Everything has Changed – Nothing has Changed

 

This is the nature of the Spiritual Awakening, if we insist on paying attention only to what we can see with our head-socket eyes, as opposed to the eyes of our understanding, the eyes of our heart. The thoughts, the beliefs that run through our minds, these change, this is the metanoia, this is the repentance sought by Jesus Christ when he announced: “Repent and believe the Gospel.”

One man in the Stories of Alcoholics Anonymous writes about one man who was seized with a sudden fit of anxiety. He could not even leave his home, for fear of something terrible happening to him. His psychiatrist pressed him to walk around the block, no matter what it took, no matter how much it strained his nerves.

When he had the "spiritual awakening" as reported in the Big Book, the writer commented that "everything in my life changed, and yet nothing changed." This mindset, this attitude of mind I tried hard to get, I never quite understood in the first place. For a long time, I felt that a spiritual awakening had to do with being in the right place at the right time, but yet it was up to me to figure out this right place and this right time.

This was a story that I could relate to earlier in my life. On some days, I was seized with so great a fear that I could not even leave the house, I was so afraid to do something wrong, or end up being in the wrong place, as if this life was about ending up in the right place, for fear that I would miss God and His perfect will for my life.

Of course, I have since then learned that Christ in me, the hope of glory, can never steer me wrong. In fact, He leads me in the paths of righteousness (Psalm 23:3) because He has been made in me righteousness (1 Corinthians 1: 30), and in Him I have been made the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5: 21). Because I am learning now to renew my mind in line with the divine Word of God, I am transformed from glory to glory by the power of the Holy Spirit, and His light breaks forth from me. This is the blessed legacy for all who believe on Him, if they will receive His witness, His grace by faith every day. This is a matter of belief, of metanoia, of a changing of our minds, from believing that God is angry with us and that we must work to please Him, to believing that He has exhausted his righteous wrath against us on the Cross, putting His Beloved Son in our place! The more that we reflect on this wonderful truth, we will witness a dry, dull, and boring world transform into a wonder of opportunity for us to shine forth His grace:

"Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,

"And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel. " (Mark 1: 14-15)

He leads me, He guides me, because He has become my life, and by His Holy Spirit His laws have been written on my heart and my mind. Never again does a believer have to live under the self-induced condemnation that he must try to discern God's will on his own. The more that we listen to the peace of God, which rules in the heart of every believer, we find ourselves walking by faith, walking in the Spirit, not fulfilling the lusts of the flesh, bearing fruit of righteous, giving all glory to God who made us, who loved us, who died for us, who lives for us, in us, and through us.

Working the AA Program: Modern Day Galatianism

Many of us exclaimed, "What an order! I can't go through with it." Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. (AA, pg 60)

"Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" (Galatians 3: 3)

The Twelve Step Programs claim that a sober, drug-free life requires a spiritual experience. We have to be "reborn".

The Program of AA proceeds to outline a series of "suggestions" which one must follow in order to maintain this sobriety.

Paul the Apostle dismissed such empty sophistries, which Bible teachers today call "Galatianism" or legalism. This spirit tends to grip believers who neglect their new identities in Christ and begin believing that they must live out the Christian life in their lives. On the contrary, we are not called to live out Christ, which for fallen man is an impossible task.

Jesus comforts his disciples that what is impossible for man, is possible for God. ( Mark 10: 27). If it took the Spirit of God to make us alive, what makes anyone think that keeping the rules in our bodies and minds will continue the work?

Living under the law, or any system of rules and regulations in order to attain something, will engender strife, upset, and dysfunction:

"For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

"But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith." (Galatians 3: 10-11)

I have met many people who try to live out the program of AA. They may not be drinking or using illicit substances, but they have no life in them. Old-timers looking moldy and bitter. They wish that they could drink again, they wish that they could live life without worrying about the next drink. With all the attention that goes toward "working a program", one has to wonder what happens to the life that God intended for us to live.

Paul further declares to the Galatians, who were convinced that they had to perform in order to perfect themselves, that the law is contrary to us:

"9But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? 10Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. 11I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain." (Galatians 4: 9-11)

"Weak and beggarly elements" -- the Law, the program of action which makes a man keep looking at himself to measure up,  the Twelve Steps will make a man weak and poor. I remember reading in the ''Twelve and Twelve" how some members never quite recover after breaking free of alcohol abuse. What's the point of breaking free of an addiction if there is no life to follow?

I have emphasized this truth many times in this blog, and I will do so again. We do not need a set of rules to follow, but rather a new life. Jesus came not make our lives better, but that we might have life, dynamic, divine life living within us (John 10: 10).

AA's Tools for Dealing With Resentment: Broken and Bankrupt

Members of AA would offer me a bunch of "tools" for overcoming resentment.

Often, I would sort through all of these skills, and more often than not the resentments never went away.

The real problem for all of us is "self", we are beings in sin, and we cannot perfect ourselves, we cannot reform ourselves, we cannot cleanse the dead flesh.

Only in Christ risen, seated in honor at the right hand of the Father, do we receive the righteousness and grace. Resentment, like alcohol abuse, dissension among others, and adulteries, are all works of the flesh.

If we still struggle with anger, if we are still dealing with lustful thinking in our lives or mood swings unending, that is a mere signal that we are still trusting in ourselves instead of resting in God's righteousness.

Looking at our thoughts and our feelings makes us look at ourselves, and we end up sinking in a pit of self-pity.

Here is a list of some of the "tools" that members of AA are instructed to use:

1. Make a gratitude list.

How many lists did I make in my life. Yet no matter how many times I looked at what I had, I just could not shake away the upset of the people who had hurt me in my life. Every good and perfect gift comes from God (James 1: 17). "God" is more than some "Higher Power" according to our understanding. God is the Father of Lights, in whom there is no shadowing turning. Everything comes from Him. In His Light is nothing but grace and righteousness.

Often, a gratitude list focuses on ourselves, and when we look at ourselves, we find ourselves getting resentful all over again. A "gratitude list" does not solve the pressing problems in front of me. God offers a better reason to be thankful:

"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John 1: 7)

This blood speaks better things. Everlasting righteousness is one of them (Daniel 9: 24), but the writer of Hebrews explains further:

"And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." (Hebrews 12:24)

God outlined the promises in the Old Testament which are revealed to us in the New:

"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

"And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

"For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8: 10-12)

He gives us guidance from within, so now every believer in the Body of Christ no longer has to look to himself for the way to go in the world. He will be a God to everyone of us -- meaning that He is taking care of everything. We will not need to run to other people to help us know God, because He Himself will teach us more of Himself. All we have to do is ask (Ephesians 1: 16-21).

2. Think of all the things that you have gotten away with.

I have indeed gotten away with many things, but man's selfish nature is such that even though we have been granted a reprieve for many things, a sense of debt for what we suffered, for what we let someone "get away" with. Only when we understand how nothing that we have done could ever pay the eternal sin-death that we owe God, only then do we break free of thinking that we have paid our  own way and expect others to pay for theirs. Recounting what we have gotten away with can also bring forth a sense of guilt and fear instead, and so we leap from one prison to the other instead of breaking free from the prison of self in which our fallen bodies and minds demand a satisfaction which we can never earn in ourselves.

