Read: Matthew 26:36-51
Point: Jesus prayed to God.
Holy Week: Thursday Night into Friday morning
Devotional: After Passover, Jesus went to a garden to talk with God. He knew what was coming and that there would be pain and suffering. Jesus spent time talking with God the Father and preparing for what would come next. Jesus trusted God’s plan and obeyed God’s will.
Where do you go when you feel scared or life seems hard? Where do you look when you need answers to things you don’t understand? Jesus teaches us that we are to look to Him. When we pray and talk with God we can be honest with God. We can tell Him what scares us or worries us, and we can repent from our sins. We can ask Him for help and oh how He loves for us to look to Him for our help. God wants us to spend time in prayer with Him, trusting Him no matter what.
Jesus trusted the Father, even though the crowd was coming to arrest Him at that very moment. Just a little over 12 hours from this point, a battered Jesus would walk to the cross.
Pray: Father, thank You that we can spend time with You. Thank You for wanting to spend time with us. Please help me to trust Your plans and to obey You in all things. Thank You for loving us. Amen.
Family Activity: Lean Walk
- If you can form into pairs, standing side by side ask each person to lean sideways towards their partner resting on one another’s shoulders.
- Ask each person to shift their feet away from their partner as far as they feel comfortable.
- When ready, explain that each pair should aim to walk together to an agreed point.
- When ready, swap sides or swap partners.
After you complete this activity, talk about how you had to give your partner trust to lean on them so you would not fall. Trust is what Jesus did in the plan that God had.
Going Deeper:
Read John 17 to see how Jesus prayed earnestly for His disciples (and for us) in the longest recorded prayer we have from Jesus in the whole Bible. This passage is known as the “High Priestly Prayer.”