A is for Adoration

If you would prefer to listen to this devotional then please click here

 Dear Friends,
A is for Adoration

Recently in our church and life groups, we have been going through 'The Prayer Course' designed by Pete Grieg and based on The Lord's Prayer. It's been a really good course and I would recommend it to any small groups who are interested in learning more about prayer and putting it into practice.

I had the privilege of giving one of the Sunday morning messages on the theme of adoration in prayer. I want to share with you today some of what I talked about on that Sunday morning.

The Concise Dictionary of Theology defines adoration as "the highest reverence to be offered only to God, our creator, redeemer, and sanctifier who alone should be worshipped and glorified." 

Jesus told his disciples: This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name," Matthew 6:9 (NIV) 

 1. Why should we pray with adoration? 
  • Because God is our Father - the expression, 'Our Father' goes back to the Aramaic Abba, which combines respect for the father's authority with a sense of intimacy. It's about recognising God is God, and as such, he deserves our respect and reverence but it's also combined with the knowledge that he is our Father and he loves us. Knowing he is our Father gives us the confidence that we can approach him in prayer, assured that he is interested in what we have to say.
  • Because God is in heaven - when we think about God in heaven, it's not just about him being in heaven, it's also about his sovereignty, his kingship, his majesty, his power, and his might. He is all-seeing, all-knowing, with the ability to be everywhere all at once. God alone is worthy of our worship and adoration. 
  • Because God is holy - we recognise that God is holy, he is set apart, unique in character and nature. Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy. Leviticus 19:2 (NIV) When we come with true adoration we bring ourselves, we offer God a heart which is undivided, humble and surrendered to him. We lay down our will and live wholly for him. 

2. What happens as we give our prayers of adoration? 
  • We enter into the presence of God when we give him our praise, our worship, our adoration. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. Psalm 100:4 (NIV) It is in this place of intimacy with God where we can enjoy just being in his presence, totally taken up with him. 
How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of Heaven’s Armies. I long, yes, I faint with longing to enter the courts of the Lord. With my whole being, body and soul, I will shout joyfully to the living God... A single day in your courts is better than a thousand anywhere else! Psalm 84:1-2, 10a (NLT) 
  • We grow in our relationship with God - when we recognise who God is and what he has done it leads us into a closer walk with him. We get to know and love him more and our adoration of him becomes even more profound.
  • We are changed - a result of spending time in prayerful adoration of God is that we begin to reflect more and more the nature of the God we worship. When worries, anxieties and cares fill our minds, our problems become larger. But adoration of God helps us to refocus on him, to gain a right perspective, to see things clearly. It sets our mood direction for the day. 
  • God is blessed when we give him our adoration and worship. And in giving our adoration to God, we discover that we too are blessed. When we start our day with a mindset of adoration this attitude stays with us through the day. We become more aware of God's presence with us during our day and our worship of him continues.

 3. How do we pray with adoration? 

Perhaps some of you find it easy to pray with adoration, maybe you find praise and worship just flow from your heart. But there are others of us who may not find it so easy. So here are some practical suggestions:
  • Silence - sometimes we can be so quick to talk to God when we come to him, that we can forget who it is we are praying to. Silence can help us to quieten our thoughts and just enjoy being in his presence. We need to take time to be still and quiet before God.
  • Instrumental music can help to quiet and focus our heart and mind so that we can then give God our adoration.
  • Listen or sing along to praise worship songs (CDs), or if you're creative you may like to write some poetry or your own song of adoration. 
  • Use the prayers of adoration written in the Bible, for example, Mary's prayer in Luke 1:46-55; Hannah's prayer in 1 Samuel 2:1-10; the Psalms. We can use these words and make them our own words of adoration to God.
  • Focus on a particular aspect of God's character eg, love, grace, kindness etc.
  • Adoring God using your ABCs: Almighty, Awesome, Bread of Life, Beautiful, Comforter, Creator, Defender, Deliverer etc
Sometimes I've given God a prayer of praise using the alphabet to list his attributes, other times I have used this suggestion of adoring God using your ABCs in the following way:

Almighty God, you are an awesome God and I praise your name. 
You are beautiful beyond description. 
You are my comforter, you comfort me in my distress and my pain. 
You are my defender, you deliver me from my enemies. 
Your love for me is everlasting, you will never stop loving me. 
You are a faithful God and I place my trust in you.

You are a good God who loves to give good gifts to me, your daughter.
You are holy and your desire is for me to be holy just as you are holy.
God, you are immortal, you have always been and will always be.
You are a just God.
You are King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
You are mighty in power, and with you by my side, I have nothing to fear. Your mercies are new every morning.

Nothing and no one can separate me from your love.
You are omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, there is none like you.
You are my peace and it is your peace which guards my heart and my mind.
You are quick to show love and slow to anger. 
You are a righteous God and because of the work of Jesus on the cross, you see me as righteous too. You have cleansed me from my sin and made me a new creation.
You are my shelter, I hide beneath the shadow of your wings. You keep me safe in the storm and you bring me through it.
You are trustworthy, I place my life in your hands knowing I can have complete trust in you.

