The Source of the Frustration: The Flesh

I was trying so hard.

Really, I was.

No one had ever explained to me that not my trying, not my striving, but His Dying for me made all the difference.

Jesus' death on the Cross answers every challenge, provides for every need, solves every problem.

AA teaches people that we have to work a program in order to be sober and live happy lives.

That alcoholism is a disease, something from which no man will ever receive a cure:

"We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals - usually brief - were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period we get worse, never better." (AA, pg 30)

No!

Alcoholism, like any other perversion or sin, is a work of the flesh:

"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. " (Galatians 5: 19-21)

We are born dead in Adam, and God invites us to a new life in His Son Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Thus Paul could write:

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. 21I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." (Galatians 2: 20-21)

Then Paul writes:

"And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. 7Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ." (Galatians 4: 6-7)

Then

"This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. 17For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. 18But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. " (Galatians 5: 16-18)

So, our frustrations, our hurts, any sense of offense or resentment or bitterness - all of those things pertain to Old Man Adam, a dead nature from which every believer has been delivered by the power of the Holy Spirit, who has been released to us because of Jesus' death on the Cross, and because of His resurrection, we are assured of our justification at the right hand of the Father, because we are now in Christ (Ephesians 2: 4-8)

So, what is the source of frustration for most believers, especially those who attend AA, or Celebrate Recovery, or any other Twelve Step Program?

They are trying to fix something which cannot be fixed -- the flesh.

Moreover, the solution has already been paid for and provide in Christ Jesus, who died as us, was raised for us, and lives in us -- in those who believe on Him.

As we grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, we find the elements of the Old Man lifted away from us, and His grace permeates more parts of our lives:

"But ye have not so learned Christ; 21If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: 22That 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: 20-24)

We have to be renewed in the spirit of our mind because this body lusts against the Spirit, wants to rule wants to manage and control everything.

We cannot get rid of the flesh, but we do not identify with it, and we need not be discouraged about it, either, for we are in Christ, and even when we sin, grace superabounds in our lives (Romans 5: 20)