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).
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