“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. – Matthew 6:14-15
Throughout our week of prayer, we want to meditate on this relationship between the vertical and horizontal components of forgiveness. We want to explore the wonderful and mysterious truth that forgiven sinners forgive sin. Each day will lead you through two devotional readings that will guide you through your time of prayer. The morning reading will consider an aspect of God’s forgiveness towards us. The evening reading will consider an aspect of how we are to forgive others. We have tried to choose topics each day that relate to one another. The morning reading about God’s forgiveness should encourage you to practice the forgiveness contained in the evening reading. We organized the readings this way because we be- lieve in the theme of this prayer week. Forgiven sinners forgive sin. We can only forgive others if we have a deep awareness of how God has forgiven us. And the more we understand and cherish God’s forgiveness, the more willing and able we will be to forgive others.
This prayer guide was prepared by a team of five men from Sovereign Grace Church Toronto. The themes for each day were selected as a group, but the content of each day was left to the Spirit-guided discretion of the man assigned to that day. As you will see, the daily devotions will be different as they reflect the unique voice of the person writing it. Some will be short. Others will be long. Some will seek to teach, others will simply facilitate Scripture reading. We pray that the diversity contained in this prayer guide will be helpful to you as you begin your prayer week journey.
