Why I Lived in Fear and Frustration

Too many people, whom I had looked to for advice, would tell me that this life is a life of struggle.

A struggle against sin, bad thoughts, and frustrations outside of us.

The Bible teaches something very different:

"Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." (Romans 8: 7)

and

"Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place. (2 Corinthians 2: 14)

We are called into consummate victory in Christ. Because we identify with Him, and He is our life (Colossians 3: 4), we can rest in the knowledge that anything we face in this life on this earth cannot hurt us:

"These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. (John16: 33)

John would later write in his First Epsitle:

"Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world." (1 John 4: 4)

If we see in anything in our lives as greater than God, and specifically Christ in us, then we are not walking in the truth, and we will end up in bondage to lies.

John later writes:

"For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

5Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? " (1 John 5: 4-5)

 

Why did I still find myself defeated and under the circumstances in my life?

 

I did not believe that all my sins were put away forever. Furthermore, I did not understand that sin in my flesh was still present, but that the power had been taken away, because my flesh was crucified in Christ's own flesh:

 

"4Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God." (Romans 7: 4)

 

and also

 

"For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh" (Romans 8:3)

 

Check out this wonderful verse:

 

"20I 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)

 

When Jesus died on the Cross, then rose again, and finally sat down at the Father's right hand, Jesus did the following for all of us who believe on Him:

 

"For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." (Hebrews 10: 14)

 

We are perfected forever because of what Jesus did, and He has now sent His Holy Spirit to dwell within us:

 

  15Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before,

16This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;

17And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 10: 15-17)

 

We carry about within us a witness of our righteousness in Christ, not of our sin!

 

I lived in fear and frustration because I judged my right standing before God based on my feelings and my thoughts. If my thoughts strayed, or I feared that I was not thinking about God, then I would get fearful and struggle to maintain or retrain my focus on Him once again.

 

The life of bondage which ensued from my lack of understanding, all of it was just too much or me.

 

Because I had been reared in the dreaded, evil AA cult, the only tools and habits I knew never helped me, but even brought me into greater bondage.

 

I had become so defeated and frustrated about my thoughts and feelings, I just contented myself with barely getting through one day at a time.

 

I praise the Lord Jesus Christ for the wonderful revelation about sin in the flesh, and that even the sin in my mortal body has been paid for, and paid for once for all forever!

 

I do not have to live in frustration anymore, and now I know that I never have to worry about bondage of any kind bringing me down.

 

Hallelujah!

Let Jesus Sit -- Kick Away AA

The importance of what Jesus died after He died and then rose from the dead cannot be emphasized enough.

Here are five references to Jesus our High Priest seated at the Right Hand of God our Father:

"3Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;" (Hebrews 1: 3)

Jesus sat down because He purged our sins, and He completed this work on His own, not with Twelve Steps are any other man-made cult.

Jesus is not an angel, but fully God and fully man:

"But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?" (Hebrews 1: 13)

When Jesus sat down, He depends on God the Father to make every enemy His footstool. We are in Christ, and so we can rest in Jesus as we watch our Loving Father making every enemy our footstool too!

Alcoholics Anonymous wants the members to keep fighting against the sin in the flesh, which has been condemned because of Jesus (Romans 8: 3-4). The wicked program tells people to keep looking at themselves and their sins, or "defects of character", as if ruminating on our failures will make us successful and overcome.

We need to learn more about Jesus, and all that He is doing for us:

"Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens;" (Hebrews 8: 1)

Jesus is our High Priest, and He ministers on our behalf, taking our prayers and making them fit for our Father. We have access to God the Father because of the Son, our perfect representative before God.

Instead of trying to help ourselves, we can enter boldly into the throne of grace (Hebrews 4: 16) with our needs, and know that Jesus can help us!

There's more about Jesus seated at the Father's right hand:

"But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;" (Hebrews 10: 12)

Jesus offered one sacrifice for our sins, and His sacrifice covers our sins forever.

The work is done!

Yet evil cults like Alcoholics Anonymous give the impression that the sins in our flesh and the struggles in our mind will not end unless we keep on confessing them. After years of growing up in that terrible cult, I was habituated to struggling with angry thoughts and feelings, that I had to do something about them before I could move on.

Such bondage was indescribable during more trying times in my life. I had given up on ever walking in peace and victory, since the feelings and thoughts in my life, or so I had believe, would determine whether God was with me and for me or not.

The truth sets us free, while error of any kind brings us into bondage, and the Errors of Alcoholics Anonymous is no exception. The high incidence of depression, dysfunction, and death associated with this evil program cannot be overstated. The ongoing urban lie which suggests that this program does work, if you work it, has permitted the cult to maintain some mainstream legitimacy.

These lies must be corrected, and the truth about this terrible cult must be told!

"Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." (Hebrews 12: 2)

Jesus is the Author and Finisher of faith, not just yours and mine. Instead of looking at ourselves, we need to keep our eyes on Jesus, for we receive all things through Him, starting with the gift of righteousness and the abundance of grace accompanied with it.

The Devil, and all evil cults practiced on lies, train us to look at ourselves. There is no hope or life in looking at ourselves and our shortcomings. The gift of righteousness permits us to look away from ourselves, and see that in Christ Jesus, His obedience at the right hand of God the Father (2 Corinthians 10: 5), we have rest and enjoy all things.

Now, because Jesus has sat down, we can know and believe that all our sins -- past, present, and future -  have been purged, paid for, put away forever.

Therefore, if we insist on getting angry, fearful, or worried about the sin in our flesh, and if we insist on believing that we can do something about the sins in our lives instead of resting in His righteousness, we are insulting Jesus and basically telling Him that He cannot sit down, that He did not do a good enough job.

Let us take this revelation one step further. Any church, any teaching, and set of principles, and any person in league with precepts which tell men that they must do something to atone for their sins, are insulting Christ and Him Crucified. They are enemies of the Cross, dictating through false teachings that the work of all our sins paid for has not been finished.

That is not true. Look to Christ, for in Him we find all things that we need, even the faith to believe and receive from Him that our sins are paid for, and that we have passed from death to life.

Let Jesus sit and rest in Him today, and grow in grace and knowledge of all that Jesus has done for you at the Cross!

I Was Hooked on Feelings

Oh, what a wonderful revelation this is for me!

