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Key Bible Verse: Now it is time to forgive him and comfort him. Otherwise he may become so discouraged that he won't be able to recover (2 Corinthians 2:7). Bonus Reading: Philemon 1-25

Loving actions communicate in unmistakable terms the reality of your forgiveness and your commitment to reconciliation. Thomas Edison understood this principle. When he and his staff were developing the incandescent light bulb, it took hundreds of hours to manufacture a single bulb. One day, after finishing a bulb, he handed it to a young errand boy and asked him to take it upstairs to the testing room. As the boy turned and started up the stairs, he stumbled and fell, and the bulb shattered on the steps. Instead of rebuking the boy, Edison reassured him and then turned to his staff and told them to start working on another bulb.

When it was completed several days later, Edison powerfully demonstrated the reality of his forgiveness. He walked over to the same boy, handed him the bulb, and said, "Please take this up to the testing room." Imagine how that boy must have felt. He knew that he didn't deserve to be trusted with this responsibility again. Yet, here it was, being offered to him as though nothing had ever happened. Nothing could have restored this boy to the team more clearly, more quickly, or more fully.

—Ken Sande in The Peacemaker

My Response: A way I could demonstrate the reality of my forgiveness to _____ is …

Thought to Apply: When a deep injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive.

—Alan Paton (So. Africa)

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Copyright © 2002 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
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Prayer for the Week

Merciful Father, You sent Your son to reconcile us while we were in rebellion. Make me willing to patch things up with those who've offended me.

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