Jesus Will Have His Prize

"The success of the gospel for which [the Puritans] yearned was bound up with their trust in Christ. They never gave way to the feeling that because the condition of the world was so deplorable the Second Coming of Christ was the only hope for mankind; in their mind, to have done so would have been to fall into unbelief in regard to the promised results of his first coming. If what was predicted seemed impossible, the remedy was to contemplate more closely the authority and glory which now belongs to the Head of the Church" (Murray, The Puritan Hope, 90).

O Lord, Teach Us to Pray, and Pray Well

In 1519 Martin Luther wrote a "Personal Prayer Book" to help people know how to pray in the midst of so much confusion about what true prayer is. In giving an example of how to pray according to the third petition of the Lord's Prayer, Luther writes this as part of his model for this petition:

Grant us true obedience, a perfect, calm, single-minded composure in all things—spiritual, earthly, temporal, and eternal. Protect us from the horrible vice of character assassination, slander, backbiting, frivolously judging or condemning others, and misrepresenting what others have said. O hold far from us the plague and tragedy which such speed can cause; rather, whenever we see or hear anything in others that seems wrong or displeasing to us, teach us to keep quiet, not to publicize it, and to pour out our complaints to you alone and to commit all to your will. And let us sincerely forgive all who wrong us and be sympathetic toward them.

—Personal Prayer Book (Luther's Works, vol. 43; ed. Gustav K. Wiencke; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1957), 32–33.

Children at the Table

"When in 1 Corinthians Paul said that a man should examine himself, he spoke only of adults because he was speaking about those who were quarreling among themselves. However, he doesn't here forbid that the sacrament of the altar be given even to children" (Luther, Works, vol. 54, p. 58).

Bible Interpretation: No Fixed Rules

Luther:

I acknowledge no fixed rules for the interpretation of the Word of God, since the Word of God, which teaches freedom in all other matters, must not be bound.

—The Freedom of the Christian (Luther's Works, vol. 31; ed. Harold J. Grimm; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1957), 341.

Backbiting

"Backbite (vt): To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you" (Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary, 12).

Solomon's School

"Over the gates of Plato's school, it was written: 'Let no one who is not a geometrician enter.' But very different is the inscription over these doors of Solomon [in the book of Proverbs]—Let the ignorant, simple, foolish, young enter" (Charles Bridges, Proverbs, 2).

More Heat

The issues are different for us today from what Jonathan Edwards was addressing in the shortcomings or faulty views of the Great Awakening in his writings on the subject. So in quoting Edwards here, and in thinking of the need for more heat today, I'm thinking mainly not of how we have so much light (we don't), but of how we have so many other things in which we trust (e.g., programs, new initiatives, church expansion projects, committee work, etc.) that are ineffectual for bringing about the revival and reform needed in the church in America. Yes, and even those parts that we think healthiest. See if you can map Edwards' insight onto our current situation.

Here is Edwards on the need for heat more than light:

Though as I said before, clearness of distinction and illustration, and strength of reason, and a good method, in the doctrinal handling of the truths of religion, is many ways needful and profitable, and not to be neglected, yet an increase in speculative knowledge in divinity is not what is so much needed by our people, as something else. Men may abound in this sort of light and have no heat: how much has there been of this sort of knowledge, in the Christian world, in this age? Was there ever an age wherein strength and penetration of reason, extent of learning, exactness of distinction, correctness of style, and clearness of expression, did so abound? And yet was there ever an age wherein there has been so little sense of the evil of sin, so little love to God, heavenly-mindedness, and holiness of life, among the professors of the true religion? Our people don't so much need to have their heads stored, as to have their hearts touched; and they stand in the greatest need of that sort of preaching that has the greatest tendency to do this (Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 4, Yale University Press, 387–388).

Our Only Comfort in Life and in Death

The Heidelberg Catechism is golden. We're teaching it to our children. And the
first question is the sweetest and most precious of them all. Here it is:

Question 1: What is your only comfort, in life and in death?