If we really want to understand what we have gotten away with, let us look to the Cross:

"13And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; 14Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; 15And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it." (Colossians 2: 13-15)

Jesus did not just die for all our sins, but by dying on the Cross He annulled the law, which was forever against by fulfilling the law and according to us His righteousness, the perfect standing before God, in which no sin conscience would ever again remain within us. The Devil's only too left is to shame us and defame us when we have not kept God's law, yet Jesus is now our righteousness (1 Corinthians 1: 30), and in Christ we have been made the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5: 21)

Now, this righteousness is imputed to our spirit man, but these fallen bodies with a fallen mind will still tempt us to "get even" or to "make something right" in our lives.

Instead of trying to make our feelings stop, Paul tells us to reckon ourselves dead to the flesh (Romans 6: 11), and instead to open our eyes to Christ, who is our life (Colossians 3: 1-4)

3. Remember that they are not getting away with anything.

There is great solace in this truth. I have witnessed in my own life many people who have harmed me. Yet even this truth will mean nothing to the carnal man who walks by sight and not by faith (2 Corinthians 5: 7). Only by faith to do we receive that all our sins are forgiven (Ephesians 2: 4-8), will we then have the faith to believe:

"Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." (Romans 12: 19)

You have to know that you are "Beloved" first, and we are accepted (lit. made gracious) in the Beloved, who is Christ (Ephesians 1: 6)

Yes, those who have harmed us do not get away with anything, but first we must believe that because Jesus Christ died for all our sins, then we can rest assured that all our sins have been paid for, and we then have the faith to believe that He has taken care of everything else.

And here's the last one that many AA members love to chant:

4. At least you're sober.

Sobriety is not enough, and never can be. Man is meant for a lot more than "not drinking." Life is more than "not doing", but about living out the Life that God wants to give us through His Son.

For many years, I would work the program, go through the tools, try to overcome these resentments over and over. We do not overcome anything. In Christ alone do we overcome, and through Him we are guaranteed to be more than overcomers (Romans 8: 37)

In Christ, then, the very notion of resentment gives way to resting in God's righteousness and letting His grace bless us in every way. We do not need tools, we just need to receive more of the Truth, growing in Grace and Knowledge of the Lord (2 Peter 3: 18). To the degree that we depend or take pride in our own accomplishments, to the degree that we trust ourselves and thus lose our temper to see other people seemingly get away with everything, only then do we find resentment run rampant in our lives. Resentment is about us and our failed attempts to fix our fallen flesh. It's a hopeless case.

Instead, let us rest in our new life, our new identity, Christ in us, the hope of glory (Colossians 1: 27)

Not a Conscience of Condemnation, but one of Righteousness

The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink. (AA, pg  24)

"For reasons yet obscure" -- the whole premise is wrong, that's why the reasons do not exist.

Alcoholism, like any other perversion, is a result of man in his flesh being dead in his trespasses, and no matter who hard he tries to blot out the wrongs done to him, no matter how hard he tries to break free, all of the struggling makes the matter worse, like a victim trapped in quicksand, who in thrashing about to get out just gets in even deeper.

"19Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." (Galatians 5: 19-21)

Paul shared the desperate struggle which he found himself in as a result of trying to correct his own flesh:

"21I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. 22For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 23But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Romans 7: 21-24)

The law of sin and death brings every man into bondage. The way out is not through our efforts, but through Jesus Christ:

"I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin" (Romans 7: 25)

The next verse explains the key:

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8: 1, NIV)

This gift of righteousness and grace, this standing of "no condemnation" allows Christ in us to be the hope -- the certain expectation -- of glory in our  lives (Colossians 1: 27)

This gift of condemnation grants us the power to overcome all sin. On this truth Jesus ministered to the woman caught in adultery:

"When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? 11She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." (John 8: 10-11)

It is not a conscience of our sin, not a reminder of the wrongs that we have done which set us free, but the righteousness of Christ imputed to us (2 Corinthians 5: 21) which then set us free from sin to reign in life.

Promises of God, more than His Presence

Leaving aside the drink question, they tell why living was so unsatisfactory. They show how the change came over them. When many hundreds of people are able to say that the consciousness of the Presence of God is today the most important fact of their lives, they present a powerful reason why one should have faith.  (AA, pg 51)

Life is unsatisfactory for the sons of men because we are dead in trespasses:

"12Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: 13(For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come." (Romans5: 12-14)

There is hope in Christ Jesus, a hope with the certainty of good things to come:

"For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ." (Romans 5:17)

We need not just life, but we crave the opportunity to "reign in life", and this we can have when we receive Christ's abundance of grace and His gift of righteousness. We are called to keep receiving these two precious gifts.

I want more than an awareness of God. I need to know that before Him, I am fully justified, that He will never cast me aside, and that He favors me in all that I do. More than presence, let us practice the promises of God in our lives, which we receive through Christ.

Not "God-Conscious", but "Filled with God's Loves"

Consciousness and conscience are two major features in the Big Book of AA.

The first appearance of "consciousness" or "awareness" appears here:

There I humbly offered myself to God, as I then understood Him, to do with me as He would. I placed myself unreservedly under His care and direction. I admitted for the first time that of myself I was nothing; that without Him I was lost. I ruthlessly faced my sins and became willing to have my new-found Friend take them away, root and branch. I have not had a drink since.

My schoolmate visited me, and I fully acquainted him with my problems and deficiencies. We made a list of people I had hurt or toward whom I felt resentment. I expressed my entire willingness to approach these individuals, admitting my wrong. Never was I to be critical of them. I was to right all such matters to the utmost of my ability.

 

I was to test my thinking by the new God-consciousness within. Common sense would thus become uncommon sense. I was to sit quietly when in doubt, asking only for direction and strength to meet my problems as He would have me. Never was I to pray for myself, except as my requests bore on my usefulness to others. Then only might I expect to receive. But that would be in great measure. (AA, pg. 13)

 

This man's consciousness, or awareness, if one insists, was flawed from the beginning:

 

"I humbly offered myself to God, as I then understood Him."

 

What does that mean? What was Bill's understanding of God, then? The Truth of who God is, how He is revealed in the Bible, excels beyond our mere human knowledge:

 

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD." (Isaiah 55: 8)

 

and

 

"Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us" (Ephesians 3: 20)

 

The issue is not understanding, but faith, belief:

 

"Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith." (Habakkuk 2: 4)

 

I cannot trust a "God of my understanding", because my understanding is too limited. This falsehood is the first of all too many in the AA program. Everything is reduced back to the thinking and the feeling of the person, which brings people into further bondage.

 

I admitted for the first time that of myself I was nothing; that without Him I was lost. I ruthlessly faced my sins and became willing to have my new-found Friend take them away, root and branch. I have not had a drink since.

 

"I admitted for the first time that of myself I was nothing."

 

Bill writes "I" twice -- if we are nothing, then we need something much greater, do we not? A god of my understanding is not enough, because it's based on "my understanding" as opposed to His Word.

 

I ruthlessly faced my sins and became willing to have my new-found Friend take them away, root and branch.

 

No man can face all of his sins. Even David had more sense than that:

 

"Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults." (Psams 19: 12)

 

 I have not had a drink since.

 

This phrase is  a whopper, if that he pretends to have led a sober life aferwards. He was clamoring for alcohol at the end of his life. Sober, indeed.

 

I was to test my thinking by the new God-consciousness within. 

 

This is laughable new-age nonsense. "God-consciousness" means what, exactly? These loose terms which mean very little end up leading more people astray rather than imparting to them the Truth who sets them free.