One verse which had brought me great comfort for  a while:

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee." (Isaiah 26: 3)

I used to think that perfect peace had to do with keeping my mind stayed on Him.

My understanding of God was too small, in large part because I did not believe that He had paid for all my sins, and that He remembers (present tense!) my sins no more (Hebrews 8: 12).

In AA, men and women never rest in this blessed assurance because the program and the cult-like secretaries of AA meetings tell people that they have to keep taking their inventory, keep going to meetings, keep taking their inventory, and other religious acts so that they do not drink, smoke, or engage in any other unseemly habit.

We do not need a program of action to break free of painful addictions and bondages.

The gift of righteousness takes us out of our dead Adam selves and brings us into Christ, that we may reign in life through the twin gifts of righteousness and abundance of grace.

When we keep receiving the gift of righteousness in Christ, which means that we are accepted before God, we need never fear punishment at His hand, that He will bless us and keep us in all that we do because we are in Christ, then we need never worry or live in terror of anything:

"14In righteousness shalt thou be established: thou shalt be far from oppression; for thou shalt not fear: and from terror; for it shall not come near thee." (Isaiah 54: 14)

Righteousness has nothing do with feelings, but rather with truth, and the truth which sets us free is that Christ died for us, for all our sins, and that through Christ we receive His righteousness, and we sit in Christ at the right hand of God the Father.

I am not my feelings. I am not my past, and I am not defined by what I said or did or thought.

We are defined by Adam or Christ, and nothing else

We are dead in Adam or alive in Christ. Who we are and what we do flows easily from there.

As long as I was convinced, however, that what I was thinking or feeling could block Christ from working in me and through me, as long as I did not know or understand the new standing which I have received in Christ, and as long as I did not understand that now only were all my sins forgiven, but that through Christ's death on the Cross, sin in the flesh was also condemned, then I could have  no peace.

The finality of the Cross is a necessity, not a nicety, for life and that more abundantly (John 10: 10)

Yet as an adherent to the Twelve Steps and Alcoholics Anonymous for so long, as though the program was a mainstream means of making the Christina life real in my life, I found myself struggling more than ever

When we do not believe that all our sins are forgive, we cannot grow in our knowledge of God the Father. Just as we avoid people to whom we owe a massive debt, so too we will not feel comfortable, let along come boldly before God the Father, as long as we believe that the sin debt has not been paid in full.

God has provided us the best plan through His Son Jesus. He died for us, He died as us, and He wants to live through us as He is for us and with us in all things.

Still, I was hooked on feelings. I needed to feel that God was with me, and so I would focus so much on myself, making sure that my thoughts did not stray one way or the other. Imagine a life where I was placing so much confidence in my flesh. Imagine a life where the thoughts, and by extension the feelings, would determine whether I was close to God or not.

The whole affair drove me to the mental ward!

In fact, I have learned that those individuals who remain living members of AA do so only through the help of psychotropic drugs. The depression, anger, and anxiety which plagues the "old timers" in AA meetings should shout at every champion of AA that the program does not work at all.

I was hooked on feelings for so long, and now I know the truth which sets me free, Christ and Him Crucified, that through Him I am safe and sound forever, never having to fear that He will leave me or forsake me, since His blessings His presence in my life have nothing -- nothing! -- to do with me and everything to do with Him and all that He has done at the Cross.

Because He is taking care of everything, because He holds the world together, and because He holds me in the palm of his hand in all things, I can rest in him, and I no longer have to think about everything else, since everything depends, or rather stays on Jesus!

AA: A Progressive Fraud

The Progressive Movement, from the early Twentieth Century to the present day, has rested on the false assumption that human nature is perfectible, that man can improve his situation through his own efforts, along with a lot of help from the state and human force.

Nothing could be further from the Truth.

Man is thoroughly bankrupt.

Adam ate from the Forbidden Tree, and all humanity fell with Adam:

"Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come." (Romans 5: 14)

Dead men need life, and a dead man cannot produce this life on his own. He needs to receive this life, and this life we can receive through Christ:

"The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." (John 10: 10)

To this day, man is rejected God's gifts of righteousness and grace through His Son, going the way of Cain (Jude 11) instead of the way of Life and Truth (John 14: 6).

Many of us exclaimed, "What an order! I can't go through with it." Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. (AA, pg 60)

The Bible teaches us that Jesus finished the work (John 17: 3-4; 19: 30), and in Christ we are perfected forever (Hebrews 10: 14)

God will have no flesh glory in His presence (1 Corinthians 1: 29)

Our flesh is sold out completely to sin (Romans 7: 14)

There is no progress in our efforts, for everything we do in the flesh is tainted with sin.

We need a new life, and we need to receive the grace of God, and only through His grace do we reign in life (Romans 5: 17) and find any kind of strength to life holy, godly lives (Titus 2: 11-12)

Forget Alcoholics Anonymous, a progressive fraud instituted by two Vermonters, suffused with humanistic doctrine which can do nothing to bring a man out of his spiritual death into a life of righteousness.

Christ is Simpler than AA

Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. (AA, pg 58)

The "Big Book" goes out of its way to shame people who cannot work the program.

The program cannot be worked, because the level of honesty expected from members is impossible to reach.

"Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults." (Psalm 19: 12)

Jeremiah would write:

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17: 9)

We need a new heart, not just a new way of thinking. We need a proper identity based on life, which we find in Christ, not in our efforts, not in a new program.

For the record, AA is not a simple program at all, and working Twelve Steps is much worse than believing on Jesus Christ and receiving all things from Him:

"Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." (John 6: 29)

I just noticed something very profound in this verse: believing on Jesus Christ is a work which He does in us:

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:" (Ephesians 2: 8)

and

"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." (Galatians 2: 20)

When we believe on Christ, we are blessed with all spiritual blessings (Ephesians 1: 3), we are accepted in Christ (Ephesians 1: 6), we receive the Spirit of Adoption (Romans 8: 15), we overcome all things in Him (Romans 8: 37). Because we are now seated in Christ (Ephesians 2: 4-6) and we are thus dead to the empty rudiments of the world (Colossians 2: 20), we need never fear condemnation of any kind (Romans 8: 1)

All we have to do is believe on Him.

Anything else is a subtle deception:

"1Would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me. 2For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. 3But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." (2 Corinthians 11:1-3)

Christ is way simpler than AA. Do not be fooled, there is no other way, and there is no better way than Jesus!

