by Tamela Greenwell

Created on: August 30, 2009   Last Updated: September 01, 2009

May we open up the prison doors of our heart and set those we hold captive free! When we can do this, we will then know true freedom for our own life as well.

Physically speaking, a prisoner is held captive until he pays his debt in full. Spiritually speaking, we can try and hold someone captive behind the prison doors of our heart until they pay us what we believe they owe us. And we will refuse to open those doors and release them until they do just that. We offer them no mercy and grace, and thus no forgiveness. But we are hurting no one but ourselves when we do this. We might think that we have the power over the one that we are holding captive, because in doing this we try to keep them from operating in their own free wills (by continually making demands upon them). And we will not be satisfied until they give us what we think they owe us. This will not work though, because we all have been given free wills.

This is why I say that we are only hurting ourselves. It is like beating our head against a brick wall. Spiritually speaking, when we try to hold someone captive by holding unforgiveness in our heart, we are in all actuality holding our self captive. They are not being hurt one bit. They are free and living life. They might regret not being able to have a relationship with us because of the unforgiveness, but other than that, we are the one in turmoil, because we are the one demanding a payment from them. And we honestly believe that the payment we are requiring of them is a worthy and just payment. And I repeat, we will not be happy until they have paid the payment in full. But when we do this, we neglect the lessons of mercy and grace, and we cause our self a lot of unnecessary grief.

Grace is unmerited favor and mercy is a disposition to be kind and forgiving despite the fact that we might think the offender, in our opinion, is worthy of our justice. Grace and mercy were never intended to be earned. They were just freely given to us by our Father in Heaven when His beloved Son Jesus (our Savior and Lord) took our place on the cross. He died for us while we were yet in our sin.

Don't misunderstand me. We all must use wisdom. For example, a person who has been known to continually abuse his wife and is showing no desire to change his behavior (no efforts in going in a new direction) and has every intention to continue abusing her, should not be shown mercy and grace as to be allowed back into her presence. She should still offer him grace and mercy

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