AA Prevents You from Receiving God's Grace

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 
12.  Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Take another look at these "Twelve Steps".

If a person is really powerless over alcohol, or anything in their lives for that matter, then they need the grace of God, not a set of steps to remain in "spiritually fit condition."

This grace is a gift which we receive through Jesus Christ:

"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)

I do not need a connection to some "Higher Power" of my own choosing. I need a God whom I can trust in all things, and God has demonstrated His love for us through His Son:

"8But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." (Romans 5: 8-9)

Step Three was especially confusing and ultimately dangerous for me. Was I just supposed to sit around and wait for God to tap me on the shoulder and tell me what to do? I lived in a lot of bondage for many years, often wondering if I was do the right thing or the wrong thing every day, then getting frustrated and afraid since I had no idea who to talk to or where to turn to get any guidance. Most people in the AA meetings just sit around in AA meetings all day. Those are the "revered" old-times according to many.

I could not be more disgusted.

AA prevents a person from receiving God's grace for all things most of all because the program creates a pattern of works to earn something, and with everyhing, God is a gift.

First, the Bible is clear that grace cannot be earned, but received:

"And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work." (Romans 11: 6)

and

"Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace." (Galatians 5: 4)

Steps Eight and Nine could not be more clearer examples of people trying to justify their wrongdoings. I have often read the frustration, not the joy, that people get when people come up to them and "work their Ninth step." More often than not, it's an exercise in self-righteousness, a righteousness which is contrary to the righteousness which we must receive from God through Jesus (2 Corinthians 5: 21).

Second, everything that we receive from God is a gift, but the emphasis should not be on "I can't earn it", but rather "He wants to give it."

"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)

and even James writes:

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." (James 1: 17)

"Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God." (1 Corinthians 2: 12)

Grace and righteousness are gifts. Even though the "Twelve Steps" claims "powerlessness", the bent of the steps is that we must work, work, work for the very gifts which God so freely gives.


Receive God's grace for every area of your struggle, and in Christ you will reign in life!