Mario was just like my Dad, showing that I was still looking for some Dad to depend on for everything. He was steeped in the "manhood cult", that by having a job, a wife, and a meeting to go to meant that he measured up the standard of a man.
Yet a man who is striving in his own efforts is still dead in his works, and a man who does not even believe on Christ Jesus is dead in his trespasses, and no amount of "manhood" makes one a worthy.
This ugly doctrine has worked its way into many "men's groups", a bunch of foolishness which makes no difference whatsoever for anything.
We all have a Heavenly Father, and Jesus Himself jealously guarded his standing:
"And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which
is in heaven." (Matthew 23: 9)
The more that we learn that we have received the Spirit of adoption (Romans 8: 15), that we have a Father in heaven who lavishly loves us, who has provided all things for us because His Son took all the shames and the beatings and the privations for us, then we rest in the truth that we are taken care of in all things.
For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have
received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." (Romans 8: 15)
"Abba" means "Daddy", the cry of an infant completely dependent and identified with God the Father. The "manhood cult" which was dominant in those Celebrate Recovery meetings that I used to attend was all too prevalent. I still recall another member who was reading a book called "The Father Wound", yet there is a better term for this "wound": spiritual death, and the answer is redemption, remission of sins, and resurrection life in Christ Jesus.
Yet for those who still think that they can, or that they must, go through the motions of believing and hoping and trying to get better on their own, the next best thing is an old man bereft of humility, who prides himself on "taking people through the Twelve Steps."
The Twelve Steps to perdition, of course.
When does this insanity end? For me, it took a long time before I began to realize that the people whom I was reaching out to were not helping me at all.
Mario was the worst offender because he really thought that he was doing me a favor. This guy would let me call him and let me pour out all my problems. What I needed was a heavy dose of righteousness, not a bunch of empty, heedless advice.
This man was so arrogant, and I was so ignorant, that I had spend so much running everything in my life by this guy, so convinced was I that I could not rest and trust God to see me through everything by the power of His Holy Spirit.
Every time I had to make a decision, I found myself running the issue by someone else. I simply could not trust myself, I was so afraid that I would so something foolish or wrong. I had such a conscience of sin, fully unwilling to rest because I knew nothing about grace and righteousness. I was totally accepted in righteousness before God, and I can now trust His grace to see me through every trouble.
Yet like many people in the Body of Christ, including Mario, I had no knowledge of righteousness or grace, none whatsoever. So, I resigned myself to confessing my sins over and over, and calling up Mario every time my life was not going the way that I hoped it would. I spent hours applying for jobs that I did not want, I spend at least two days a week going to meetings that I hate, convinced that I had to run my life by "a group" of people so that I did not make the same mistakes which I had made in the past.
The more time that I spent in these meetings, however, the more mistakes that I ended up making. I found myself losing my temper even more. I found that I had no peace whatsoever, no matter how hard I tried to make peace with the world. I was so frustrated, so unable to go forward or backward.
Of course, anyone living under law will experience nothing but this frustration of going around and around in circles. Could it possibly be otherwise?
Still, the notion of working the Twelve Steps over and over seemed like the only other way to get through this life. It seemed like the best that I could ever hope for, so scared was I that I would fail, that I would fall, that I would lose my way in this life.
But this was not my life that I was called to lead. We are called to let Christ Jesus live in us!
This has no salience for men and women in "Celebrate Recovery" and other hollow Twelve Step meetings.
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