Resentment is Not You, Beloved in Christ

It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die. (AA, pg 66)

This passage is wrong, wrong, wrong on so many counts, that there are too many to count.

But for the sake of knowing the Truth who sets us free -- Jesus (John 8: 32, 36) -- let us pick off a number of falsehoods in this passage.

"A life which includes deep resentment. . .."

The life of Christ which animates every believer is free of sin, including resentment.

Any sense of wrath and frustration belong to the "old man", or our dead nature.

Paul instructs us no longer to identify with the frustrated alienation of men and women still dead in their trespasses:

"17This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, 18Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart" (Ephesians 4: 17-18)

Then Paul tells them what to "do" instead:

"That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; 23And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; 24And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." (Ephesians 4: 22-24)

This new man does not identify with wrath, frustration, or resentment:

"Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: 32And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." (Ephesians 4: 31-32)

"Be put away" should be translated "be lifted up", all of which is based on God's graciousness to us through Christ.

We do not identify, nor even try to break free from resentment, but rather reckon ourselves dead to such sin and alive in Christ (Romans 6: 11-12)