AA Makes Men Carnally Minded -- Life is to Be Christ-Minded

Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. (AA, pg 58)

From the outset, men and women who struggle with alcohol are defined as people who struggle with mental and emotional problems.

The program then leads new members to look at their feelings, their thoughts, and their reactions:

This thought brings us to Step Ten, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. We vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past. We have entered the world of the Spirit. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone. Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Love and tolerance of others is our code.  (AA, pg 84)

"Continue" is used four times in this passage. The work of looking at our thoughts and feelings is a never-ending process. A life of soul-searching and emotional self-reflection is bound to make us more depressed and fearful. For peace and joy, we should not be looking at ourselves, where we find nothing but imperfections and failures.

Such introspection makes us carnally-minded:

"For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." (Romans 8: 6)

We can never find peace in looking at ourselves.

"For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not." (Romans 7: 18)

We can look out for selfishness and fear all we want, and we will find nothing but struggle and pain:

"21I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. 22For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 23But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Romans 7: 21-24)

The struggle of every human being, and especially for the believer, begins and ends with the sin in our flesh, which we cannot remove. The  more that we look out for selfishness, fear, resentment, and even dishonesty, we will find ourselves more carnally minded than ever.

The solution lies not in looking at ourselves, but looking to Christ and Him alone:

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Corinthians 3: 18)

Instead of looking at ourselves, that is our flesh, we need to realize that in Christ we are dead to sin:

"Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6: 11)

When Jesus died on the Cross, He did not just die for all our sins (Colossians 2: 13), but through His death we died to ourselves, that is our flesh:

"4Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God." (Romans 7: 4)

Paul wrote to the legalist Galatians:

"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." (Galatians 2: 20)

To the Colossians, Paul then writes:

"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)

Instead of looking at ourselves, we need to look at Christ, for we are now in Christ, and through Him we receive more than a new set of rules or guidelines, but life and that more abundantly (John 10: 10)

Through the gift of righteous, we receive an abundance of grace, and the grace of God teaches us to be godly, holy, and good in our actions (Titus 2: 11-12)

AA is a terrible cult which brings people into bondage, for there is no worse bondage than trying to fix yourself, when man in his fallen state is so totally corrupted, there is nothing he can do in himself He needs a new life, he needs to be born again, and through the Holy Spirit, every man receives Christ, and Christ Jesus then brings us to sit with Him in heavenly places (Ephesians 2: 4-8)

For life and peace, and in order to get rid of the works of the flesh in our lives, let us receive the gift of Christ and Him Crucified, through which we receive the gift of righteousness and abundance of grace (Romans 5: 17).

When you know who you are in Christ, you reign in life over sin, every bad habit, every addiction and perversion. Be Christ-minded, bringing every thought into captivity to all that He has done for us (2 Corinthians 10: 5), and see that you are more than a conqueror in Him who love you and gave His life for you!
"

Believe More, not Do More

Christians think that they have to do more in order for the Christian life to burst through them.

Wrong.
We need to grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord, recognize that He is working in us, through us, all around us.

The idea of resting and receiving from God the Father all things is very hard for us, convinced as we are that we still have a part to play.

When we accept that we were dead and Christ has brought us to life, and that He is life, then we will have no problem receiving all other things from Him.

Instead of looking for more things to do, get to know more of Him, who is always doing!

"For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." (Mark 10: 45)

Another Reason Christians Resort to Twelve Steps

I think of that wonderful Christian poster "Footprints".

There are times in our life when we see two sets of footprints, convinced that we are walking with Jesus and following God.

Then at some points in the road, we see only one set of footprints.

At first we get angry, even fearful, and then Jesus lovingly responds:

"During those times, I was carrying you."

We need to accept that Jesus wants to carry us all the time, and in fact He has prepared everything so that He can carry us.

Yet there are areas in our lives where we have not been ready to give up control, such as our married lives, or our relationships with other people, or our jobs, our money, or any other area.

God wants us to rest in His Son for everything (Matthew 11: 28-30) since He is our life (Colossians 3:4), and His number one desire is that we prosper and have health, even as our soul prospers (3 John 2)

We have a hard time trusting Him because we do not see Him big enough to handle everything in our lives.

There is precisely the problem. We do not trust Him because our understanding of how great He is just too small.

But why?

Because we are not established in His righteousness:

"14In righteousness shalt thou be established: thou shalt be far from oppression; for thou shalt not fear: and from terror; for it shall not come near thee." (Isaiah 54: 14)

Jesus made it very clear: His Kingdom and His righteousness are essential before anything else in our lives:

"33But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." (Matthew 6: 33)

The rest shall be added unto us.

How do we get this righteousness? Isaiah gives us a clue, certainly:

"17No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD." (Isaiah 54: 17)

We receive His righteousness, not our own.

Yet still, how?

"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (2 Corinthians 5: 21)

and also

"King James Version
For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ." (Romans 5:17)

We simply receive the gift of righteousness be grace through faith. As for entering His Kingdom, we receive the same as a gift:

"Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." (Luke 12: 32)

and then

"[God] hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son" (Colossians 1:13)

Our job is to rest and receive that we saved by Jesus' work at the Cross, that through Him we have been taken from dead in our trespasses to alive and seated above the heavens in Christ (Ephesians 2: 4-8)

We receive a new standing, a new life, we have been made a new creation (2 Corinthians 5: 17)

Instead of doing more, we need to believe more, as we grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord (2 Peter 3: 18)

If we do not rest in the finality of the Cross, that our righteousness has nothing - nothing! - to do with us, but everything to do with what Jesus has done, then we frustrate the grace of God in our lives (Galatians 2: 21; 5: 4).

In fact, our knowledge of the Lord is based on resting in the truth that He remembers our sins no more (Hebrews 8: 10-12)

Christians who insist on working the Twelve Steps, because they believe that they have to perfect themselves, even though we are perfected forever in Christ (Hebrews 10: 14) will find themselves unable to believe God for anything else. We need His righteousness and His alone, and we cannot get this righteousness except by receiving it as a gift.

Until Christians understand that Jesus has done everything, and thus we receive all things through Him (Romans 8: 31-32) because of what He did for us at the Cross, Christians will still operate under the false notion that they have to do the work and live the life, and thus will seek out the works and ways of men, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Celebrate Recovery, and other Twelve Step cults.