Answer: That I belong—body and soul, in life and in death—not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who at the cost of his own blood has fully paid for all my sins and has completely freed me from the dominion of the devil; that he protects me so well that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, that everything must fit his purpose for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

 —Mark A. Noll, ed., Confessions and Catechisms of the Reformation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991), 137.

True Loyalty to the Lord

Commenting on Dan. 1:8–16, Sinclair Ferguson reflects:

Some Christians are heroes in their daydreams only. The characteristic mark of such heroism is imagining ourselves as faithful on great and public occasions and in rarefied atmospheres when others will be impressed. In stark contrast, true faithfulness in Scripture is first exercised in small things and in private. If we fail there, any faithfulness we show in public will be hypocrisy, a performance for the crowd and not an expression of loyalty to our Lord.

 —Sinclair Ferguson, Mastering the Old Testament: Daniel (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1988), 38.

Trained in the Ways of Babylon

Commenting on Nebuchadnezzar's strategy of defeating Jerusalem, as recorded in Dan. 1:3–7, Sinclair Ferguson observes: Nebuchadnezzar "weakened Jerusalem's prospects by exiling the cream of its youth, and he prepared for the future by giving them a thoroughly Babylonian education. . . . Nebuchadnezzar was not the last leader to see the value of infiltrating the colleges and universities to find candidates for his future service" (Sinclair Ferguson, Daniel, 34).

Zoe Eden Wencel

So the Wencels discovered recently via ultrasound that another girl has joined our family. That makes us a family of six. Two boys and four girls. We don't yet know whether she, too, will have red hair, as do our other girls, Ariana and Grace. But we do know her name: Zoe Eden Wencel. She is now sixteen weeks old, and her due date is January 5, the year of grace 2019. And per her imaging profile, she's pretty stinkin' cute. 

Zoe is from the Greek of the New Testament and means “life.” It's the same word used when Jesus said: “I am the way and the truth and the life” (Jn. 14:6). It is also the Greek word used for Eve's name in Gen. 3:20 of the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible). Adam, the text tells us, called his wife "Zoe" ("Life"), "because she is the mother of all the living." Eden originates in the Hebrew Scriptures and is reminiscent of the garden of God of old (Gen. 2:8; Isa. 51:3). There the Lord placed the mother of all the living, and there God walked with man in the cool of the day. 

Almost needless to say, we're grateful beyond words for another little life added to our clan. Praise God from whom all blessings flow! May the Lord impart to Zoe Eden the life of God, and bring her safely into his everlasting Eden. May he lead her all her days until she at last enters the great promised garden-city of the new heavens and new earth (Rev. 22:1–2), where fullness of joy and peace abound in the permanent presence of the glory of the One who sits on the throne, and of the Lamb. 

The Great Commission and Ministers of the Church

"The commission may have application to the church generally, but the commission belongs particularly to the disciples, and to all those who after them were called to bring the Word of God to the nations. In other words, this commission has primary application to the ministers of the church" (Waters, How Jesus Runs the Church, xxv).

Real Spiritual Leadership: Changing People, not Directing People

"The goal of spiritual leadership is that people come to know God and to glorify him in all that they do. Spiritual leadership is aimed not so much at directing people as it is at changing people. If we would be the kind of leaders we ought to be, we must make it our aim to develop persons rather than dictate plans. You can get people to do what you want, but if they don't change in their heart you have not led them spiritually. You have not taken them to where God wants them to be" (Piper, The Marks of a Spiritual Leader, 3).

Why Preaching is often Inneffectual

"Catechising is the best expedient for the grounding and settling of people. I fear one reason why there has been no more good done by preaching, has been because the chief heads and articles in religion have not been explained in a catechistical way" (Watson, A Body of Divinity, 5).

The Forgotten Demographic in the Church

With all the buzz about doing evangelism in the church today, it would be helpful if the church exercised a bit more insight and genuine neighbor-love instead of doing what is most comfortable and what boosts the right kind of numbers. This piece by Gene Veith points out the uncomfortable truth for many upwardly-mobile white egalitarian-leaning evangelicals with feminist assumptions: the most unchurched demographic is the white working class.