 

Forget "God-consciousness". It is not enough to know that "God is", but we must believe that God is love, and that He loves us:

 

"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4: 10)

 

and

 

"And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." (1 Johnn 4: 16)

 

To know and believe the love that God has for us, we must believe that Jesus Christ is the mercy seat for all of our sins. Many Christians do not believe this, as they keep confessing their sins, convinced that they must do something to restore fellowship to God, when He has already promised, in the Old and the New Testaments:

 

"For I will be merciful [lit. propitious] to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. " (Hebrews 8: 12)

 

It is not enough for us to believe that God has taken our sins away, as Bill W. suggested. We have to know and believe that all of our sins were paid for at the Cross. Otherwise, a lingering fear of judgment hovers over us. This love is perfected in putting us in Christ, identifying us with Christ:

 

"Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. " (1 John 4: 17)

 

When we believe that Christ's Finished Work has paid for all our sins and transformed us from dead in our trespasses to alive in Him, then we need never fear again:

 

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." (1 John 4: 18) 

 

It is not enough to have a "God-consciousness". We are called to walk, to abide in His love, that all of our sins are forgiven and that He has given us His Son, Jesus Christ, who comes to live in us:

 

"To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:" (Colossians 1: 27)

 

Who needs an "awareness" of God, when God offers to live in us and guide us? Bill W.'s "program" is weak tea, fraud and folly.

 

 

In Christ, There is no Inventory to Take

The AA Program teaches people to take their inventory massively, the Fourth Step, followed by daily Tenth Step inventories.

No matter how often one takes his inventory, a sense of wrongdoing cannot be taken away.

First, let's dispel the nonsensical notion that a man can confess all of his sins:

"Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults." (Psalm 19: 12)

As a child, and even into adulthood, I was convinced that I could keep a close-enough eye on  myself, that I could catch my sins before they would catch me. Yet the truth remains: "who can understand errors?" The original does not specify even "whose" errors precisely, because this sad limitation is true for all of us.

David also writes about this:

"Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance." (Psalm 90: 8)

The light of God does not expose our sins, though, because in Christ His blood cleanses, even now, all of our sins:

"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John 1: 7)

Even if we wanted to confess our sins, we mistake who we are in, because we are now sons of Light (1 Thessalonians 5: 5)

In Christ, there is no iventory to take, in the sense that we do not confess our sins in order to be forgiven. Instead of looking at ourselves, Paul calls us to set our eye on what is above:

"1If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 2Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. 3For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. 4When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." (Colossians 3: 1-4)

 Rejoice instead in the following blessing, which David craved but at the time God could not give, because Jesus had not yet died on the Cross:

"If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?

"But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared." (Psalm 130: 3-4)

Stop looking at yourself! Stop taking your inventory! In Christ, there is no inventory to take!

"Self-Talk" - Nonsensical Jibber-Jabber

Two practices came through to me as I was growing up under the "wings" of AA.

First, all of this talk about "self-talk" has become quite fashionable. In our schools, in our churches, in counseling sessions. Even Dr. Phil based a number of his strategies on the notion that our interior dialogue can lead us or destroy us.

Reminiscences from the past, the pains of the present, the fears of the future -- all of this can war at a person from the inside, so claim many thinkers and counselors.

The truth is, that we human beings, no matter what we have been through, have this terrible tendency of generalizing one experience as a means of protecting ourselves from the future.

That is the focal point of the whole problem: "Protecting ourselves."

All of our hurts, habits, hangups, inside-out have to do with "self".

We love ourselves so much, we castigate ourselves for not doing a better job of breaking free of an addiction, or we punish ourselves because we did not do enough to stand up to a bully in our past, or to stand up to our abusers, or we hate ourselves because we have not advanced to the degree that other people have prospered in their lives.

We love ourselves, and we love ourselves too much. For this reason we talk to ourselves, trying to make something of our current circumstance, try to get ahead of our past.

We do not need to fix ourselves. We need a new life, a new everything. We need an identity which rests on something eternal. Without God, without the righteous that His Son imparts to us, and the grace which causes us to reign in life (Romans 5: 17), we are forever trying to fix our feelings, overcome our difficulties, rehearsing and replenishing our previous hurts and fears, convinced that if we think or feel  a certain way.

We do not need more "self-talk" to get us going in this life. We need less focus on ourselves and  more focus on Himself, Jesus Christ, who supplies all our need, all our wants, everything that we have been looking for, but could never find.

His grace is sufficient for us. His grace defines us and drives us (1 Corinthians 15: 10). His grace also defends us, turning attacks into blessings (2 Corinthians 12: 9-10).

We have the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, who leads us into all knowledge (John 16: 13). John shares in his first epistle that because of the Holy Spirit, we have all knowledge, and thus we have no need that anyone teach us anything (1 John 2: 20-27)

First of all, the Holy Spirit convicts us of righteousness, that the blood of Jesus has so perfectly cleansed us, that we need  no longer pay attention the lies of the enemy, our flesh, or the world (John 16: 10)

The message of perfect righteousness is what we need. We do not give ourselves a pep-talk, but instead we receive a greater revelation of Jesus:

"Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come." (John 16: 13)

He will not speak of Himself, but will speak of Christ Jesus, who lives in every believer (Colossians 1: 27).

I have been so confused by the witness, or rather the witless "wisdom" of psychological experts. People are always telling us to tell ourselves wonderful things about ourselves to ourselves. No matter how strong our self-talk, the fallen nature within us communicates a negative message of "not good enough" condemnation. Satan goes about as a roaring lion seeing whom he may devour, yet if we rest in the righteousness granted to us, then we need not heed the hardening calls of condemnation which the world, ourselves,  and the Enemy try to throw at us.

Let the Word of God richly indwell in you instead (Colossians 3: 16), for His words are life to all who heed them (John 6: 63)

Automatic Writing -- More Perversion

Taking advice from Carl Jung, Bill W. engaged in a pernicious exercise called "automatic writing."

In this practice, an individual sits down and writes all the thoughts, the trains of thought which come through for an individual.

My mother used this practice many times in order to get ideas on what she needed to do in tough situations. This suggestion is one of the stupidest things that I ever got out of AA.

The counsel of the ungodly is a serious matter. Other than the wisdom of God in His Word, any other set of ideas invites more distortion, dysfunction and confusing into our lives.

Yet the question remains for many believers: how do we receive guidance? The Holy Spirit provides us with all knowledge (John 16: 13)  when we believe that we have been made righteousness by the blood of Jesus:

"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people" (Hebrews 8: 10)

This inner guidance will is written on the minds and the heart of every believer because:

"For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8: 12) With the Holy Spirit, we receive righteousness, peace, and joy (Romans 14: 17), and this peace acts like an umpire, ruling good or bad for every decision that we face in our lives (Colossians 3: 15). He works within us both to will and to do for His good pleasure (Philippians 2: 12-13), and He is ever-working in us even now (Colossians 1: 29)

We must not look to ourselves, for we were dead in our trespasses before Jesus came into our lives (Ephesians 2:1). The last thing that anyone should do when seeking wisdom is to look into ourselves.
Christ is made wisdom for every believer (1 Corinthians 1: 30), and the more that we know Him, the more grace that we receive from Him, the greater our knowledge and guidance in doing what He wills withing us to do.

I hope that whoever reads this post will receive grace and peace in the knowledge that we need no longer run around like little children tossed with every wrong doctrine (Ephesians 4: 14). We do not find our leadings in ourselves, per se, but through Christ in us, who by His Holy Spirit gives us righteousness, peace, and joy, then motivates us to do all things wonderful.

