Reckon Yourself Dead to Sin insted of Wrecking Yourself Trying Not To Sin

This thought brings us to Step Ten, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. We vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past. We have entered the world of the Spirit. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone. Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Love and tolerance of others is our code. (AA, pg 84)

While Alcoholics Anonymous tells people to keep looking at themselves and correct their bad thoughts and actions, Paul the Apostle invites us to identify with a different Person altogether:

"For in that he [Jesus] died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. 11Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 12Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof." (Romans 6: 10-12)

We do not identify with the sin and shame and condemnation in our bodies and minds anymore, but rather we identify with Christ Jesus, because when we accept that He died for us and as us, then we receive His righteousness and reign in life (Romans 5: 17)

John could not have written this truth more clearly:

"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)

For many years, I have lived this life as if I had to "maintain" my standing or "keep myself" righteous. For a long time, when I failed, or even at the end of the day, I would think about what I did wrong, confess, and then move on. Even at a very low ebb in my life, I was still going over what I did wrong, looking at my sins, and making sure that I was coming clean before God.

Yet in Christ, God no longer sees our sins, for in the New Covenant he swears that He will remember our sins no more (Hebrews 8: 112)

The teaching that we must confess our sins in order to be forgiven is a distorted reading of 1 John 1: 9, to be begin with:

"9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1: 9)

First of all, John uses the "editorial we", in that he is not referring to himself. Second of all, the same passage teaches that confession of sins leads to forgiveness and cleansing from all unrighteousness, not just some or most.

Paul writes that Jesus was raised from the dead on account of our justification (Romans 4: 25)

Because of Christ's death and resurrection, we receive new life, and we become a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Therefore, believers in the Body of Christ are to acknowledge that they are dead to sin, but alive in Christ, who is our life (Colossians 3: 3-4)

While AA wants people to identify with their sin, with fallen Adam, God places us in heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 2:6), and thus we identify with Him, not with ourselves, and certainly not with our thoughts, our feelings, or any of our sins.

As long as men and women in the Body of Christ continue to see the sin in their lives as something that they must fix through their own efforts, to that extent they are fallen from grace (Galatians 5: 4), and thus they frustrate the grace of God in their lives (Galatians 2: 20-21).

Too many Christians have wrecked themselves trying to work the Twelve Steps, as if they can follow a formula to make themselves better. God has provided a better covenant, based on better promises, in which He has provided His Son the Propitiation of our sins (1 John 2: 2), and then God gives us His Son through the Holy Spirit, so that we live through Him, not ourselves:

"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)

The life that we live, we live by the faith of the Son of God, not in our own strength, but through His:

"I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." (Philippians 4: 13)

and

"But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4: 19)

As long as we try to live this life in our strength, we are setting ourselves up for the curse of the law in our lives:

"For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law." (Galatians 5: 3)

Alcoholics Anonymous is worse than any scam. This "program" puts well-meaning believers back under law, and thus they end  up wrecking their lives instead of reckoning themselves dead to sin and shame.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Body of Christ, reckon yourselves dead to sin and shame once and for all, and stop wrecking yourselves under the terrible regime of AA. Let Christ live in you, and his grace and righteousness will cause you to reign in life (Romans 5: 17) over every sin, shame, and addiction.