Well, let's develop church strategies to go after them. No? Why not? Doesn't love call for it?

Challenging Labels

"If a 'disability' really only becomes a problem in one setting—our factory-model K–12 system—I’d challenge that label" (Bauer, Rethinking School, 43).

Budgeting, Planning, and Packing Up Ready to Go

"Budget and plan for an ordinary span of years, but in spirit be packed up and ready to leave at any time" (J. I. Packer, Affirming the Apostles' Creed, 109).

We, Not Me

Commenting on Ecclesiastes 4, David Gibson says:

If you can live in this world in such a way that the person or people beside you—your friend, your spouse, your children, your brother, your sister, the people God has put in your path—are your waking concern and your dominant focus, then you will find happiness. If your head hits the pillow at night full of questions about how you might help and serve someone else, and how you can be a certain kind of person for them, then you will find a gladness and contentment that nothing else can match.

. . . I want you to know what the Preacher is not saying. You might expect him to say that if you live for others, then you'll be more spiritual. Or more godly. You'll be a growing Christian. It is certainly true that you will be all those things, but that is not the aspect of life that the Preacher is painting in this part of his book. You will be happier. The word he uses is "quietness" (v. 6). It simply means rest—peace of mind and calmness of soul. It's a word to capture the deep well-being of those who know their place in the world, content with the boundary lines of their life and able to enjoy the fruits of their labors with a cheerful heart. The way to arrive in that place of rest is to live for we, not me.

—David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in the Light of the End (Wheaton: Crossway, 2017), 65–66.

Zealous for God's Fame

"Zeal is a mixed affection, a compound of love and anger; it carries forth our love to God, and our anger against sin in an intense degree. Zeal is impatient of God's dishonour; a Christian fired with zeal, takes a dishonour done to God worse than an injury done to himself" (Thomas Watson, Body of Divinity, 16).

Unholy Bound—Unless You Ravish Me

Batter my heart, three-personed God . . .

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

—John Donne, "Batter My Heart," lines 1, 12–14

God's Work

"The farmer plowing his field, the craftsman producing his goods, and the sovereign capably judging and governing are as much God's work as the clergyman in the pulpit or in the confessional. They have all had a divine call to render service to the world, and thus they will also be judged by God" (Oberman, Luther: Man Between God and the Devil, 316).

What Elders and Pastors Must Forget

"All those who have the responsibility and duty of teaching the church of God must forget the favour and approval of the world; if they do not, they can never carry out their duty faithfully" (Calvin, Sermons on Galations, Banner of Truth, 64).

Suicide as the Sin

"Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world."

—G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1995), 36–37.

Knowing Christ Aright

"He who knows Christ aright holds him fast, embraces him with both arms, is completely taken up with him, and desires nothing beyond him."

—John Calvin, The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians (eds., Torrance, David W., and Torrance, Thomas F; trans. Parker, T. H. L.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 11.

Singing Whole Psalms

"We should do our best to find ways to use the whole Psalter [in corporate worship]. We should say or sing the puzzling and disturbing bits along with the easy and 'nice' ones" (N. T. Wright, The Case for the Psalms: Why They Are Essential, HarperOne, 2013).

The Power of a Passive Righteousness

Speaking of the righteousness of faith that God imputes to us through Christ apart from works, Luther says this of its surpassing worth:

Christians themselves do not adequately understand it or grasp it in the midst of their temptations. Therefore it must always be taught and continually exercised. And anyone who does not grasp or take hold of it in afflictions and terrors of conscience cannot stand. For there is no comfort of conscience so solid and certain as this passive righteousness. . . .

Therefore the afflicted conscience has no remedy against despair and eternal death except to take hold of the promise of grace offered in Christ, that is, this righteousness of faith, this passive or Christian righteousness, which says with confidence: "I do not seek active righteousness. I ought to have and perform it; but I declare that even if I did have it and perform it, I cannot trust in it or stand up before the judgment of God on the basis of it. Thus I put myself beyond all active righteousness, all righteousness of my own or of the divine Law, and I embrace only that passive righteousness which is the righteousness of grace, mercy, and the forgiveness of sins." In other words, this is the righteousness of Christ and of the Holy Spirit, which we do not perform but receive, which we do not have but accept, when God the Father grants it to us through Jesus Christ.

