"5Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD." (Jeremiah 17: 5)
The Bible is crystal clear on this matter -- we are under a curse as long as we seek the wisdom of the world, the counsel of the ungodly.
Such folly includes the Twelve Steps, and the concept of sponsorship.
What can man share with any one of us that the Holy Spirit cannot tell you?
Every Christian, every child of God, has the Holy Spirit living within Him.
For a long time, I was told what to do. I lived in an environment in which people close to me pretended to be the voice of God, and that anything which I attempted to do, had to meet that person's expectations.
Such dependence is prevalent in AA.
Sponsorship has no bearing in reality. The whole idea that grown men and women must run their lives by someone else ends up setting those very people to face life without the skills or the will to know the right or wrong things to do.
God has a better way. In fact, He gave us "The Way" through His Son Jesus:
"6Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14: 6)
Jesus did not just come to tell us where to go, or to give us the certainty of knowing that the way He was giving us was the right way, but He gave us Himself, that He would live and move and have His being within every person who believed on Him (John 6: 29)
We receive Himself by the Holy Spirit, who lives in us and enacts the New Covenant:
"10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
11And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. 12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8: 10-12)
God invites us to be dependent on His Spirit:
16And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 17Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." (John 14: 16-17)
Then:
"But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:" (John 15: 26)
The same Holy Spirit who brings Christ within us, our hope of glory (Colossians 1: 27) and allows Him to work in us (Colossians 1: 29; Philippians 2: 12-13), this same Holy Spirit gives us all knowledge:
"20But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. . . .27But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him." (1 John 2: 20, 27)
AA teaches people to be dependent on other people, which brings a snare and a curse. In Christ, we can be dependent on His Holy Spirit, who guides us into all truth and grants us all knowledge.
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