"The Little Professor" -- Trying to be Good in Yourself

23But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. 24Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." (Galatians 3: 23-25)

The law, the set of rules, the "dos and don'ts" that wars against everyone of us (Colossians 2: 13-15), these regulations brought us into bondage for a long time.

The law forces us to look at ourselves:

"2I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 4Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. 7Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. 8Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 10But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 11For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. 12Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. 13Thou shalt not kill. 14Thou shalt not commit adultery. 15Thou shalt not steal. 16Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. 17Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's." (Exodus 20: 2-17)

The law puts all the focus on us: "Thou shalt, thou shalt, thou shalt."

Paul details the outcome of living in bondage in that men and women are still doing, or at least trying to do, something about ourselves:

"14For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. 16If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. 17Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 18For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. 19For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. 20Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

 Notice how often Paul writes the word "I" -- 25 times! Too much of ourselves. This strain of self is based on trying to keep the law, trying to measure up to a standard which no one can measure up to.

Wow, how it all makes sense. We do not have a poor self-image problem -- we have an improper one much of the time. Even AA acknowledges that "self-pity" is a big source of the woe that leads people to take from the bottle. I often remember the people whom I spoke to in  meetings, I remember the person who brought me into AA, and how caught up this person was in herself. It's really poisonous, focusing on ourselves, trying to make everything in us "just right".

Paul saw the mess that he was in:

21I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. 22For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 23But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 25I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin." (Romans 7: 21-25) 

Jesus Christ gives us His life and all the glory that goes with it. We receive unparalleled blessing, no longer focusing on ourselves but instead taking in the wonder and the glory of His life.

Until we accept that we cannot measure up to any standard, that anything we do is  never going to be good enough, the "little professor" or rather "the schoolmaster" in our head will attack us every day, berating us for not doing enough, for failing to measure up.

Members of AA more often than not are just consumed in themselves. Whether they are bent out of shape because the world treats them badly, or they are in despair because they do not live up to the life that they think that they deserve, they drink over the hurt and bitterness in their lives.

This hurt, this bitterness, has a source in a sin conscience, one which every man is born with, and in the Blood of Jesus we are forever purged from sin and perfected in our conscience (Hebrews 10: 14)

Stop looking at yourself, your feelings, your hurts. Start looking at Himself, your righteousness and your wisdom. He set you free from yourself, to receive His Life, that you may pass from death life (John 3: 16)

You do not need to listen to that "little professor" in your head anymore. Every demand on you has been divinely and righteously fulfilled forever at the Cross!

Tradition Eleven -- No Longer True

11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we

need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and

films.

This is not true. I have seen advertisements for AA in the newspapers and on TV.

Of course, I am not surprised that the AA program has to resort to such means. The more people who were attracted to these programs find out what really goes on, the more likely they are not to go, and to discourage others not to.

The program simply does not work, does not take care of the deepest need of man, does not lead man to the Truth that sets us free.

The AA Big Book distorts the Bible, takes passages out of context, invites man to look at himself more, even when claiming to take him out of himself.

The very notion that people will trust a "loving God" as revealed in a "group conscience" has not received the proper thrashing and calumny that it deserves.

Tradition Nine

A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards

or committees directly responsible to those they serve.


All I can comment: "What?"

I do not understand how anyone or any group can claim never to be "organized". The same boards that are supposed to serve do not protect members from sexual assault or other gross perversions.

This is one classic piece of double-speal, and a double-reason why to stay out of AA.

Professionals -- More of the Problem

One of AA's traditions mentions professionals:
 

Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our

service centers may employ special workers.

The professionals in this world cause more problems than the fix.

The biggest issues is our fascination, our fixation with ourselves. We keep insisting to ourselves that if we try a little harder, if we do a little more, the day will come when we get an "A" for living out the life that is listed in the Ten Commandments, the Twelve Traditions, or any other system based on merit.

Paul cuts away at such sappy sophistry:

whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?" (Galatians 4: 9)

"Weak and beggarly elements" refers to "the basics" or "the ABCs", the simple, kiddie stuff. Believers in the Body of Christ are full-grown Sons, and thus have no further need for a tutor (Galatians 3: 24)

Professionals want to explore the thoughts and feelings of clients, all the more turning them in on themselves, defining them according to a bunch of labels which provide job security for the "professional" as opposed to life and liberty and healing for the person mired in his own mind.

How many "professionals" have  I spoken with in my life? How many of these "social workers" have stepped into the lives of individuals whose preoccupation with themselves invites all the depression, anger, fatigue, and other mental issues which no one can escape from?

I think that psychiatry, unless a discernible biological disorder can be determined, should be scrapped of state funding. The government chooses to put people on medications just to slow them down, when the real issue falls on the preoccupation that men and women have with themselves, with their thinking, with their circumstances.

The problem is so easy to solve, if we just stop putting ourselves on the regressive pedestal of trying to make ourselves OK by our own standards, whether in thought and feeling, whether by word or deed.

AA  is just  a part of the problem, with the state courts or federal agencies pressuring people into programs which put the focus on oneself instead of drawing man out of himself and toward the very God who gave Himself so that every need would be met, and thus no further need to busy oneself about oneself.

Second Tradtion -- Let's Talk About the Truth

For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority—a loving God as

He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but

trusted servants; they do not govern.

Already, I can see  the phylacteries rolling down the sleeves of the oldtimers.

"A loving God" -- what does that mean? Why is this "God" loving?

The Bible gives a clear picture of God and His love:

"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4: 10)

God so love the world, that He gave His Son so that we would not perish but have everlasting life. John writes in his First Epistle that we are called to live through Him:

"In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him." (1 John 4:9)

This is more than a sentimental feeling that we get hooked on. This is a certainty beyond our thoughts and feelings, one which we do not have to strive for, but rather thrive in:

"I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing." (John 15: 5)

Wow! That's what it's all about - bearing fruit by resting in the Truth that all of our sins are forgiven, and that in Christ we are made fully and forever righteous:

"Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief." (Hebrews 4: 11)

This rest we receive by believing on Him whom the Father has sent for us ( John 6:29)

Thank You Again, Bob George!

AA diagnosed the problem:

Whatever our protestations, are not most of us concerned with ourselves, our resentments, or our self-pity?

Selfishness - self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt.

 

So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us! God makes that possible. And there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without His aid. Many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we could not live up to them even though we would have liked to. Neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power. We had to have God's help.

 

The problem with AA, and with every other religious system or cult, is that is still too much in the way. Man is still expected to do something, have something, make some move to do more so that "self" does not takeover. Unfortunately, this just creates a meaningless contradiction. How can I be delivered from this body of death without someone else supplying everything?

 

Jesus does for us what we cannot do for ourselves, with is everything.

 

We are dead in our trespasses, and the more that we try to be good, it is still "we" who are trying.

 

Fear, resentment, preoccupations of any kind, all of this manifests the unrest of a fallen man who keeps on trying to pick Himself up.

 

The biggest source of self-occupation -- condemnation. We see our sin, ourselves unable to break away from this sin. We need more than good thoughts, we need more than proper feeling. We need a new life, we need the Power that holds the Universe together, the same One who sits at the right hand of the Father to justify us in all that we do.

 

Jesus Christ is our life (Colossians 3: 4), He is everything that we need. Any system or train of thought which makes Him less and makes us more is made up of folly and doomed to fail. We bring nothing but death within us, as we are all born into this world in the likeness of fallen Adam.