—Martin Luther, "Lectures on Galatians 1535" (vol. 26 in Luther's Works; ed. Jaroslav Pelikan; St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1963), 5–6.

The Free Gift of God

The famous Rom. 6:23 reads: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (translation mine). This is a well-worn and oft-quoted verse. But have we understood it aright? What is this "free gift of God"?

Well, isn't it obvious? Isn't it "eternal life"? Yes, it is. But it also isn't. It must be so in the same way that "the wages of sin is death" in the first part of the verse, for these are parallel expressions. And in the first part of the verse it is clear that the wages of sin results in death. In other words, it is not that the wages of sin is defined as death or equals death.

And so likewise it seems best to understand the second half of the verse as saying that the free gift of God results in eternal life. And if this is correct, what then is "the free gift of God"? I believe that the parallel in Rom. 5:17 provides a clue.

Austin Owen, Child of God's Covenant Love

Our baby boy is going to be baptized next weekend at College Church in Wheaton. We're looking forward to his being baptized into Christ our King and Redeemer.

“Austin” is named after St. Augustin(e), whom the Puritans called Austin. Augustin(e) is known as the "doctor of grace” in the Church. He eloquently defended and articulated the doctrine of the sovereign grace of God in Christ, as well as anyone in the faith, having himself experienced it so potently as a thirty-two-year-old lecherous man. And it is our prayer that Austin will know God’s sovereign grace deeply, as did Augustin(e), to the “praise of the glory of God’s grace.”

His middle name “Owen” has nothing to do with the origin of the word or its present day meaning. Emily and I have given it to him after that greatest of English Puritans John Owen (one of his daddy’s most influential teachers). The center of John Owen’s theology is arguably steadfastly beholding "the glory of God in the face of Christ" (e.g., Owen cites 2 Cor. 4:6 more than any other verse in his works). Our prayer is that our little Owen would embrace the centrality of the glory of Christ in his life and steadfastly behold that glory all his dying days, being transformed into that same glory, to the glory of God.

The Blessing of God

Oftentimes we hear of, or people pray for, the blessing of God in a vague and hazy manner. We ask for God to bless us, or to bless the missionaries, or to bless our families, or to bless the church. But what is it we're really asking for? What is the blessing of YHWH?

It is undoubtedly many things, material and immaterial. But what is at the heart of God's blessing? Can we see a center? I will not try to support my claim here with a comprehensive exposition of Scripture. However, I will assert that the answer is: Yes, there is a center to God's blessing. Search the Scriptures for yourselves, and see whether what I claim here is so, O Noble-minded Berean. I'll only cite one text.

In Psalm 133:3 we have our answer—it is life forevermore! It is not lots of American goodies for our three score and ten. On the mountains of Zion YHWH has commanded his blessing—eternal life! So when you think of, and pray for, God’s blessing, think of the life of God. God’s supreme blessing is the giving of life evermore in his Son, imparting his Spirit, the Spirit of eternal life. 

The Great Contest for Man

"The great contest of heaven and earth is about the affections of the poor worm which we call man."

—John Owen, The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded (vol. 7 in The Works of John Owen; ed. William H. Gould; Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 1994), 395.

The Great Shortfall Today

Dick Lucas:

In the long term I think being a preacher, missionary, or leading a Bible study group in many ways is easier. There is a certain spiritual glamour in doing it, and what we should be doing each day is easier to discern, more black and white, not so grey. It is often hard to get Christians to see that God is willing not just to use men and women in ministry, but in law, in medicine, in business, in the arts. This is the great shortfall today.

—Quoted in Timothy Keller, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work (New York: Penguin, 2012), 115.

Back to Blogging (Semi-Regularly)

So I'm going to go ahead and start blogging again. At least some. It's been good to take a break from the blog and many other things over the past year, during which time the Wencels have had our hands full.

