Many people in AA or other Twelve Step programs are sand-bagged with this label -- bipolar--, yet the truth is that we are walking around with a renewed spirit, yet daily we must renew our minds to this truth, and we yield our bodies a living sacrifice to God.
Too many Christians are still operating under the Old Covenant, in which men and women had to keep the Ten Commandments in order to receive God's blessing. Yet even the Israelites themselves could not keep the law, so God provided that they would build an altar and sacrifice animals to atone for their sins.
Jesus Christ is the final sacrifice, the full justification of mankind. Neither AA nor psychiatry recognizes this wonderful Person nor all that He has done for us. Since there are no more animals to sacrifice, and since there is no further atonement for our sins, men and women on this earth either believe that Jesus did it all, or they go back to living by rules and regulations, rules which no one can keep, rules which conflict and contradict, rules which bring out the worst of us even when we are trying to do our best.
We want so much to do well, yet we fail, and when we fail, we deprecate ourselves for failing, and resolve to try still harder. The Bible gives a perfect display of this perverse inwardness:
"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." (Romans 7: 14-20)"
"I, I, I" The more that Paul tried to make Paul better, the worse it got. Our fallen bodies, this fallen nature, it's hopeless! Just reading this passage, one would think that Paul was "bipolar", when in reality Paul was a redeemed Spirit still trying to live a godly life in the flesh. It's the grace of God which makes us holy, not man's efforts (Titus 2: 11-12)
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)
"I delight in the law after the inward man" yet the outward man does not want to cooperate. Hence, the "bipolar" dilemma.
AA makes this worse, not better, because even though the first step claims "powerless", it refuses to acknowledge that man is "dead in need of a new life." In fact, AA people may not drink, but they will obsess on other addictions, like smoking, coffee drinking, or other perversions just to get by, because the need for life, the need for a stable and thriving identity beyond oneself has not been fulfilled for them. Inevitably, the sense of loneliness and pain and hurt, all works of the flesh, resurge to the surface.
"I am an alcoholic" inevitable extends the "bipolar" personality, because men and women are identifying themselves with a perversion which they do not want to practice anymore.
No comments:
Post a Comment