 

Yet for so many of us, we find ourselves loving ourselves, convinced by pride and fear and tradition that "God helps those who help themselves" or that we cannot trust anyone, that we must keep stable on the inside in order to keep our lives stable, we find nothing but frustration and instability in our lives.

 

God is love (1 John 4: 8) and this love is a lavish, never-ending forgiveness for all our sins (1 John 4: 10). His love is not based on feeling, not based on circumstance,  but on the Cross, where all of our sins were purged, and where we receive the gift of righteousness and abundance of grace, both of which have nothing to do with us, everything that He has done for us.

 

So, God loves us perfectly, and this perfect love makes us like Jesus, brings us into Him, and thus "As He is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4:17). This perfect love, one which takes away all our sins and takes us from dead in our trespasses to alive in Christ, forever adopted into God's Holy Family.

 

The problem for most believers, for me, is that we pay too much attention to our feelings. We want to feel a certain way, we want our thoughts and feelings to cooperate and do what we want. Paul went through that dizzying drama-trauma in Romans 7, where the words "I, I, I" never stop.

 

People drink, smoke, abuse people, places, and things because they love themselves, they love themselves too much, convinced that they are the center of the universe, that when they think and feel right, then everything else will all work out right.

 

None of this wrangling is necessary. We are called to rest from our dead works, to let His working within us (Colossians 1: 29) lead us through His peace.

 

Thank you again, Bob George, for this revelation. Pastor Joseph Prince makes righteousness the key element along with grace, but your explanation on this issue has made all the difference.

Thinking our Way or Thinking of the Way

AA spends a lot of time telling the members of the different "fellowships" what they should be thinking.

Thinking about ourselves all the time -- what a travesty. The idea is more open-minded thinking about other people, but I never found peace in that line of action.

Even if we are thinking about helping other people, inevitably we are thinking about ourselves, how we fit into the grand scheme of things on our own.

The program also teaches the members that they have to keep up their spiritual program:

We are not called to think a certain way in order to achieve certain things.

We are called to renew our minds to the truth of God's Word:

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee." (Isaiah 26: 3)

To stay our mind on Him is to see that He holds the universe together, that He is on our side, right now!

He is right here, on your side, the Lord God who will never leave you nor forsake you.

I have learned so much from the revelation that too many of us love ourselves, we are too filled with ourselves, the feelings that we have, the thoughts that we battle. No wonder so many of us struggle in this life. We spend too much time looking at "us" and not at "Him" who has everything taken care of.

When you rest in the Truth, seeing Him who is invisible, you spend less time looking at your thoughts and feelings, and more time seeing Him, who is providing for all your needs according to His riches in glory.

The Devil's only trick is to distract us from the Lord God and all that He  Himself has for us, and force us to look to ourselves and to our efforts.

AA is just one more scam of the enemy, in that the program keeps us looking at ourselves, even when the Big Book declares that "self" is our biggest problem.

It;s not enough to define the problem. The solution, a new life, a new self is needed. Jesus in all His splendor,  the one who holds the Universe in His hands, the one whom the Father declared that no one can take out of His hand.

The last thing that we need to be doing is to think our own way. Instead, let us think on the Way, the Truth and the Life, who takes in all that we need and holds nothing back.

One Good Thing I Learned in AA

I can say that I learned some good things in AA.

I  did not have to let the opinions of other prevent from living and thriving in the world.

I learned the importance of rest, not doing, to receiving His peace in our lives.

I will never forget this one guy. He was cool.

He had long hair, a big, bushy beard, but he was no Pharisee.

He never pretended to have all the answers. He was not like those religious, uptight people in Celebrate Recovery, either.

This guy radiated some real warmth in his life. He happily, laughingly admitted that in AA, you will find that most people are not "hail fellow well met" -- not everyone was a rosy personality with anything worthwhile to share.

The best thing he ever said to me and the rest of the group involved mercy and grace, and I am learning so much more about God's grace:

"Mercy is not getting what you do deserve, and grace is getting what you don't deserve."

That phrase was so good, I tried to repeat it as soon as I heard it, then he wrote it down for me. That was the one time that I can remember when someone went out of their way to provide me real information, somebody who did not baby me through my hardships and troubles, someone who shared something straight in line with the Word of God, although he did not know it.

God desires mercy, not sacrifice (Hosea 6: 6), and we get both mercy and grace through the Cross, where all our sins are purged once and for all forever, and we then receive His life, with all the glory and goodness and blessing which comes from being a child of God (1 John 3: 1).

One good thing that I learned in AA -- grace is getting what you do not deserve. All that I receive, I receive as a gift from God, as every good and perfect comes from above, the Father of Lights (James 1:17), and I am a son of Light (1 Thessalonians 5: 5) in Christ, who is the Light of the World (John 8:12).

AA and Psalm One

"1Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful." (Psalm 1: 1)

The Psalms cover wide-ranging issues, from seeking the forgiveness and favor of God to providing that even in the midst of the greatest trials and storms in our lives, the Lord is the Rock of Ages for all who believe on Him.

Interestingly enough, the first Psalm talks about how a man can prosper in the Lord.

The unidentified psalmist indicts three paths which are wrong for a "mighty man" to get involved in:


"Walking in the counsel of the ungodly."

"Ungodly" simply speaks of any knowledge, wisdom, or insight that stems from fallen man instead of the Risen Christ. That includes AA, with its attachment to itemizing sins at length, confessing one's wrongdoing to others who may just as well betray a confidence as instill any hope. The "counsel of the ungodly" includes the maxims of Benjamin Franklin, the advice of parents and grandparents that does not square completely on the Word of God, or the rationalizing of hollow intellects and media elites who trust more in themselves than in the One who made all things.

"Standing in the way of sinners"

Once again, AA meetings are full of sinners, people who either have not received life and that more abundantly, or believers who are convinced that they have to fulfill the Old Covenant commandments in order to enjoy New Covenant life and blessing. AA is Moses without the props, without the priests, with the pretense that the associations of men and their old ideas can restore man to the vitality that he so craves. "The way of sinners" includes gang-banging, country clubs, or any criminal enterprise which makes something of man, who without God and His love is nothing.

"Sitting in the seat of the scornful"

Oh, the number of times that I would hear people go on about their unhappy marriages, their unkind bosses, the uncaring world as I sat and listened to the sob-story "drunk-a-logues" in AA. More often than not, these men and women still bitter because the world just does not treat them right. Or they complain about the grumpy, angry people who run the coffee bars in Alano Clubs. They are downright mean, territorial, unpleasant, most likely because they are unfulfilled, unsatisfied, unrecovered beyond not drinking.

So, what are we to do, then? The second verse outlines the way:

"But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night."

What does God delight in specifically? Micah explains:

"Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy." (Micah 7: 18)

and

"For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." (Hosea 6: 6)

The Lord is interested in us being forgiven, not in all of our sacrifices, in all that we do to get forgiven. For this reason, and much more, God sent His Son to be the final sacrifice:

"For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins." (Hebrews 10: 2)

then

"By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." (Hebrews 10: 10)

Once for all -- the sacrifices are over. No further need to walk in the counsel of the ungodly, to stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seats of the scornful.

In the New Testament, Paul outlines that we sit first, then walk, and finally stand:

"And [God] hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2: 6)

How well we sit determines how well we walk:

"I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called," (Ephesians 4: 1)

Paul explains further:

"This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind" (Ephesians 4: 17) In other words, do not walk in the counsel of the ungodly.

Then Paul shares:

"1Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; 2And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour." (Ephesinas 5: 1-2)

We sit in His Finished Work, growing rooted in knowledge of His love for us, and filled with this love, we walk as His dear children -- better than standing in the ways of the sinners.

What about standing? Paul shares this truth last:

"Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil."

The apostle outlines the elements God's armor, which is Son, as we are now in Christ (Colossians 3: 3):

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. 13Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. 14Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;" (Ephesians 6: 12-14)

"We wrestle" should read "the wrestling" -- in other words, we stand in our Lord and Savior, knowing and believing that He covers and care for us, creating a way where none seems available. Besides, through Christ's death on the Cross, every enemy has been disarmed and humiliated forever (Colossians 2: 15)

We do not need to sit with scorners, who attack other people because they are filled with fear. We do not have to stand with sinners, for God gives us all things freely in His Son, and we do not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, for through God the Father, Christ is made unto us wisdom (1 Corinthians 1: 30)

AA is just ungodly counsel in the way of sinners and in the seat of scorners.

"AA is Great"

I just spoke with one of my neighbors about the writing that I have been doing.

When I told him about this blog -- errorsofaa.blogspot.com -- he was surprised.

"AA is great," he told me. "I went to AA for awhile. It's a great fellowship."

I didn't mince words, telling him that the program is a cult, one which teaches people to be dependent.

I noticed that he did not keep going to the meetings. He "went" to them. He reminded me a lot of the British airline pilot visiting Southern California who told me that the National Health Service is just great, but that he has private insurance. Like my neighbor and AA, he was a praising a program that he was no longer using, no longer a member of.

I have run into many people who went to AA for a short time, then they left the meetings, claiming that hey had learned the tools and the skills that they needed for daily living.

It's a program which works best when you leave it, apparently.

Someone else I was sharing with told me that the program is great, except that they keep telling people "Keep coming back!" But that's precisely the problem with the program. The whole premise is based on a fellowship that you are expected to follow for the rest of your life. It's a lifetime of taking your inventory, or looking over your shoulder whenever you get angry or upset, the weekly meetings of telling people about the other people in your life who make you mad, who teach you never to take responsibility for your feelings.

AA is great for people who have nothing else, perhaps. But something better will inevitably rise in a world where the vast majority of individuals refuse to hide from others and live in themselves.

AA is not great. AA is not the way to life and that more abundantly. "Not drinking" is not enough.

"You're Self-Absorbed"

We love ourselves too much, convinced that God does not love enough, so we have to give and take and find all the love that we need on our own.

I have understood this drama so much in my life. I was so easy to set off, convinced that my peace and happiness lay in how others treated  me, which was  just a varied and sundry way of loving myself, as if other people were there to provide for me what no one ever could.

No one can give us the "unconditional positive regard" which Carl Rogers talked about, the certain approval, the standing of perfect righteousness which only God can give us, and righteously at that, through the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ.

This gift of righteousness, of perfect standing in Christ, we are to keep receiving as a gift (Romans 5: 17). It's not enough to know that we are saved. We have to know and believe in the love God which takes away our sin and gives us His standing.

My mother, like many parents, would put me down for thinking about myself. "You're self-absorbed", she would say to me over and over. Little did she understand, like many believers, that the more that we look ourselves, the more that we invite the struggles and failures of the flesh. God wants us to walk in the Spirit, trusting Him to lead us in all that we do.

He does a better job, providing for us all that we need. He gives us the design and drive to live, putting His laws in our hearts and minds, He is  God to us, and we are His people, and He promises that He will never remember our sins and our iniquities and our unrighteousness.

Parents are all too prone at remembering and reminding us of what we have done wrong. The world works that way. But that's not God's way. His goodness leads us to repentance, changing our minds from focusing on ourselves and turning in loving trust to look at Himself.

If parents, or anyone else for that matter, finds that someone is full of themselves, it really means that they are impoverished and frustrated, that they are trying to find life and direction in themselves, and because they have come up short, they take this bitterness out on themselves and everyone else around them.

"You're self-absorbed!" nothing more damns another than the labeling of another. In truth, my mother was fearfully self-absorbed, looking into her empty circumstances, taking her inventory at length in a program which teaches you that you must maintain your relationship with God.
What does the Bible say about this matter:

"Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." (Hebrews 13: 5)

What really gets us out of ourselves? God in us, through Christ, who supplies all our need according to His riches, not our own (Philippians 4: 19).

Let us be Christ-absorbed, abiding in Him, who provides for us in every way. For God gave His own Son, so without a doubt He will give us all things with Him (Romans 8: 32)

Kids Should Never Go to AA

The "thirteen to eighteen" set of human beings have enough problems.

The world sends nothing but mixed messages. Many of them have been told that they can live their lives any way that they want to, that whatever feels good, is good.

This recipe for living is a form of death. This philosophy or radical individualism has created a culture of conformity and dependence. Everyone of us must identify with something. We cannot identity with ourselves for we did not create ourselves, and we do not define our circumstances. Sadly, more often than not our circumstances begin to define us.

AA creates this atmosphere of self-centeredness looking for a center greater than oneself, then pushes it to the extreme of fear and self-recrimination with inventories.

People who are addicted to alcohol, or engage in other self-destructive behaviors, do not need one more reason to focus on themselves. They need every reason to know that the world is not there for them, that they do not need to depend on or seek the approval of the world.

Why are we unhappy much of the time? We are consumed with guilt, or we are consumed with ourselves in some way, shape, or form. Does anyone really believe that we can be freed from self if we sit in a meeting and share "My name is. . . and I am . . " then share for two or three minutes about ourselves, telling people our problems, our pains, our fears, focusing on ourselves, and thus never breaking away from the anchor of self?

Crazy stuff, and poisonous especially for the adolescent set, young men and women who do not need to be looking at themselves.

This then is the conclusion of the matter. We have created a culture in which we tell adolescents that they can decide their own way in the world. As a result, they engaged in illicit behaviors of every kind. They have no stability within themselves, since they are changing in so many ways. I am now convinced that modern psych and social work has made these problems worse by stopping everything to focus everything on the youth.

The world does not revolve around us, the world will not sink away if we do not hold the world in our hands our in our minds. Everyone has to learn this lesson, regardless of one's age. Otherwise, there is no peace, no rest, no sense of acceptance.

Kids, adults, anyone seeking peace and rest cannot find it as long as we keep looking at ourselves, depending on what we say or do or think as the final arbiter of all things in our lives.

A sense of stability can only be found in something eternal, not in working a program, not in taking our inventories, not in anything that we do -- all of that Twelfth Step work just turns into more self-centered actions to make ourselves feel better, and thus drags more people into a program which does not work.

Kids should never go to AA, and I am appalled at the growing number of parents who insist on taking their kids to the meetings and making them sit and listen to the self-centered nonsense that breaks no one free of self and gives us the Life everlasting found in Christ Jesus.

Kids Do Not Belong in AA

The last thing that an adolescent, or anyone who is younger than eighteen, needs to be doing is looking at himself.

He needs unconditional love all the more, especially during the harder times of dealing with an expanding mind, a changing body, and a world which throws nothing but rules and regulations at him, many of which are both complex and conflicting.

When my sister and I were growing up during our teen years, we were pushed into the AA program by our mother. Every day, she would take out the "AA"book, read us a chapter from it, tell us how she was going over the steps laid out in the program, how she was protecting us from our alcoholic father.

There is only one problem: my father is not an alcoholic. He did not have drinking problem. I am not saying this to place him on a pedestal or to deny that there were problems in the family, but the truth is that my father never abused alcohol.

My mother had fallen into the cult sway of seeing everything through the shaded, faded classes of Bill W. and the "AA" way the world works. Everyone was an alcoholic or in denial. I was an alcoholic who didn't drink, and so was my sister, the neighbors down the street, and the rest of the world, one way or another.

Of course, my sister and I would take our inventory. We never went to church. Instead, we would go into someone's room and read a passage out of the Bible.

I suffered a severe depression in those days, most likely because everything was rules and condemnation. Taking your inventory, looking at yourself, trying to change the way that you feel, all of that focus on self is so painful and miserable. And to be a teenager always looking a yourself only makes things worse.

I write this post in the hopes that the parents out there who are struggling with their teenage children do not lost patience or hope. Do not try harder, do not lay more rules on your kids. Let the unconditional love of Christ Jesus transform you, and He will begin to work in the lives of your children. Too many of us are motivated by fear., when we are called to walk by faith, and faith works through love, God's love for us.

If we doubt this love, it is only because we do not understand how much God loves us, that His forgiveness for all our sins is total and eternal, and everlasting righteousness.

This foundation of unconditional love is what every child needs. The biggest problem for parents is that many of them think that they have to provide it. In truth, they need to receive this love in Christ, and then they can share the same love with their children. This perfect love will cast out every fear, including the lingering concern which leads too many parents to resist standing up to their children when they refuse to listen. Discipline does not mean shame, blame, or regret.

Having written the following, I must share that AA is not for kids, a program which teaches them early to look at themselves all the time, to walk around in a cloud of condemnation. For this reason, among others, I am writing to tell people to get out of AA, to stop teaching people that the only that one can live is to keep confessing sins. Kids do not need to know how bad they are, they do not need more shame in their lives. What they need is to know the unconditional love of Christ Jesus, and through this love comes the stability to stand up to challenges, including oneself, and reign in life.

Self is the Problem: Christ is the Solution

I have written already about one powerful truth which I learned from another ex-AA member:

"The fire will put themselves out."

I have since received great insight from another dear pastor, Oregon-based Bob George of
"People to People" Ministries.

He taught me what the "self" problem is really all about:

The problem is that we love ourselves too much. When people say "I hate myself, I am so ugly!" They are not making any sense, because if they really did not like themselves, they would be happy to be ugly.

No, the problem is that people love themselves too  much, and they cannot stand that part of who they are does not measure up to what they want to be. Like a computer that we love but that does not work when we want it to, we get frustrated and angry when this computer, or any other appliance, does not cooperate, we get angry, and we end up hating that appliance because we want it to work, but it refuses to line up with our expectations.

This same frustration characterizes our depression, resentment, and fear in our lives. We struggle in our lives because we are still convinced in some way that we can fix ourselves, that if we try and behave a certain way, we will do well. Yet we are trapped in a body of death to the degree that we try to shape up our flesh. Paul exhorts us to walk in the Spirit (Galatians 5: 16), and the Spirit of God sheds His love in our hearts, in our very being.

We cannot love ourselves properly. We cannot fix ourselves. We need a love greater than ourselves, an unconditional love which pardons all our sins and imputes to us righteousness apart from the law.

In fact, Jesus Christ not only died for all of our sins, but by His death we die to ourselves and receive His life. He then comes to live in us, and we rest so that He can work in us:

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

"I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." (Galatians 2: 20-21)

Grace gives us power to live in this life, grace which defines us and drives us:

"But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." (1 Corinthians 15: 10)

This same grace also defends us from the attacks of the Enemy and the reproaches of the world:

"And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

"Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong." (2 Corinthians 12: 9-10)

Grace is all of Christ, none of us. Grace is unearned, unmerited favor, culminating in all of our sins forgiven, paid for, and wiped away before God, who pledges in the New Covenant that he will be propitious to our unrighteousness, and remember no more our sins and iniquities.

All of this is Christ in us, our hope of glory (Colossians 1: 27), for Jesus came to us, full of grace and truth (John 1: 14)

For this reason, we are invited to labor, to make it our number one priority, to rest in Christ (Hebrews 4:11)

Self , our flesh, is the problem, all of our writhing, all of our striving. Instead of our obedience, we are called to bring every  thought into captivity, into submission to Christ's obedience, that He is our life (Colossians 3: 4), that He is working in us to will and to do what He wants us to do (Philippians 2: 13).

Bad Advice in AA Meetings

One of the more dangerous elements of Twelve Step Programs involves the bad advice that "Old Timers" love to dole out to unwitting newcomers, many of whom are looking for any direction following the mess that their lives had descended into.

One young man started going to meetings as a forced march, only to have one of the crusty older members confront him to his face:

"Your parents are crippling you!"

The reason that he provoked this young man (which was me, you have probably guessed), was that I had moved back home from college and still had no idea what kind of career I wanted. I was stuck at that point, in many reared so strongly on AA, Twelve Steps, taking one's inventory, running my life by other people, that it's no surprise that I was very lost and dependent, so afraid to make a mistake, in many ways afraid of the "big, wide world."

In retrospect, that crusty old fool was just as timid and terrified of the world as most people. Perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4: 18), and this love is made manifest in that God sent His Son to die for our sins, to be the Mercy Seat for all our sins, and that by this love we are mad sons of God, that as Jesus is, so are we in this world.

Any source of sin and shame, any sense of fear and abandonment, all are wiped out once and for all in the Cross. Parents, no matter how indulgent, cannot undo the good that Jesus Christ has done at the Cross.

Unless man imparts to man that Christ is made to every one of us wisdom, as well as sanctification, redemption, and righteousness (1 Corinthians 1: 30), then any other advice is just "counsel of the ungodly (Psalm 1: 1). Nothing but ungodly advice based on worldly experience gets rolled out over and over in those meetings.

Then I think of another example where bad advice, based on hurt feelings and the hollow pride-needs of "Old Timers" creates more problems than it solves.

My mother, Pat, she went to Al-Anon meetings for about two years. She still had a fractious relationship with her mother, a saga which my sister and I had to hear about for years, a terrible blotch which talking and vetting never cleared up.

It was 1984, so begins the story. Pat would tell the rest of the ladies in the meeting how her mother was hurting her feelings, giving her a hard time. After the meeting, one of the women who had been attending those forums with greater regularity than my mother, approached her after a meeting and sternly encouraged her:

"Don't let anyone get in the way of your relationship with God! You have every right to let that woman out of your life for good."

This piece of advice was especially flawed. God's love in our lives has nothing to do with us, and everything to do with what Christ Jesus did for us:

"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5: 8)

God's life and love within us has nothing to do with how we feel or what we think. God wants us to know and believe in His love (1 John 4: 16).

No one, no thing, nothing at all can get in between us and God's love (for God is love -- 1 John 4: 8):

"38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)

Notice how Paul writes "persuaded". Our human minds have to be renewed to this awesome and expansive truth (Romans 12:2), and Paul prays that every believer will be strengthened from within to see God's love and comprehend it thoroughly (Ephesians 3:16-19).

In an AA meeting, one will never know about this love, since the program from beginning to end focuses on the member, who has to work twelve steps, who has to keep confessing his sins, who has to play catch-up with himself every night, feeding a guilty conscience which only the blood of Jesus can every make perfect (Hebrews 10: 14).

