As we saw on Wednesday from 1 Thessalonians 5, growing in closeness to God involves learning to live prayerfully, delighting in God and depending on God throughout the day in every situation.Can you still remember 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18? Try and remember it or learn it again. It begins, “Rejoice always…” (It’s printed again down at the bottom of this devotion - but try to remember it first!)In our dedicated prayer time, we should aim to include a range of different ways of delighting in God and depending on God.There are many methods people use to do this. We will build on one of the most popular ones, which has four steps, based on the word ‘ACTS’:Adoration (= worship and love) Confession Thanksgiving Supplication (= asking)Adoration and Confession are ways of delighting in God, and Thanksgiving and Supplication are both about depending on him.Over the coming days, we will work to build each of these ‘ingredients’ into your daily prayer time. If you already have a prayer routine, you can adapt these reflections in light of what you are already doing.Let’s start with Adoration. While Thanksgiving is praising God for what he has done for us, Adoration is praising him simply for who he is. It is allowing our minds to fill with the unchanging truths of God’s nature and character, so that our hearts fill with wonder, awe and love for him.And because we are aware of God’s presence when we pray, Adoration is telling God himself all these things—telling him what we know he is like, and expressing our wonder and love.As we worked through the Lord’s Prayer, we saw truths about God that you can use to meditate on and adore him: the God we pray to is our Father; he is holy; he is the King; he is wise and good; and he cares about us.The Bible is also full of expressions of God’s faithful, unchanging love and mercy, which he poured out in the cross of Jesus.The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. (Ps 103:8)But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5:8)Spend a few minutes remembering who God is and what he is like, and praising and blessing him for it. You can use the truths in the verses above to help, or look up one of the psalms below. Don’t worry about whether or not you feel enough wonder, awe and love. Simply focus on God himself.Verses for further prayer: Psalm 100 (short) or Psalm 145 (longer)1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 again:Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.