Prison Ministries

Read Matthew 18:21-35, Psalm 32
Prisons of the Soul

“If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Matthew 6:14, 15 NLT

One of the cruelest and most abusive taskmasters anyone can have is unforgiveness. It wrecks relationships with others and with God and is a clinically-proven cause of many physical and emotional illnesses.

The destroyer of our soul will often use unforgiveness to separate us from the lover of our soul, and the consequences can have eternal significance.

When we drink of the bitter root of unforgiveness, we allow ourselves to be held captive by anger and resentment and allow them to rob us of our joy, our peace, and our purpose.

Many times the people that we are bearing grudges against aren’t even aware of the offense. This adds insult to our perceived injury. Whether a person knows or not, either way we are allowing whoever and whatever we cannot forgive to fester and lock us up in a maximum insecurity prison.

No matter what the offense or who committed it, it can never be as great as the price Jesus paid to earn forgiveness for us.

When we are honest with ourselves, we realize how much forgiveness we have already received and how much we are going to continue to need as we co-exist with sin in a sinful world. It is a “no-brainer” to forget that the condition for receiving the mercy and forgiveness we need is to give it.

Even if we can not forgive for the sake of the offender, we must realize that for our own spiritual, emotional, and physical well being, we must forgive if we are going to stay out of the prison of unforgiveness.

Father, help me to guard my heart that I not fall into bondage to unforgiveness. In Jesus’ name, Amen