Review From January 9

Hey y'all

Hope you are having a great week.
Here is the scoop from last Sunday's club 56 lesson.

First, we looked at "how to pray"  which was our final topic in our "prayer" unit.  We read from Matthew 6.5-13.  This passage is commonly known as "the Lord's Prayer".  And in it, Jesus, during the sermon on the mount, lays out a model of prayer that we can follow.  He mentions some other important details also,  - don't make a big show of it, using loud voices and praying in the streets to be noticed by others.  We don't need to change who we are when we pray.  We just need to communicate with God.  To help us wrap our minds around this, we looked at 4 different themes that are in the Lord's Prayer.  We went to different stations to really focus on  each one.  Here are what we learned.
We started by taking a piece of paper and rewriting the Lord's Prayer in our own words.  This way we can try to understand what is being said.

Station 1: Praise
At this station, we praised God in the same way Jesus told his disciples to when he said “Our Father in Heaven, may your name be kept holy”.  We then took a separate sheet of paper and wrote 6 things we love about God -  Six amazing qualities of God.  

Station 2: Thank

At this station, we took time to thank God for all the amazing things He’s done (and is doing) in our life.  We Drew a picture of one thing we are thankful for.  As we drew, we thanked God for giving us this wonderful thing and for providing everything we need.

Station 3: Confess

At this station, we told God about anything we have done wrong and asked Him to forgive us.  Jesus showed us how to pray when He said “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us".  We then had dumbbells.  Each of us picked up one of the weights.  As we held it,  we thought of something we have done wrong this week.  We prayed to ask God for forgiveness, and as we did, we set down the object and thanked God for taking away our sin.

Station 4: Ask

In His prayer, Jesus demonstrated how to ask God for something when He said, “May your kingdom come.  May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”  During our time at this station, we made requests of God.  We asked God to help us with something that we are worried about, or asked Him to provide for a need we have.  As we prayed, we were free to bow, lie down, put our hands out or close our eyes - whatever works best for each of us.

This is a great model for prayer.  And right now, the church is participating in the 2011 awakening conference, so what a timely unit we had, discussing prayer, what it can look like and the importance it plays in the life of a Christian.  

I have come across another couple of prayer models, based on the Lord's prayer.  They are put together in acronyms, to help remember the different themes.  Here they are, maybe they will be helpful to you in your prayer life by guiding you through the things Jesus included in the model prayer He gave us.

The first is ACTS

A- Adoration (loving and praising God for who He is)

C- Confession (telling God the things we have done wrong, or the things we haven't done that we are    supposed to do)

T- Thanksgiving (thanking God for everything we have, and are - and for all He is doing in our lives)

S- Supplication  (I had to look up this definition) - praying humbly, making requests of God

So that is one, and it reflects the parts of the Lord's Prayer.  I have also heard of this model PARTS

P - Praise (Telling God how great you think He is)

A - Admit (Telling God the things that you have done wrong, or have not done that you should do)

R - Request (Telling God what is on your heart, your needs, what you need answers about)

T - Thank (Being aware of God at work in your life, and thanking Him for all that is going on)

S - Stop (or be Still - I first heard it as Shut up - so you can remember that one if you want.  But it reminds us that we can have conversations with God.  We can praise, thank, confess and request from Him, but we can (and need to) be still, and let Him speak to us.  In these times, we may feel peace, we may sense direction or we may simply enjoy being shut down from the business of life and enjoying time spent with God.  

If you really like either of these acronyms, copy it down and give it to me with your homework on Sunday for a bonus point.  Or if you feel really creative, make up your own acronym that will help you remember the key themes of the prayer model Jesus gave us.  I will give you a bonus point for that too.

Stay safe, have a wonderful week, spend time with God in prayer and let Him encourage you, challenge you, pour into you and help guide you through life. 

CP