need to consider the basic types of prayer that are brought before the Lord by His people. We will use the acronym, ACTS, A-C-T-S, to help us in this consideration. Many of you may already know what this means and this will be but a review, yet a valid and hopefully instructive reinforcement of the manner of our prayers. Kip mentioned this at a men’s meeting with the focus on using it as the pattern of each of our prayers.
The letter A - stands for Adoration. The Psalmist, in Ps 19:1+2, makes known that creation, itself, honors the Lord by declaring the glory of the Creator. Ps 19:1+2, The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, And night to night reveals knowledge. 
Accordingly, we, as part of the creation of God should be offering Him the praise and adoration and worship that He, Alone, deserves. Again listen to the Psalmist in Ps 150, verse 6, with the reinforcement that highlights the fact that everything that is living and draws breath is to praise the Lord. Ps 150, verse 6, Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!
Note that this is a command! We are to praise the Lord with the heartfelt acknowledgement that He is worthy of the praise and the adoration and the declaration of His glory. As His people, we should be enthralled with the opportunity that we are given, in Jesus Christ, to proclaim His name and His honor and His Sovereignty and His Majesty.
Again, the Psalmist, in Ps 119, verse 164, expounds the truth that God deserves the perfect praise of His people in the example of praising Him 7 times a day. The number 7, Biblically, indicates spiritual perfection and completeness. Ps 119, verse 164, Seven times a day I praise Thee, Because of Thy righteous ordinances. God is worthy to be praised and we are to lift up prayers of adoration and worship in love unto Him. 
This adoration should be in response to God’s goodness and greatness. It should fill our hearts and minds with the reminder of Who He is as the Lord God Almighty. It should be evidenced in the recounting of all that He has done and is doing in our lives and within the fabric of the Church Universal. It should fully expound upon the recognition of His Holiness and His Majesty above all of that which He has created. And it should be a complete rejoicing in His Name above all names. 
This adoration is to be the binding focus of every prayer offered unto Him. Each prayer should begin with the reality of God’s worthiness to be praised, and be filled with that truth in our heart’s consideration of unto Whom we are in communication as we pray.
Proceeding forth, the letter C - stands for Confession. This follows the fact of the worthiness of God to be adored and the reality that we are not worthy, in ourselves, to even be in the presence of the Most Holy and Awesome Lord God Almighty if not for His saving grace in Jesus Christ. Accordingly, we humble ourselves in the confession of our utter lack, and His gracious and merciful and endless supply.
When we fail or sin, we come to Him in prayer as so stipulated by the Apostle John, in 1 John 1:8+9. This confession is an agreement with God that we need Him because we are incapable of living the life that fully honors Him without His work in us to cleanse us and to guide us and to direct us. 
1 John 1:8+9, If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 
A key component of this confession is the true and honest desire to not continue in that sin. We are earnestly beseeching the Lord to cleanse us from all unrighteousness in order to live a life that is an honoring and truth filled testimony to His gracious and merciful work of salvation. We turn from that sin, as declared by the Apostle Paul in Rom 6:1-14. As we read this passage together, it would be a good time to stand up for as long as possible.
Rom 6:1-14, What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. Amen. You may be seated.
    	By truly confessing, coming into complete agreement with God that our sin has no place in our lives any longer, we are counting on Him, and committing ourselves to the truth that He has given us His grace and His strength and His wisdom to not commit that sin any longer. We are in utter reliance upon Him and coming to Him in an open and honest vow of relationship in which we want nothing more to do with anything that does not please Him. 
	Brother James, in James 3:2, highlights the fact that we are not perfect and that we do stumble at times. James 3:2, For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well. Because of this, we all must come to God with repentance for the things that we have done, humbling ourselves under His mighty Hand. We all must beseech Him to bring us into that perfection which serves to honor His Holiness.
	This heart of repentance with its accompanying attitude of shame and guilt for wrongdoing is not part of our current society. Instead, there is a belligerent stance of defiance and an arrogant mind-set of entitlement that has infested the core focus of the culture of Western Civilization. 
Rather than the recognition that we must humbly come before the Holy Lord God, we feel that we merit His attention and we deserve His blessings as if we were His master and He were our Butler. We need to humbly implore God to cause us to be indwelled with the spirit of repentance and shame for our haughtiness and stubborn self-centeredness. 
	True repentance is the seed that is planted in the soil of deep intercession that brings forth spiritual revival. It is a broken heartedness that is desperate for God, a brokenness that brings the presence of God. Prayer without repentance never bears the fruit of transformation of the culture. That is why we are told in our umbrella passage, if My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. 
	Continuing with the acronym ACTS the, the letter T – stands for Thanksgiving. God longs for us and encourages us over and over again to be thankful for all the blessings that we receive from Him. As we read, and sometimes even sing, the command given in Ps 100, verses 4+5 is that we are to come before Him with thankfulness. Ps 100:4+5, Enter His gates with thanksgiving, And His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him; bless His name. For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting, And His faithfulness to all generations. 
    	Also consider what the Writer to the Hebrews details for us in Heb 13:15. Heb 13:15, Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. 
	As well, the Apostle Paul puts the following before us in Eph 5:18-20. Eph 5:18-20, And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father… 
We are to be thankful and to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving as we praise and adore Him. This is to be the essence of how we pray. Even as we are in distress and in dire circumstances, there should be that core element of thanksgiving with which we honor God for Who He is and all that He is accomplishing in our lives. 
As a most potent reminder, we call to mind Rom 8:28, that most familiar and wondrous promise of God in the midst of everything that is going on in our lives. Rom 8:28, And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. 
We need to learn to look beyond the circumstances and learn to see the work of God that is taking place. We need to learn to be thankful that He loves us enough to so manifest His Omnipotent and gracious and merciful Hand upon us in every detail of each situation. We need to learn to thank Him for the truth that He wants to present us spotless and without any stain of this earthly existence when His perfect work is accomplished in us.
There are so many aspects to thankfulness which we often neglect to take to mind. Thanksgiving transforms us. It calms our complaints in the midst of each hard time. It causes us to quit whining and criticizing and protesting our dilemmas. Thankfulness gives us joy, bringing forth contentment with what we have and an attitude of rejoicing in the fullness of our placement into Jesus Christ.
Thanksgiving also transforms our relationship with God, as detailed in Col 3:15-17. Col 3:15-17, And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father. 
	Notice how our relationship with God is changed as we come to Him in our prayers of thanksgiving. We have the peace of Christ ruling us. We are no longer subject to the fear and trepidation in the course of our experiences on this earth. We know that He is in charge of our lives and, accordingly, we are indwelled with all wisdom and joy in the Lord.
As well, our every course of action is centered in the truth of Jesus Christ. He has made us joined into the singleness of His Body, our fellow believers, characterized with songs of thankfulness for who we now are in the very heart of God. Together, we learn more and more about Him and Who He is as we search His Word and encourage one another into the greater depths of our living relationship with Jesus Christ. It is not a matter of intellectual questing but that heart to heart relatedness which brings forth the certainty that God is pleased with what He has brought into being in our union in Christ Jesus.
	We will continue this course of study next week, Lord willing, as we deal with more of the elements of thanksgiving, and talk briefly about the final letter of the acronym ACTS, the letter S. S -stands for Supplication. It is where we tend to spend most of our prayer lives, and yet should be the least of our concerns in comparison to all the reality of God that is opened to us in Jesus, Our Lord, Our Savior, Our High Priest, and our Brother. So be it.
	Then the Lord appeared to Solomon at night and said to him, "I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Prov 3:7+8. Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your body, And refreshment to your bones. Amen.