AA Makes Void What God's Grace Gives

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.(AA, pg 84)

I have written this many times: how can anything be a promise if we have to work for it.

A promise is based on the pledge of someone else to do something for us, not the other way around.

Otherwise, it would not be a promise at all, but wages earned.

Paul writes about this disjunction of truth and error in Romans:

4Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. 5But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." (Romans 4: 4-5)


We are not saved by our works, but rather we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2: 4-8)

Paul then explains how all things are granted to us through the grace of God:

For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. 14For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect: 15Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression." (Romans 4: 13-15)

Every promise that we receive from God, we receive by His grace, by undeserved, unearned, unmerited favor.

We are not saved by anything that we have done, but everything that Jesus did for us at the Cross:

"4But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 6And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 7That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. 8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:" (Ephesians 2: 4-8)

Paul could not make it clearer: we are saved by grace through the death of resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Because of Jesus, we can rest assured of all other things in our lives:

"31What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? 32He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8: 31-32)

Now, what causes grace to void in our lives is not our sin, but the law, and our attempts to keep the law.

For this reason, Paul writes:

"14For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect: 15Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression." (Romans 4: 14-15)

When we feel that we are under law, we sense a "fearful looking after of judgment" (Hebrews 10: 26)

Christ Jesus has fulfilled the law for us, and by His death on the Cross He has removed the curse of the law, the one weapon which the devil uses to bring men into bondage (Colossians 2: 13-15)

The only thing that brings us away from God's grace is not our sin, but rather our attempts to be justified through obedience to the law, rather than walking by faith in all that Christ has done for us:

"2Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. 3For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. 4Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. 5For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. 6For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love." (Galatians 5: 2-6)

Faith works through God's love for us, not our love for God, by the way.

AA is just one more set of rules which evil men have forced upon hurting people, trying to glory in their own flesh while bringing people into bondage.

Jesus Christ has fulfilled the law, every requirement, and through Him we receive all things. Do not allow the Twelve Steps, or any other system of man, bring you into the lying bondage of trying to earn what God so freely gives, and only He can give.