Why Christians Rely on the Twelve Steps

Every Christian knows the blessed assurance of being saved.

When we accepted that Jesus died for us, we confessed from our heart to our lips that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we passed from death to life.

For many of us, however, the glory cloud of goodness which we received as a part of being saved would subside in a matter of weeks or even months.

What was fun and wonderful initially would wear off.

Some of us would struggle to get back that loving feeling. Others among us would go to church more often, or we would engage in other religious behaviors. All trying to get that feeling, we would do just about anything we could to get back that strong sense of God's presence in our lives.

I lived this never ending frustration for a few years.

Yet others, and I include myself in this set of Christians, after we get saved, we discover that bad habits, behaviors, and other sinful thoughts and feelings still persist in our lives.

A sense of shame develops within us. What do we do about these sinful feelings, thoughts, and even bad habits?

I believe that some Christians are born again yet still struggle with drinking, or eating, or sexual perversions, and so on.

Because they are saved, however, the sense of shame becomes more pronounced.

Why do Christians go through these struggles?

No one has informed them, and I was one of them, that we are saved and receive a new Spirit, we are granted life through Christ living in us (Colossians 1: 27).

Most Christians know that Jesus died for their sins, but they do not receive the blessed truth that Jesus Christ died for all their sins.

Moreover, many Christians, such as myself, do not learn that we still have sin in our flesh, in our bodies.

Paul identifies this struggle:

"For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not." (Romans 7: 18)

Paul is very careful to distinguish himself from his flesh, for we have been crucified with Christ, and the life in us is Christ living in us (Galatians 2: 20; Colossians 3: 4)

We are not our flesh, and we should no longer identify, or walk in our flesh, but rather with the Spirit of God living in us:

"16This 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)

Yet throughout the day, every day, we will still have sinful thoughts, emotions, and impulses in our flesh.

Paul speaks of this sobering reality, too:

"21I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. 22For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 23But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." (Romans 7: 21-23)

Paul again distinguishes himself from his members, yet many Christians do not do this. They fail to reckon themselves dead to sin and alive in Christ (Romans 6: 11-14)

Because of this lack of understanding about our life, our leading, and the new creation we have become in Christ (2 Corinthians 5: 17), Christians become fearful and despondent, believing that they have to do something about the sin in their flesh.

First of all, Beloved, God has already done something about the sin in our flesh:

"1There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. 3For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: 4That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." (Romans 8: 1-4)

There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus, none! The real power of all that Jesus did for us at the Cross, however, is more than dying for our sins. God condemned the very sin nature in our flesh when He sent His Son to die on the Cross for us:

"3For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:" (Romans 8: 3)

So, even when we sense wicked propensities within our bodies, when strange sentiments of rage and bitterness, or lustful thoughts emerge in our bodies, we do not need to feel ashamed or fearful, as if we must do something about those emotions. All of them, all of them, have been condemned, paid for, punished.

In fact, for those of us who believe on Jesus, we have died with Him, and thus we are raised with Him:

"4Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God." (Romans 7: 4)

We are dead to the law because we are dead in Christ, and yet through His resurrection, we are now alive in Him.

In regards to this wonderful, liberating mystery,  Paul writes to the Colossians, and to all of us:

"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)

We are dead to sin (Romans 6: 11), dead to the law (Romans 7: 4), and dead to the rudiment rules and regulations of the world (Colossians 2: 20)

The Gospel is more than our sins being forgiven, although this is very important. It's about receiving life, and that more abundantly, through all that Jesus accomplished for us at the Cross:

"The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." (John 10: 10)

and

"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14: 6)

Yet too many Christians do not understand that we have been crucified with Christ, and that the life we live is not us, but rather Christ through His faith working in us (Galatians 2: 20-21).

Most evangelists simply do not relate this important reality to new converts. So, new Christians, and even those who walk in the faith, go to church, and live "their lives", become frustrated by the sense of fear, sin, anger, and other upsetting emotions and temptations in their lives. Believing that they have to live this life on their own, even though they know without hesitation that they are going to heaven, they strive through their own efforts to be holy.

The more that men and women try to break free of any sin, any bad habit, or terrible addiction, however, the stronger the sin, habit, hang-up, addiction becomes:

"14For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. 16If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. 17Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 18For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not." (Romans 7:14-18)

That "I" or rather that fleshly self which we try to fix, cannot be fixed, cannot be improved. We have to realize that our flesh is dead and thoroughly corrupted, and rather let His life live through us.

However, as long as children of God in the Body of Christ refuse to accept that there is no hope in their own efforts, they will inevitably trust in their own efforts. Hence, the proliferation of Twelve Step programs in our churches, and man's insistence on his efforts to produce good works, even though God has provided the works in us already (Ephesians 2: 14) and is working within us both to will as well as to do the very things which He wants us to do (Philippians 2: 12-13).

Christians rely on the Twelve Steps because they have not reached the realization that there is no flesh which can glory in God's presence, that everything we are ,have, and do is because of the grace of God in our lives (1 Corinthians 15: 10). Jesus was not kidding when He declared: "Apart from me, ye can do nothing." (John 15: 5)

15 is then number of perfect rest, and 5 is the number for grace. We are to rest in His perfect grace, knowing and believing His love for us.

The love begins and ends with all that Jesus has done for us at the Cross. He died for all our sins, and through His death the sin in our flesh has been condemned, that we may reckon ourselves dead to sin, and reign in life receiving His gifts of righteousness and the abundance of grace which accompany it. (Romans 5: 17)

Even More Victory!

I was never my feelings.

Jesus has been bearing me through all hardships all this time.

Even in my lowest moments, God was there.

He made the most of those terrible moments.

From the moment that you believe on Jesus, you are seated in Him in heavenly places.

You are in Christ, and no one can take you away from Him.

You may be deceived in your mind, you may give into false doctrines which occlude your mind.

Yet the moment that you believe on Him and receive from His life.

I used to live in fear every day that my thoughts and feelings would oppress and interrupt everything that I did.

I lived in meager bondage, doing very little, since I never wanted to deal with my troubled thoughts and feelings.

Lo and behold -- what I was thinking and feelings -- that was never me.

I have died, in fact. For all intensive purposes, we are all dead in Christ, and we live in Christ.

