Topic: The Power of Forgiveness [Joyce Meyer Devotional 3 July 2021]

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If You, Lord, should keep account of and treat [us according to our] sins, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You [just what man needs], that You may be reverently feared and worshipped.— Psalms 130:3, 4 (AMPC)View Previous DevotionalAUGUST 03, 2021

The Power of Forgiveness

One morning in 1987, a man took his twenty-year-old daughter to a parade in a town in Northern Ireland. As the father and daughter stood beside a brick wall waiting for the parade to march in front of them, a terrorist’s bomb exploded behind them, instantly killing several people and leaving the two of them crushed under a pile of bricks. Unable to move, the father soon felt his daughter take hold of his hand. Over the screaming voices around them, the father asked his daughter, “Are you alright?” “Yes,” she said. At one point, the daughter said to her father, “Daddy, I love you very much.” She never said another word; she died of brain and spinal injuries about four hours later in a local emergency room.

That night, the father granted an interview to a reporter. When asked how he felt about the people who planted the bomb, he replied, ” I bear them no ill will. Bitter talk is not going to bring my daughter back to life. I shall pray every night that God will forgive them.”

Months later, people asked the father how he could forgive such a brutal act. He said, “My daughter’s last words to me—words of love— had put me on a plane of love. I received God’s grace, through the strength of His love for me, to forgive.”

You can receive God’s grace, through the strength of His love, to forgive.

Prayer Starter: Lord Jesus, thank You for the grace to get through every situation, no matter how difficult, in the name of Jesus, amen!