Your love for me is unending - how deep, how wide, how high and how long is your love for me. There are no limits to your love for me.
You have the victory. You have already defeated the devil and I can live in that victory. Death has lost its sting and holds no power over me.
You alone are worthy to be worshipped. To you alone do I give my praise and adoration.
You are an eXtravagant God, you gave your best, you gave your Son, that I might have eternal life. You bless me with all manner of spiritual blessings.
You uphold me by your righteous right hand. When I stumble you are there to pick me up and stop me from falling.

You are a zealous God - and I your precious possession. Thank you that I am someone you treasure. I give to you my total devotion to the exclusion of all else. Nothing and no one will take your place in my heart. 
Amen.

I have based my words on what I know to be true of God from personal experience and also what I have learned about him from his Word. I found this to be a powerful and moving exercise and was amazed at how the words started to flow as I expressed myself.

To Think About:

What reasons do you have for giving God your praise and adoration?

If you start the day with adoring God how has it made a difference to the rest of your day? Has it changed your outlook and your attitude?


Look at my practical suggestions for praying with adoration. Do you have any other ways of praying to God with adoration? Will you try some of these suggestions yourself? What works best for you? 

Would you consider writing your own prayer of adoration using your ABCs as I did? 


 Vicki
If you would like to listen to my sermon on which this blog post is based, then please click here

If what you read was of interest to you, then you may like to know that my book "Dear Friend...52 Weekly Devotions to Encourage, Challenge and Inspire" is available to buy from Amazon, on Kindle or in paperback. (Its content is material adapted from past blog posts.) To learn more, click on the link below:

Dear Friend...










https://www.faithfulbloggers.com/










https://www.biblegateway.com/blog/bloggergrid

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts

Do You Know You Are God's Prized Possession?

Dear Friends, Do you know that God considers you his prized possession? Maybe you find that hard to believe. You may think that because of what you've done or what's been done to you that you are not special, that you are not worth much. You may have a negative self-image and you may compare yourself with others and believe they are so much better than you. But the truth is that you are so much more than what you think you are. How do I know that? Because that's what the Bible tells me and if I want to know the truth about God and myself I go to the Bible. It's there I learn that being prized by God means that I am treasured, valued, cherished and much loved by him. At the moment I'm reading the book of James, and rather than rush through it I'm taking my time so that I can really feed on it and digest it. It's taken me most of the week to read the first chapter, but it's been a good investment of my time. It's why today I'm writing about...
Read more

When Life Doesn't Go According To Plan

Image
Dear Friends, I guess at one point or another in your life, things did not go as you had planned, dreamed or hoped for.  I've certainly experienced that and it took a long time for me to come to terms with this. I grew up in a Christian home where I was taught how to have a personal relationship with God and how to seek his will and direction in all I did. Believing that God wanted me to be a Primary School Teacher I applied to University and with God's guidance I chose the one that was right for me.  Those four years at university were tough and more than once I wanted to give up and go home.  But believing I was where God wanted me to be, gave me the endurance I needed to keep going.  At the time my plan for my life was to become a teacher and I firmly believed that was God's plan for me too. In my prayers I asked God to direct me to the teaching post he had for me.  I never doubted that I wouldn't get a job as a teacher.  When no job was offered...
Read more

You Are The Apple of God's Eye

Image
Dear Friends,  When I was a child we would sing a song about having a great, big, wonderful God  who never leaves us and who is ready to catch us when we stumble because we are  the apple of his eye. I used to enjoy singing it and although I never fully understood what it really meant to be  the apple of God's eye, I knew it was connected to God loving me. If you are a similar age to me and grew up in church, you may be familiar with this song too. At the time I never realised that the phrase "the apple of God's eye" came from the Bible. But I was reminded of this song a few weeks ago when I read the following verse in the Bible: Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings. Psalm 17:8  (NIV) The idea of being the apple of God's eye has been on my mind since then, so I decided I wanted to know more about what it means to be the apple of God's eye.  Here's what I learned: The phrase "apple of the eye...
Read more

You are God's Favourite

Image
Dear Friends, I love my children and will sometimes say to them "You are my favourite son/daughter."  The response I usually get from them is a groan or rolling of the eyes and "Mu-um, I'm your only son/daughter."  I tell them, "Yes, but you're still my favourite!"  It's my way of letting them know how much I love them, how precious, how special they are to me.  For me, it's a picture of how I believe God loves each one of us.  He loves me in such a way that he says to me, "You're my favourite!"  And I believe he loves you in such a way too and says "You're my favourite!". God loves each one of us with an incredible, incomparable, unconditional love.  A love that goes beyond the ordinary.  A love that is pure and selfless.  A genuine love.  A love that is beyond our understanding.  He loves us each individually and considers us all his favourite. I love words and I love the word used to describe how Go...
Read more