The starting point for everyone of us in Christ is victory:

"Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." (Romans 8: 37)

and

"But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Corinthians 15: 57)

For the record, "give" is in the present active participle. God is actively now giving us victory!

"Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place." (2 Corinthians 2: 14)

"Always causeth us" is present active particple again: always leading us.

This victory is never-ending, never-ceasing.

Do not identify with your feelings. Do not identify with anything but Christ Jesus, for He is our life, our new identity:

"Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4: 17)

You are in Christ, Beloved. Stop looking at your thoughts and feelings, because they are not you!

Still More Victory in the Truth!

Oh, the bitter memories I used to carry within me.

The chronic struggle and fierce failures which I had attempted to overcome.

Memories of great pain and fear would well up within me, and I tried to do what I could about how I felt.

Now, lo and behold, the wonderful invitation of Colossians 3:

"f 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)

I have a new identity in Christ. What my body feels or my mind thinks has nothing to do with who I am.

Because of Jesus' death and resurrection, I am seated in heavenly places at the Father's right hand.

The bad thoughts, the bad feelings: they are not me.

The bitter memories of years past. What were they?

I can sum them up in the following set of phrases:

I was trying. I had no idea that I was dead, and that Christ was living in me.

I struggled against some of the worst students. I feared when they would come in the room, convinced that they were making me feel one way or another. The truth is that who I am or what I felt had nothing to do with me at all.

I was often living in fear and shame. I worried that I might say or do the wrong thing.

All of that fear and worry, frustration and regret-- those feelings were never me

To be carnally, fleshly minded is death (Romans 8: 6),  but to mind spiritual things -- there is our life and peace.

For Christ is our life, and we receive His life in us through His Holy Spirit.

Yet I was convinced that I had to feel or think a certain way in order to enjoy God's life and peace in me. That wrong conclusion explains precisely why I had so many problems in my life.

I identified with my feelings. I kept thinking that I was responsible for the feelings, thoughts, and other sources of bondage.

I am dead to sin, I am dead to the rudiments of the world.

Yet the AA cult suffused me with half-truths, which are full lies in every way. While the program claims that men and women can input their own conception of God, most Christians find their lives troubled and frustrated further. The growing number of people who continue to try and live the Christian life, with the "help" of the Twelve Steps, is both appalling and sad.

The Gospel delivered to us through Christ delivers us from all sin through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's a gift in every way. The notion that we can add anything to this wonderful gift is an offensive blasphemy.

AA is one of these blasphemies.

We do not perfect ourselves through our feelings. We do not set ourselves free.

He has set us free. All we have to do is believe on Him, and we receive all things through Him (Romans 8:31-32)

More Victory in the Truth

The sense of shame and despondency that I felt -- how can anyone talk about it.

I did not even want to think about it, for fear of triggering all those terrible emotions once again in my life.

I never realized until now - all those feelings of frustration and shame and fear: those feelings were never me to begin with.

From the moment that I called on Chris Jesus as Savior (and thus, Lord of Lords), I was a new creation.

I just never knew that.

So, for me to sit in AA or Celebrate Recovery, identifying with an illness was not in concert with the truth.

I am alive in Christ, not dead in Adam.

I am not my thoughts or my feelings.

I am not my past. I am not a product of my parents thoughts or feelings, or bad parents, or even their good parenting.

Who I am has nothing to do with me at all.

What a wonderful lesson we can learn. Jesus becomes all things for us, because through Him we receive all things.

All things, and we bring nothing to the party, because we have nothing in and of ourselves.

Of course, as long as we insist on mixing what Jesus did with what we can or must do, we are negating the grace of God in our lives:

"Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace." (Galatians 5: 4)

Grace is all about free gift, unmerited, unearned, undeserved favor.

Where does anyone get the idea that we can do anything to earn anything from God?

As long as I still had the awful traditions of men like Bill W. and his cult-like coterie in the back of my mind, I could never rest in the peace of all that Jesus did for me at the Cross.

We have to rest in the truth that He paid for everything, that His blood cleanses us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1: 7), or we will forever fall back into our own efforts to justify ourselves:

"A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." (Galatians 5: 9)

You add just one hint of anything to what Jesus did, you will find yourself in a tailspin of fear and shame.

I know -- because I suffered this fear and shame.

I could not believe it until I finally realized it: AA kept me in shameful bondage, so that I could never rest in Jesus' Finished work at the Cross.

Get rid of AA, and receive the grace of God unfeigned and untrammeled!

Relief and Victory in the Truth!

This has been one eventful and blessedly fruitful week for me.

I have learned so much about the true identity which I have in Christ.

From the moment that I believed in my heart and confessed out of my mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, I was taken from dead in trespasses to seated in heavenly places.

I received a new life, a new identity, a new citizenship, a new way of walking in the world.

At the time that I was saved, however, I did not know anything about this wonderful wealth of blessings which I had received.

Yet the Bible could not be clearer:

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:" (Ephesians 1: 3)

We have been blessed with all spiritual blessings because we are no longer dead in Adam,  but now in Christ, and through Christ we keep receiving God's abundant grace and never-ending gift of righteousness (Romans 5: 17)

We are dead to sin, we are alive in righteousness, and thus condemnation of any kind has nothing to do with us (Romans 8: 1)

As soon as I got saved, though, I found this life frustrating and difficult. I was also plagued with a deep-rooted sense of depression and fear, not quite sure as to what I was supposed to do now that I was saved. I believe that God had some plan for me to follow, but I had no idea what the plan was, or how to do it.

No one had told me about the rich and righteous inheritance which I received. No one, not even the evangelist who had preached to the Gospel to me, had informed me that I had a  new life in Christ, and that Christ was committed to doing and being all things for me, through me, with me.

He is my life (Colossians 3: 4), and He has prepared the way in truth for us (John 14: 6)

Why did I not know or believe these wonderful truths?

The cult of Alcoholics Anonymous.

As long as we subscribe to any human tradition in order to establish ourselves, like AA, we are making light of what Jesus did at the Cross.

