I have always been intrigued with this idea that Jesus asked His disciples to come into the garden and pray with Him. He took three of them deeper into a more intimate place to agonize over the events that were to come. The only problem for the disciples is that they had absolutely no idea what was going to come next, so they had were unable to feel the anxiousness of Jesus. But the garden was a critical moment. While at any point on the journey that Jesus took, He could have said, “Enough!” He made the decision in the garden that He would not utter that by placing Himself in the Father’s hands and saying, “Thy will be done.”

Tonight, Cornerstone is offering you an opportunity to accept the invitation to go deeper into the garden and keep watch through the night. Even now, I feel the heaviness of my own sin that had a part in crucifying Him. I know the victory and freedom I have Christ and that He paid for my sin without regret of having to give up Himself completely, but I believe we cannot celebrate truly and fully what He has done for us until we realize the weight of how hopeless our case was before Calvary.

Come worship through prayer with us tonight. The doors will be open from 8:00pm until 6:00am on Friday morning.

As we follow the moves of Christ during the Holy Week, we see that Jesus moved in and out of the city every day (though with much less fanfare than how He was received on Sunday). On each of these days as Jesus came into the city He spent time teaching. He knew these were the last moments where He could pour into people.

Along with continuing to live in chapters 26 and 27 of Matthew where we see the events of the cross, take some time to read through Matthew 21 today and soak up the teachings of Jesus in the last hours. Place yourself in the story knowing the weight Jesus was feeling as He moved towards His death.

Just a quick note about Thursday night. Even today we will begin to prepare for that night of prayer. I want to encourage you to arrange your schedule so that you will be able to come and experience at least a few moments of watching and praying with us. Think about that two o’clock hour when your body will be tired and weak. In that sweet hour, think about coming and allowing Christ to be your strength to prepare your heart to feel the weight of the sacrifice that was made for you.

April 9 at 8 pm through April 10 at 6 am

The night before Jesus was crucified, He broke bread with his closest friends one last time. The small group then moved out of the city to the Garden of Gethsemane, or the Garden of Pressing, where Jesus spent the night in prayer and asked His disciples to join Him in doing so. To help you fully experience the Easter weekend, we are opening up the worship area to offer time for intentional prayer and focusing. There will be areas set up to help guide you through the movements of the journey to the cross and the resurrection. We encourage everyone to participate in this unique event in preparation for all the events of the Easter weekend.

Good Friday Service

April 10: 6:30-7:30 pm

On Friday, Jesus was pressed through a mock trial, beaten and crucified. He hung on the cross for six hours before being placed in the grave. We will be offering a unique service to guide you through the events of that day. Through video, song and scripture, we will worship together and examine the Old Testament prophecies, as well as the New Testament gospels that tell the story of Jesus giving His life for creation.

We encourage everyone to participate in these Holy Week worship experiences.  Together, they will provide a unique experience of the journey that Jesus made, and challenges us to make, as we daily pick up our cross in order to be His disciple.

As I was spending a bit of time journaling this morning and thinking about prayer at the same time, a question came to my mind. How do I make prayer such a part of my life that it is weaved into everything I am doing? And I do not mean, agreeing with what Rusty said yesterday, that I’m asking God for the best parking spot. Rather, how do I teach myself to pray without ceasing? How do I teach myself to continually ask, “what is Your will for my life today?”

I finally decided that teaching myself this is like teaching a baby to walk. The steps will be incremental. I will wiggle around on the floor for a while rolling from my back to my stomach. At some point I will begin to crawl. After a while, I will begin to walk, albeit a funny, shaky sort of walk. Eventually, however, I will walk without even thinking about it. Like a baby, I cannot get frustrated with myself for not being able to jump up and run a marathon. That’s not even close to how the process works. I must be satisfied with the milestones that Holy Spirit helps me to conquer until praying, and praying God’s will in my life, is as natural as walking.

Just one quick thought on a practical way to help you remember to pray and to pray often. My mother once bought a sheet of very small, round, yellow stickers. You would have to really be looking for them to notice them. But she placed them all over our house and I believe even in her car. Her purpose was so that every time she saw one of these small stickers, it would remind her to pray about whatever situation she was thinking about. Contextualize it, how you will, but I thought to be a clever way to focus on making prayer a vital part of her everyday life.