People may have attacked us, abused us, betrayed us, cheated us, mistreated us, ridiculed us and violated us; they may have done it deliberately, maliciously, viciously and even repeatedly – and without remorse. This can cause us deep pain – a pain we don’t make light of and a pain that God understands. But God commands us to forgive them. This is not easy – but we can do it with the Spirit’s help. In commanding us to forgive, God actually has our best interests at heart; the failure to forgive is a devastating and torturous form of self-destruction. When you forgive, you are the true beneficiary. This message brings home the point that to forgive is to set a prisoner free and to discover that, all along, that prisoner was in fact you.