He has perfected us forever because of His sacrifice at the Cross (Hebrews 10 14)

Through the New Covenant established in His blood, the following promises break through for us:

"For 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)

 

The enforcement clause rests on our rest -- in that we believe that all our sins are put away forever through Jesus' blood, which speaks blessed things on our behalf (Hebrews 12: 24)

 

I did not know any of these wonderful promises. Furthermore, because I was practicing the AA cult, which had been taught to me as a child, I knew and lived the fearful looking after of judgment which the writer of Hebrews warns us about (Hebrews 10: 26)

 

If we do not accept that Jesus has paid for all our sins, the chronic sense of foreboding and fear will never leave our lives.

 

This chronic pain and anguish was featured all too prominently in my life. At every period of life when I felt such crushing pain, fear, and guilt - lo and behold, AA was in the background, and the Twelve Steps was ever-present as the only way to break free of the problems in my lfe.

 

Yet the Twelve Steps were the very source of pain and condemnation to begin with!

 

Yes --- the shame and fear that I felt for an entire year. I was walking like the living dead through life, convinced that the bad thoughts and words which I had thought or said would come to haunt me. There was never a sense of relief for me.

 

I was so traumatized, I did not want to get out of bed in the morning.

 

The more that I called friends and acquiantances connected with the Twelve Steps, the worse that I felt. They were just as lost as I was. They were just as frustrated as I.

 

When I read in the Bible about all the sins being put away and paid for, when I read in Isaiah 43 that I was redeemed, and that I belonged to God, I still struggled in my feelings.

 

"Why do I not believe this?"

 

I still asked this question, and the painful nightmares of days, weeks, and months when I felt so alone in the world would still haunt me.

 

The pain was just so much for me. I thank God for His grace and mercy that He did not answer the flippant, unreasonable prayers of that time. "Take away this pain!" I would cry out.

 

I have since learned that I am alive in Christ, and thus dead to sin, to the flesh, and have not further truck with shame, guilt, or fear. Those feelings, those thoughts are not me.

 

Where did I get the idea that I should identify with my thoughts and feelings, and moreover do something about them in the first place?

 

AA.

 

Damn this evil cult!

 

 

AA Creates the Living Dead

The Bible invites everyone of us to enter into the life of Christ Jesus.

"Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6: 11)

Regarding the law, the Ten Commandments, and any other ordinance which demands righteousness and obedience from man, Paul writes what the law does:

"For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." (Romans 7: 9)

The law is the ministry of death and condemnation (2 Corinthians 3: 7, 9).

The law merely magnifies that we are sinners, stopping every human being from justifying himself in comparison to others (Romans 3: 19-20)

Once we receive the gift of righteousness from  Christ (Romans 5: 17), then the law is no longer necessary (1 Timothy 1: 7)

However, many Christians are still trying to improve their behavior. They believe that if they invest the right amount of time and effort in their lives, then they will be able to walk in full obedience, or at least progress toward doing so.

The truth is that we must either grow in grace, or fall into despair as we find ourselves unable to break free of any sin in our lives.

"Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:" (Romans 5: 20)

Imagine that! God did not give the law so that man would be able to improve or perfect himself, but rather to cause the sin nature in man to become all the more manifest.

Furthermore:

"The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law." (1 Corinthians 15: 56)

Today, I submit to anyone reading, that the Twelve Step program is one more example of man's petty efforts to make man perfect, or mankind's rejection of God's perfect Gospel through the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ.

The more that people try to live their lives through the systems of men, the more that they will discover in themselves the strength of sin, and the death within his members.

Alcoholics Anonymous ends up creating the living dead, especially among those who trust that Jesus Christ died for all their sins, yet have not yet understood or refuse to accept that Jesus did not come just to die for our sins, but He ministers on our behalf and lives in us by the power of His Holy Spirit.

In fact, Paul warns us not to be deceived by man's systems of humility and religious effort:

"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)

Jesus did not come to help us live our lives better, but to give us life, and that more abundantly (John 10: 10)

He lives today, and seeks to assist and minister to every need that we have, even now!

"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)

If you are saved, if you believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins, then you do not need to strive in your efforts, for Christ lives in you (Colossians 1: 27), and He works within you both to will and to do for His good pleasure (Philippians 2: 13)

Yet the Twelve Step program still features prominently in our churches. Pastors permit AA meetings to convene on church campuses, and a growing number of churches have welcomed Rick Warren's Celebrate Recovery program.

I am a witness of that terrible program -- it does not work at all, and the failure rate is even worse, but thankfully fewer people attend those terrible meetings.

Regarding these rudiments of the world, Paul then counsels:

"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)

We need to understand that we have died with Christ, and that we live in Him.

There is no good thing which dwells in our flesh (Romans 7: 18), and furthermore God will have no flesh glory in His presence (1 Corinthians 1: 29)

We are dead to sin, we do not identify with the flesh, but rather we are called to walk in the Spirit (Galatians 5: 16), identifying with the Christ-life in us, not ourselves: our feelings, our thoughts, our selves.

We are either in Adam or in Christ. To be in Adam means to be carnally minded, and that is death (Romans 8: 6). If we want life, we need to identify with our new life, Christ Jesus, for we are seated in heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 2: 4-8). We are not sons of God (1 John 3: 1-3), and as far as God the Father is concerned, He has given us the spirit of adoption (Romans 8: 15). We are no longer to look at ourselves, but rather look to Christ, the author and finisher of faith (Hebrews 12: 2):

"Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4: 17)

Herein. Is ---- These are two-present tense certainties.

Think about that, Beloved. You are alive in Christ. We are you still looking at yourself? Your thoughts, your feelings, your past ruminations are not you at all!

Twelve Steppers:Trying to Be Saved By Feelings and Faith

Faith and feelings are not the same.

We are not saved by feelings. We cannot be saved by feelings, since we cannot hold or feel the Finished Work of Christ Jesus.

What is faith, per the Bible?

"1Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 2For by it the elders obtained a good report." (Hebrews 11: 1-2)

We are saved by grace, which we receive by faith (Ephesians 2: 4-8).

We have to walk by faith, because Jesus cannot die again, and He cannot recreate what He did on the Cross.

When Mary found Jesus resurrected in the Garden, Jesus advised her not to grab Him (John 20: 17), and in the Gospel of Luke, we find Jesus teaching about Himself through the reading of the Word (Luke 24)

We cannot be saved by feelings, since the truth of who we are in Christ cannot be felt.

In fact, for Jesus to die again would violate God's justice, since Jesus died once for all for all our sins.

Moreover, for Jesus to die again would suggest that what He did was not enough.