However, I do not intend to blog with any regularity. And I do not intend to post much original thinking of my own. No time for that. But I will post from time to time some things I'm reading that I think are worth recalling and sharing.

Prolonging the Prolonged Blog Break

This post is just an update for this blog, which has been all but abandoned by its overseer. I post to say that much has come to pass in recent months—including a new job, a new house, a return to the church where Em and I married, caring for an infant, and another newborn on the way.

And so the blog break will continue, probably for quite some time. Perhaps when our little ones are all above knee level I'll take to the keyboard once again (yes, I know, the masses are on tip-toe) and pour forth all that I've learned from being a glad dad with hands and heart full.

Perhaps.

Prolonged Blog Break

I continue to take an extended blog break after the birth of our second daughter. But I plan on plunking away again (as furious as ever?) some time in the not too distant (but not too near, either) future.

Aaron

                       Holiness on the head,
               Light and perfections on the breast,
Harmonious bells below, raising the dead
               To lead them unto life and rest.
                       Thus are true Aarons dressed.

                       Profaneness in my head,
               Defects and darkness in my breast,
A noise of passions ringing me for dead
               Unto a place where is no rest.
                       Poor priest thus am I dressed.

                       Only another head
               I have, another heart and breast,
Another music, making live not dead,
               Without whom I could have no rest:
                       In him I am well dressed.

                       Christ is my only head,
               My alone only heart and breast,
My only music, striking me ev'n dead;
               That to the old man I may rest,
                       And be in him new dressed.

                       So holy in my head,
               Perfect and light in my dear breast,
My doctrine tuned by Christ (who is not dead,
               But lives in me while I do rest),
                      Come people; Aaron's dressed.

—George Herbert, The Complete English Poems (New York: Penguin, 1991), 164.

PRAYER: A Pattern for Praying

The following is a pattern for praying that I've developed to help me and my wife to pray biblically and cover the ground that prayer should cover (even if not all at once in a single prayer):

P—Praise: Or, we might say, adoration.[1] Praise and adore and exalt and magnify and glorify God for who he is, as the triune God of eternal glory (the essential/ontological Trinity); and for what he’s done, as Father, Son, and Spirit for our redemption (the economic Trinity/the Gospel). That is, worship God and give him glory for his nature and character (theology proper) and for planning and carrying out the glorious drama of redemption in fulfillment of his promises (the Gospel of God).

R—Repent: Or, we might say, confession. But we’re also going beyond confession at this place in PRAYER. In addition to confessing our sin(s) at this point, we are also doing the hard heart-work (or hard heart work) before the Lord to renounce all rebellion against the King. Our confession and repentance here find their full expression in Y (yearning) and E (exert) below where we complete our turn from sin toward God, Christ, holiness, righteousness, godliness, truth, and love. And our repentance and confession ought to include both personal and corporate sins (or private and public), starting with the private, but then moving on to public sins (both national and ecclesiastical). We certainly see examples of both in Scripture (e.g., Psalm 51 and Dan. 9:3–20).

A—Acknowledge: Or, we might say, thanksgiving. At this place in prayer, acknowledge all God’s benefits (Ps. 103:2). The supreme blessing, of course, is the pardon of our sin(s) (Ps. 103:3). Acknowledging this blessing fittingly follows confessing and renouncing our sins in the last place in PRAYER (R—repent). But we ought not to forget any of God’s provisions (e.g., daily bread, Matt. 6:11). And so we ought to thank God both for his free forgiveness and for his plentiful provision.

