"Pride isolates us from God"

We all have wounded hearts, not having forgiven people who hurt, rejected, or even abused us. Jesus teaches us in Matthew 7:1-2 that we must not judge or we will be judged in like manner.

Paul writes: “You have therefore no excuse, O man, whoever you are who judge, because in whatever you judge another person, you condemn yourself, because you who judge do the same things.” (Romans 2:1)

This is an extremely important principle in all of our lives, but even more so in the lives of prisoners, because if they do not forgive the persons who hurt them, they will hopelessly end up back in prison again and again after completing a sentence.

We cannot easily forgive a person who has hurt us deeply; that is not a human trait. But we can learn to ask God to show us the wounds of our heart, and help us to forgive the enemies of our past, yes even help us to begin to love them, and we will no longer be bound to reap from the bitter judging we have sown.

Jesus came to heal the brokenhearted as He read from the scroll of Isaiah these famous words while in the synagogue of Capernaum: “The Spirit of the Lord is on Me because He has anointed Me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom to captives, the recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim that this is the year of the Lord.” (Luke 4:18-19)

This is the message we continually bring to prisoners in service of our Lord.

One lady wrote:
“I just want to tell you that I read the first three lessons “Healing the wounded heart”, and found them very helpful. I know all of these truths, but I was filled with “righteous indignation”! Now I have let go, and I want to thank you for being used by the Holy Spirit to show me, how very bad my unforgiving spirit was, and how much it was harming me.”

Below we provide three lessons on this subject on the Audio Bible Teacher. Lessons may be freely copied and distributed if the source is mentioned.