Alcoholics Anonymous, like much modern, secular counseling, focuses on fixing people's fixing instead of establishing men and women in their true and proper identity in Christ.
Where does this notion come from that we need to fix our feelings, to dish on our past, to rehearse the past abuse which we suffered as children in order to fix our adulthood?
If most people would simply accept that dysfunctional families are the norm, not the exception, half the people seeking counseling would stop.
If we accept the Gospel, which permits us to leave off our old families and enter into a new Family, with God as our Father through Jesus Christ His Son and the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit.
We receive this Spirit of Adoption when we believe on Christ Jesus:
"For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." (Romans 8: 15)
We should not spend time talking about our sins, or the sins of other people, including our parents, because in Christ we are blessed with all spiritual blessings, and His grace much more than compensates for every hurt and harming and hassle which we have endured in this life.
Another thing that needs to be put down: we should stop spending our time trying to feel better, and spend more time seeing all that Christ Jesus has given us through His death and resurrection on the Cross:
"But 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: 9Not of works, lest any man should boast." (Ephesians 2: 4-9)
We are seated in heavenly places in Christ, so why are we caught up with what goes on here on earth?
Paul later writes to the Colossians:
"20Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, 21(Touch not; taste not; handle not; 22Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men? 23Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh." (Colossians 2: 20-23)
Christians should not rely on worldly systems of any kind to find life and that more abundantly, which includes any Twelve Step program.
In fact, every one of God's creatures can enter in the God kind of Life by believing on Jesus, whom the Father has sent (John 6: 29), not by working steps, but by receiving His grace.
We have His life through His righteousness:
"And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." (Romans 8: 10)
We are in Christ, so instead of trying to fix our feelings, or our lives, we need to fix our eyes on where we are:
"1If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 2Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. 3For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. 4When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." (Colossians 3: 1-4)
Our body is dead in that we are no longer living through our flesh, or our efforts, but rather the Spirit of God is living in and through us because of Christ Jesus!
His feelings are our feelings, and today because Christ Jesus sits in glory and honor the Father's right hand, so do we in this world (1 John 4: 17)
We do not need to confess sins or seek counseling. What we need to do is confess our righteousness in Christ!
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