Y—Yearn: Or, we might say, supplication. Yearning expresses what comes next in our acronym, and it gets at our great goal and good, namely, fellowship with God. I think yearning goes beyond the supplication of ACTS, or at least it focuses what we're seeking more specifically in a Godward way. And up to this point, if we’ve been praying at all, we’ve been enjoying fellowship with God. But in this place in PRAYER—yearning—we give ourselves even more to God. We want to seek to cultivate at this point a loving longing for the Lord (e.g., Pss. 42:1–2; 63:1). And our longing ought to be expressed similarly to the psalmist’s in Psalm 119, where there is longing to know and understand God’s covenant communication to his children (e.g., “Make me to know . . .” and “Teach me . . .” and so on throughout the whole of Psalm 119). God has made himself and his mind known. And so the psalmist’s love affair with the Lord of his life is a love affair with the law of the Lord. It is an intense desire to know and do God’s will. And alongside this longing for knowing and understanding, and indeed as a natural outworking of it, comes a longing for closer walk with God. “O for a closer walk with God!”[2] We know that “it is good to be near God” (Ps. 73:28). And we know that a sweet fellowship with the living Lord is so often spoken of in Scripture metaphorically as walking with God (e.g., “Noah walked with God,” Gen. 6:9). And no small part of this is our depending on him who is the Giver of good gifts to provide all we need, to provide "our daily bread."

E—Exert: Or, we might say, effort. This place in PRAYER goes even further beyond the ACTS formula than did the previous places in PRAYER.[3] And it is the move from being on our knees to doing good deeds in step with turning from the sin(s) we’ve confessed and forsaken and in step with the yearning we’ve expressed for a closer walk with God. Here we are readying our hearts—and hands and feet!—to get up and go out into our world “in the strength that God supplies” (1 Pet. 4:11). We are readying ourselves to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling,” knowing that “God works in us, both to will and to work his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12–13). Our prayer in the yearning part of PRAYER no doubt slides easily into this part where our hearts are eagerly embracing faith and obedience and asking God for his strength and grace to do what pleases him.

R—Rejoice: Or, we might say, joy or delight. And perhaps you’re wondering why PRAYER finishes this way. PRAYER, if it’s praying in the Spirit, will probably be punctuated throughout with rejoicing in God and the Gospel. But I include rejoicing here, not just to finish the acronym, but because (as Paul puts it) it is safe for us (Phil. 3:1). Joy is so essential a part of the life of the disciple of Christ and child of God that we ought routinely to recall and practice it as a spiritual discipline. If Paul can say, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice” (Phil. 4:4; cf. 1 Thess. 5:16), well, then, we really should rejoice in the Lord always. And perhaps there’s no better place to remember this than in prayer as we’re getting off our knees and moving out into the troubles and distresses of our circumstances. “The joy of the LORD is your strength” (Neh. 8:10).

Here, then, is a snapshot of PRAYER for your mind's eye (or perhaps to place in your Bible on a post-it note):

P—Praise: glorify God for who he is (God’s nature and character), and for what he’s done (the good news in Christ).

R—Repent: confess and renounce sin(s), both personal and corporate, both private and public.

A—Acknowledge: recognize God’s pardon and provision, and give him thanks.

Y—Yearn: long for the Lord, seeking understanding of his works, will, and ways, straining after a closer walk with God in them.

E—Exert: get up and go out into the world in the strength that God supplies.

R—Rejoice: “the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

One caveat is in order before signing off. Please keep in mind that this acronym is intended as an aid to prayer, not as the law of the Medes and Persians. It is intended to assist with the various elements of praying and thus ought not to be worn like a straight jacket. In other words, don’t feel like you need to go back to R (repent) if you yearned (Y) before you acknowledged (A), or feel like you need to confess if you’ve left an element out. Prayer is personal, and it is particular to one’s situation and God’s guiding. But I do believe PRAYER covers the basic range of our communion with God, I seek to practice it myself, and I commend it for your consideration. 

---

[1] As in the familiar ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication). You’ll note the similarity of PRAYER to ACTS, which is also a good guide, but you'll also see how PRAYER fills out and focuses prayer a bit differently.

[2]  William Cowper, “O for a Closer Walk with God” (No. 534) in the Trinity Hymnal (Suwanee, GA: Great Commission, 1990).

[3] And I really do believe that PRAYER, though similar to ACTS, does go beyond ACTS and fills out more what prayer ought to be, yes, including those elements (PRAY: Praise, Repent, Acknowledge, Yearn) that are so similar to ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication).