The Hold of AA -- Part III

Of course, because the program had never left Pat, the program was at work, doing its inexorable damage toward my sister and me.

I was a depressed child in those days, during the nine months when my mother had taken  my sister and  me away from her husband, our father. My dad had major issues in his life, too, and I was upset with him because he never did anything to help us.

I cannot believe all the abuse that I went through as a kid, dealing with a  mother who lived in chronic frustration and anger, much of it brought on because of  the Twelve Steps, a program which teaches its members to view themselves as forever sick, never being able to get help unless they stay in the four wall of AA meetings, going through the steps, taking their inventories, confessing their problems, and doing more "Twelve Step" work with "prospects."

For all the trouble and upset that she had endured at hthe meetings after sixteen years, she ended up going back to the meetings. In my opinion, this is one of the  most insidious elements of AA. The program teaches people to be dependent on a set of ruless and systems and people, so that when people get tired of the program, they do leave, but they are at a loss for finding a better way to live. So, invariably people will come back.

This cycle of frustration and dysfunction is only made worse for believers because many of us have only received half of the Gospel, that in Christ, all our sins are forgiven. About the gift of righteousness that we keep receiving (Romans 5: 17), the grace that defines us, that drives us (1 Corinthains 15: 10) and defends us (2 Corinthians 12: 9-10)

Without the true training in righteousness and grace, there can be no enjoying the gifts of righteousness, peace, and joy which come  with resting in the Holy Ghost. As I have written many times before, AA is not about resting, but action and still more action. Yet for men and women, for those who have received the Good News of all that Christ Jesus has done for us, we are called to enter into His rest (Matthew 11: 28; Hebrews 4: 11). He wants to live through us (Galatians 2: 20-21), for He lives in us (Colossians 1: 27)

This Jesus is preacher and must be believed. He is more than a "god of one's understanding".

Sadly, the simple Gospel is still not fully preached in  many churches:

"38Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: 39And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." (Acts 13: 38-39)

1. Forgiveness of sins -- all sins!

2. Justifications from all things. . .

3. which the law could not justify us frm -- hence, the New Covenant is better than the Old Covenant, rendering it inoperative because Jesus has fulfilled it forever by granting us His everlasting righteousness (Daniel 9: 24)

I did not learn these things as a kid. I thank God, His Son, and His Holy Spirit for the diligent work of His saints throughout the world for preaching the Gospel simple, full, unadulterated -- Bob George, Joseph Prince, and even Andrew Wommack.

Yet during those nine months, the vail of Moses still hung all over the apartment that we lived in because before anything else, the Twelve Steps and AA had its full sway in our lives.

Pretty bad stuff!