The Apprentice Prayer

Image
Dear Friends, I receive devotional emails from the website "Soul Shepherding".  In one of the emails several months ago Bill Gaultiere shared  "The Apprentice Prayer". I have printed it out and placed it in my journal so I can refer back to it and pray it again.  This is the Apprentice Prayer:  Jesus, I love you! Father, I adore you! Holy Spirit, I rely on you! Lord Jesus, I seek to live as your apprentice in all that I do today. My life is your school for teaching me. I relinquish my agenda for this day and I submit myself to you and your kingdom purposes. In all situations I abandon outcomes to you, praying, “Your will, your way, your time.” Dear Father, I ask you to ordain the events of this day and use them to make me more like Jesus. I trust you, Sovereign Lord, that you won’t let anything happen to my family or me today, except that it passes through your loving hands. So no matter what problems, hards...
Read more

"God Is Taking Everything Away From Me"

Dear Friends, When I was first diagnosed with M.E (M yalgic Encephalomyelitis)  in the late 1990s I really struggled to come to terms with it. I can remember in the early years and when it was at its worst saying that God was taking everything away from me. This was truly how I felt, and the hurt and the pain from what I was losing was intense. It's a pain which actually cannot fully be put into words. Not only had I lost my health and strength, I had to give up work and I wasn't able to do the things I'd been doing at church, such as leading Sunday School and running a youth group with my husband. Jason and I had married in the Summer of 1995 and the illness meant I wasn't able to do all I wanted to do in the home or to be the kind of wife I wanted to be for Jason and I wasn't able to socialise (for me that meant not going to church and mixing with church friends). It really felt like God was taking everything away from me and like I said, it was extremely pa...
Read more

The Blessing Of Pain

Dear Friends, I’ve been thinking about pain quite a bit this past week, probably because I’m in the midst of it at the moment!   My close friends and family know that I have been to the National Migraine Clinic (NMC) in London.   Before they can treat the migraines I need to take a 12 week break from all my painkillers.   This is proving difficult as I also rely on painkillers most days to manage & tolerate the muscle pain caused by M.E.   The leg pain in particular has been almost unbearable, sitting, laying on the sofa, in bed, heat treatment, massage mat; none of these things have provided me with much relief. We all experience pain in our lives, the cause of it will be different, the intensity of it varies, but pain is still pain and it hurts!   I don’t enjoy pain and I don’t seek it out, however, God is teaching me that there is blessing in pain.   It’s my experience of this that I want to share with you today that you may be encourag...
Read more

The Teacup Story

Image
If you would like to listen to this devotional please click  here Dear Friends, The Potter's Wheel A couple of weeks back I was reminded about a story I had read a few years ago. It's called "The Teacup Story" but before I share it with you, let's go to the Bible. Jeremiah was one of God's prophets in the Old Testament. He was called by God to pass messages on to God's people. In Jeremiah 18:1-6  we read about an object lesson God gave to Jeremiah and which is still relevant for us today: God told Jeremiah, “Up on your feet! Go to the potter’s house. When you get there, I’ll tell you what I have to say.” So I went to the potter’s house, and sure enough, the potter was there, working away at his wheel. Whenever the pot the potter was working on turned out badly, as sometimes happens when you are working with clay, the potter would simply start over and use the same clay to make another pot. Then God’s Message came to me: “Can’...
Read more

Set Your Sights on the Realities of Heaven

Image
Dear Friends, Paul wrote in Colossians 3:1-3 "Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honour at God’s right hand. 2  Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. 3  For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God." (NLT) I read these verses one morning when I was in the middle of a bad spell of migraines.  The spell lasted for ten days.  Some of the days were extremely painful when I just couldn't function normally, some were more bearable and I could live with the pain and some days I woke free from the pain and hoped for a pain-free day only for the migraine to develop later in the day.  I know that some of you reading this will have experienced pain much worse than this.  You may be going through something right now which is almost unbearable.  Whatever that painful experience may...
Read more

Living The "Zoe" Life

Image
Dear Friends, Do you ever find yourself wrestling over a verse or passage of Scripture? Perhaps because it's hard to understand or grasp. Or perhaps it doesn't fit with your experience. For some months, possiby years, there has been one verse which I've wrestled with. It's this one from John 10:10b Where Jesus says, "My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life." (NLT). Other translations use words such as an abundant life, life in all it's fullness, enjoy life to the full, everything they need. What is this kind of life that Jesus is talking about? Is it really possible to experience it ourselves? I want to share with you the place I'm at right now in my journey of understanding. We will never fully understand all that the Bible has to teach us and sometimes we (I) will get it wrong. You may very well disagree with how I am interpreting what I read. But if it causes any of us to go back to the Bible and ask the Holy S...
Read more