The extended aftermath of that Al-Anon meaning, many years after, show how poor such advice really was. Yes, my mother wrote final "Dear John" type of letter, once which outlined to her abusive mother that she was no longer interested in the abusive relations which she had conducted against her daughter for so many years. This was the big "kiss-off" later, and two years later, her mother died.

Mom was singing up a storm the day of the funeral. For all of her protesting and singing about how she stood up to her mother and let her go, it was clear that her mother seemed not to let go of her.

I really commend my sister in those days. It seemed that for years after, Pat was still fuming and steaming about what her mother had done to her as a kid. She had never really forgiven her mother, and the "advice" from the "Old Timer" in that AA meeting looked dimmer and dumber as the years wound on.

This important point is crucial. It's not enough to get away from abusive people in one's life. Forgiveness does not depend on whether we write the people out of  our lives or not. Peace with other people is not about writing letters or pushing people out of our lives.

Peace with God will grant us peace with our fellow man, and this peace starts and ends with the justification by faith which receive by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 5: 1-5). We have received forgiveness of sins (Colossians 2: 13), this is a total forgiveness, and through the Holy Spirit we receive Christ Jesus as our life (Colossians 3: 4). We no longer look at ourselves, our feelings, but we rest in Himself, and His Spirit blesses us with all spiritual blessings.

My mother, like many people in AA, was convinced that she had a part to play in maintaining a relationship with God, which included removing anyone who "got in the way" of her relationship with God. I was a casualty of this nasty mindset, as she left me at the airport as a child when I remained a depressed child. My sister was pushed away many times, and a number of times she threw her husband out of the house.

I have since that time learned that Christ has given every believer his life, and that His love makes up for all the hurts and fears in our lives. Paul prayed that every believer would receive a great and growing revelation of God's love, for we are a spiritual engine, every one of us, and through the love of God are we able to do all things. It is not enough to get rid of abusive people in our lives, as AA would contend, for then members are forever looking outside of themselves at the people and circumstances which seem to upset them so much. Yet the peace that every person needs comes from the Holy Spirit, who brings the Kingdom of Heaven, and the righteousness, peace, and joy that we all crave (Romans 14: 17).

Our love, our acceptance, and all the other things that we keep trying to get from other people, we can find only in Christ Jesus. I am certain that my mother, like many people in AA, get bitter and burned out because they leave the bottle, but afterwards they still feel bottled up on the inside. Then again, some still feel like an empty bottle, and thus they return to the very people who harmed them, because they have nothing else to rely on.

AA, or any other Twelve Step program, throws a bunch of rules and regulations at people, all of which distracts a person from receiving the grace and righteousness from God the Father (Romans 5:17). He is the Light of Life, Jesus, and the meetings can only diagnose problems and indict the wrong people and offer the wrong solutions to the deepest need of the human heart: life, and that more abundantly.

AA has nothing but bad advice for the believer.

AA, Sin Conscience, and Assertion

I often wondered I was so easy to upset.

Sometimes, I would rehearse in my mind the wrongs that people had done to me; often, though, I would rehearse the times in my life when I told other people off, when I laid "the smackdown."

Why was I not afraid at certain points of my life, when I would tell people off or assert myself, but at other times I was so overwhelmed with fear, that people could "mess" with me, and there was nothing that I could do about it?

I realize now that in the "good situations", I was not thinking about myself. When I was upset and unable, I was thinking about myself, with the internal "what do I do?"firing off in full force.

Focusing on ourselves is more precisely our sin nature, the sense that the world revolves around us, that we are on our own in this world, that who we are depends on what we feel or what we are thinking at any time.

Jesus came to deliver us from sin, death, hell, the grace, and the law:

"13And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; 14Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; 15And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it." (Colossians 2: 13-15)

We are no longer law at all, with its ordinances which only condemn us:

"But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:" (2 Corinthians 3: 7)

Not only does the "ministration of death", the law of Moes, minister condemnation (2 Corinthians 3:9), but its glory did not last, destined to be done away with:

"In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away." (Hebrews 8: 13)

Yet in AA, men and women are taught to keep taking their inventories, to keep looking at their sins, or "their defects of character." In the program, members have to watch out for fear and resentment, as if are watching out for them will prevent them from popping up in our lives from time to time. The answer to fear and resentment is not in what we do, but all that Jesus Christ has done at the Cross:

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." (1 John 4: 18)

This perfect love starts by cleansing us from all sin, then makes us sons of God. As Christ is, so are we in this world (1 John 4: 17).

What does God's love have to do with fear, standing up for oneself or to another person, or assertiveness?

Recently, I have discovered that when I was about to hold someone accountable for something, a sense of fear would definitely take over. I wondered how everything would play out. Would I get in trouble? Would the person do what I asked them to do? All of these questions focused too much on myself. The perfect love of God draws out of ourselves and causes us to rest in His grace. The same God who died on the Cross for us is the same God who unconditionally loves us and blesses us in all that we do.

This love, this righteousness we cannot lose, no matter what we say or do.

With this firm love established in us, we no longer have to deal with hurt feelings, we no longer have to suspect if people are out to get us or if they are for us. Much of the time, I was so afraid of the reproach of man, or that maybe it was me, not the other person, who was affecting me.

This kind of debate would go on within me for so long.

Only recently have I learned that Jesus' death on the Cross not only took care of my sin, but also of the "sin conscience" which weighs on every son of Adam:

"Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience; " (Hebrew 9: 9)

In other words, the sacrifices of bulls and goats could never give the forever-assurance that a man was totally forgiven and justified before God, since he had to keep offering animals:

"For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. " (Hebrews 10: 2)


Yet in Christ's once and for all sacrifice, we are perfected:

"For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." (Hebrews 10: 14)

When we know and believe in His love, then we can receive the gift of righteousness and grace altogether (Romans 5: 17). Therefore, we do not worry about being easily provoked or keeping a record of wrongdoings. We rest from all our own labors, receiving His grace, letting His life flow in us. We allow the peace of Christ to rule in our hearts (Colossians 3: 15), as we are no longer focusing on ourselves, but instead we set our eyes on Christ, seated at the right hand of the Father, our high priest and justifier, and we reckon our fleshly bodies dead (Romans 6: 14; Colossians 3: 4) that His Spirit may live and lead us into all holiness, tranforming us from glory to glory.

So, instead of AA, which forces its members to keep focusing on themselves, and their feelings and their thoughts, we are called to rest and receive Himself, Christ and all of His glory, who lives in us and ministers to us righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Now we can know and believe that what we do will not hurt our fellowship our jeopardize our standing before God, since we never did anything to be made righteous, anyway. We receive this grace as a gift (or it would no longer be grace!)

We can then respond effectively in all conflicts, no longer caught up in ourselves, instead letting the grace of God work abundantly within us (1 Corinthians 15:10)

Since we no longer have to defend ourselves, since it is the grace of God which defends us, blessing us even when others would do us harm (2 Corinthians 12: 9-10), we find that His peace leads us to say all that we need to say, whether for good or for correction, in all circumstances, and the responses or the reproach of men cannot set us back, for all of our good comes from above, from the Father of Lights (James 1: 17)

We are no longer trying to protect ourselves, for God is our all in all, and His grace teaches us to rest in place while He moves in and on and for our behalf in all things (Titus 2: 11-12).

AA awakens sin conscience, a sense of "wrongdoing" within us. Christ came to fulfill the law, take away our sin, and grant us "righteousness conscience" through His Holy Spirit (John 16: 8-11).