Week 5 Day 1

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Hold No Resentment

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

James 1:27

The poor are always with us here:

’Tis our great Father’s plan,

That mutual wants and mutual care

Should bind us man to man.

President Lincoln wanted desperately to defeat the Confederacy, but at the same time, he didn’t hold feelings of resentment against his enemy. His will to defeat them was tempered by his will to find peace and to dwell with them once again in unity. “We reinstate the spirit of concession and compromise,” he said near the war’s end. “It’s the spirit which has never failed us in past perils, and which may be safely trusted for all the future.” Do you hold hard feelings toward those who have hurt you in the past? If you’re at war with other people or things, be prepared to forgive and forget. Like Lincoln, you can trust the spirit of compromise.