Not at all. When Jesus said "It is Finished", that means the purging of our sins has been finished!

We are called to rest in what Jesus did for us, not strive every day to feel in our heads and bodies that Jesus is OK with us.

I am not ashamed to admit this truth today: I lived so much in my feelings, convinced that Jesus Christ was with me as long as I felt that He was with me.

As long as I felt at peace in my body, as long as my mind was rigorously focused on Jesus, then I was OK.

Such a mantra of religious fanaticism nearly brought me to the insane asylum. Imagine living every day convinced that what you think or feel can block your connection with God?

Such thinking is inevitable if we insist on mixing a Covenant of works with the New Covenant of grace and peace through Christ's death, resurrection, and high-priestly ministry at the right hand of God the Father.

We are not saved by feelings, but by faith, that we recognize in our hearts that Jesus has put away all our sins. When we rest in this truth, the New Covenant is fully activated in us:

"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)

 

Twelve Stepping makes God so small, primarily because the whole program makes light of what Jesus did at the Cross. There is no other name under which man can be saved, and to teach men and women that they can choose their own conception of God is the height of blasphemy and foolishness.

 

A dangerous cult which brings untold harm to many, Alcoholics Anonymous has no place in the life of a believer. The program teaches people to rely and identify with their feelings, instead of walking by faith in what Jesus Christ has done for us at the Cross.

 

Trust that Jesus has paid for all your sins, and let His Spirit write God's laws within you and teach you more about Himself!

AA Creates a Sin Conscience

"For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. 2For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. 3But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. 4For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins." (Hebrews 10: 1-4)

I have written before that the Twelve Step program is a modern manifestation of the Old Covenant, in which man beholds demands, and if he can keep the rules, work the program, then he can be blessed.

Yet the Ten Commandments, in fact the entire law of the Old Covenant, was not given to us so that we could be righteousness, but rather to show us as sinners in need of a Savior:

"19Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin." (Romans 3: 19-20)

Through the law, we have knowledge of sin.

Yet the law cannot make us holy:

"7What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. 8But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead." (Romans 7: 7-8)

and

"Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers," (1 Timothy 1: 7)

The Law was never God's best, but only came in alongside as a part of a covenant which would bring the Israelites to the end of themselves:

"Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:" (Romans 5: 20)

and then

"Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith." (Galatians 3: 24)

So, the law conceived the knowledge of sin, and the sacrifices were provided for man to atone for his sins.

Yet Jesus came, the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world (John 1: 29), has perfected us forever in our conscience (Hebrews 10: 14)

We have no reason to worry about our sins in any way, shape, and form. Because of all that Jesus did at the Cross, God invites us to reckon ourselves dead to sin, but alive in Christ through His righteousness (Romans 6: 11-12)

As long as men and women believe that they must work a program, take their inventories, and goo through the Twelve Steps in order to be sanctified, they are perpetuating a sin conscience, one in which Christians remain occupied with themselves instead of looking at Christ and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 10: 4-5)

This sin conscience is inescapable as long as we refuse to rest in the finality of the Cross. I cannot tell you the number of believers in the Body of Christ we live weak and beggarly lives (Galatians 4: 9).

I remember one man who served as a missionary to many South American communities, yet he was in bondage to habits which created frustration and bondage in his lives. For all of his knowledge about the Bible, he had never rested in the fullness and finality of all the Jesus did at the Cross!

One woman was telling me that she had stopped sharing at the Celebrate Recovery meeting. I chided her that she needed to leave altogether, because as long as anyone continues to attend and promote Twelve Step programs, they are aiding and abetting a system of beliefs which do not abide in the doctrine of Christ (2 John 9).

Another woman claimed without reserve that she was still in recovery. There was no life or sparkle to her walk. A great reserve, and a calculated respect for the petty fears and tremors of this life, marked much of her conservations with me.

Whatever happened to the blessed hope of Paul's declarations in Romans 8?:

"36As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

 

"37Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. " (Romans 8: 36-37)

 

We do not worry about being led as lambs to the slaughter, because Jesus, the Lamb of God, died on the Cross, removing all our sins (Colossians 2: 13). He became sin that we would receive His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5: 21), and every other good  thing with Him (Romans 8: 31-32)

 

However, if we do not receive Him as our full and final sacrifice, we cannot receive from Him anything else:

 

"6But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. 7For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. 8A double minded man is unstable in all his ways." (James 1: 6-8)

 

I submit that James was exhorting his fellow Jewish brethren not to mix covenants. We are no longer under law, and thus no longer any apprehension of guilt or fear, because the Father of Lights has given us Jesus, the Light of the world (John 8: 12), to die for our sins, rise for our justification, and intercede on our behalf until He comes again.

 

In Hebrews 12, the writer invites everyone of us to put aside every sin which weighs us down. Why? Because all our sins have been paid for in full, forever, and thus we no longer need hold onto any sense of sin conscience in our lives.

 

For us to have any fear of wrongdoing, or to carry about ourselves a sense of guilt and shame is to insult what Jesus has done for us, and by extension to argue that He did not complete a perfect work (John 17: 3-4).

Twelve Steppers Say: Jesus Did Not Finish It

There is no freedom from a sin conscience as long as we define ourselves by our sins and continue to confess our sins, as if our confession, our profession, or anything else that we do can keep us one step ahead of our sins.

We are not just sinners, but we are dead in our trespasses (Ephesians 2: 1-2)

When Jesus died on the Cross, He announced to the world once and for all forever: "It is Finished." (John 19: 30)

With Alcoholics Anonymous, men and women learn every week that the work is not finished, that the sickness of alcoholism will plague them for the rest of their lives, and without the Twelve Steps, meetings, and work with other alcoholics, they will drink again.

Empirical literature, personal accounts, and field research accounts confirm that people can get clean and sober with AA, and in fact the program-cult initiated by Bill Wilson.

One pastor commented very powerfully, and I could not agree more, that for every believer, every child of God who believes that Jesus is the Son of God who died on the Cross for our sins and was raised for our justification -- yet every believer who insists on attending AA meetings or Celebrate Recovery meetings is basically saying that what Jesus did was not enough.

When He said "It is Finished" -- He was not expressing some hollow opinion. When He declared that the work was done, He was not making a mere suggestion, or giving

If you believe that you have to attend any program, or participate in any cult, which claims that you must confess your sins, work steps, attend meetings, and work with other people in order for them to adopt the same program, then you are insulting God the Father and denying Jesus Christ the right to sit down at the right hand of the Father at rest.

We must never forget that Jesus Christ sat down not because He is God, for that will never change, but because He finished the work of purging all our sins:

"11And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: 12But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; 13From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool." (Hebrews 10: 11-13)

I write this again: for any Christian, for anyone who claims that Jesus Christ is his or her Lord and Savior, yet at the same time claims that the Twelve Steps helps perfect our walk with Christ - those people are testifying by their actions that what Jesus did was not enough. They are saying that Jesus does not have a right to sit down at rest, and therefore the unrest of sin and strife should remain in our lives.

The more that I meditate on the power of Christ's blood at the Cross, which cleanses (present tense!) us from all sin and unrighteousness (1 John 1: 7), the angrier I get with anyone who pushes Twelve Steps of any form in our churches and on any Christian. Nothing could be more dangerous to the walk of righteousness and grace which Jesus offers to us:

"A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." (Galatians 5: 9)

Paul was as subtle as a machete in third chapter: "O foolish Galatians!" -- there is nothing more foolish, or dangerous, than adding one thing, one work, any extras to what Jesus did for us at the Cross.

The moment we want to do or say or think anything to fulfill or perfect our righteous standing before God the Father, we are not walking in the truth, and we are negating all that Jesus did for us at the Cross.

Jesus gave Himself for us, and with Him we can receive all things. He is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, as well as sanctification and redemption (1 Corinthians 1: 30) What gives anyone the idea that Jesus is not enough?

The Twelve Steps, which I was raised in as a child, infused in my Christian walk as a norm that in addition to reading our Bibles, we need to read the Twelve Steps, work a program, and make the most to live a Christian life in our efforts.

Today I write emphatically: Alcoholics Anonymous is an offensive, insulting cult which tramples on the blood of Jesus, and the consequences for people who proudly define themselves by this program instead of resting in the Finished Work of Christ Jesus:

"Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?" (Hebrews 10: 29)

Before this dire warning (for those who recognized Jesus as Messiah yet were not yet willing to rest in the finality of His work at the Cross), the writer of Hebrews writes:

"26For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, 27But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. " (Hebrews 10: 26-27)

Can you imagine walking around with a sense of fear and retribution in your life? I did. I have lived with the sense of unending foreboding and fear, and I had no idea why for so long. After growing up in a household where I had prayed over my meals for years, where I had been going to church, and I had been reading the Bible daily, I still had not full revelation or rest in the finality of what Jesus Christ did for me at the Cross.

Terrible, but true.

The more that I meditate on what Jesus has done, not just for me but for everyone in the world (John 3:16; 1 John 2: 1-2), the  more I realize how wicked and dangerous is the Twelve Step cult.

And blasphemous, too. To think that what Jesus did at the Cross is not enough: that is a great evil which is still bringing many precious saints into bondage.

Alcoholics Anonymous: The Way of Cain

Instead of resting in the Finished Work of Jesus Christ, mankind is forever seeking ways through their own efforts to be righteousness.

In the Garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they dressed themselves in fig leaves, in order to cover up their shame.

Their actions are an example of self-righteousness.

When Cain and Abel offered their sacrifices to the Lord God, Cain offered some of his harvest, while Abel offered a lamb.

God respected Abel's sacrifice, which included blood-shed, but he rejected Cain's, which witnessed to his efforts as a farmer. For the record, Cain did not give the best of his harvest, either:

"3And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD. 4And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering." (Genesis 4: 3-5)

Cain brought "of the fruit". Abel brought "of the firstlings". Abel brought the best, and Cain brought the rest.

The rest will always witness of how weak and beggarly elements of our works.

The Way of Cain is a religious spirit, one in which man insists on relying on his efforts to please God, to make himself righteousness, when he should rest in the righteousness of God, paid for the blood of Jesus.

Our righteousness works are as filthy rags to God:

"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." (Isaiah 64: 6)

There is nothing that we can do in our efforts. In fact, when we understand the full extent of "filthy rags", we must accept that even our efforts to cleanse us are not only useless, but our efforts actually make us more filthy.

Alcoholics Anonymous is based on the false and evil premise that through his own efforts, man can achieve a better standing of righteousness.

From the AA book, following the list of the Twelve Steps:

Many of us exclaimed, "What an order! I can't go through with it." Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. (AA, pg 60)

The Holy Spirit has perfected us forever, by the way (Hebrews 10: 14) so automatically this hollow assertion in the Big Book is not just patently offensive, but a corrosive evil which as brought millions into bondage.

Jude, the half-brother of Jesus Christ, shared the following:

"4For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ." (Jude 4)

and then

"11Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core." (Jude 11)

The way of Cain is the way of self-effort, of self-righteous rage which persecutes anyone and anything which promotes the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ -- that through His death, through the shedding of blood, we receive the forgiveness of sin.s and justification before God.

There is no Twelve Steps which can make us righteous. There are no steps at all which can make us righteousness:

"Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon." (Exodus 20: 26)

The mention of steps connects with man's nakedness, the first source of shame for Adam and Eve. Every time we attempt to take steps to get to God, our nakedness, our shame, our sin is exposed further.

The way of Cain, the attempt by man to acquire righteousness, ends in death, and AA is one more cult which promotes this terrible path.

AA Makes You Look At Yourself -- Look at Jesus Instead!

This thought brings us to Step Ten, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. We vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past. We have entered the world of the Spirit. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone. Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Love and tolerance of others is our code. (AA, pg 84)

This program is so evil.

Making people look at themselves to maintain their program -- there is nothing but despair and frustration for a person who wakes up every day, convinced that they must look out for this disease of alcoholism from rising up to curse and condemn us.

Frankly, despite all of the Bible reading and writing which I had engaged in my life, I spent much of my time looking at my thoughts, my feelings, my fears.

God was a distant consideration much of the time.

No one had ever taught me that God is taking care of everything in my life. No one had ever taught me that all I have to do I believe on Him.

My knowledge, my understanding of God, and how good He is, was so flawed, so marred, so limited.

Why? Because my conception of God was based predominantly on the Twelve Steps, Alcoholics Anonymous.

I did not see how good God is.

We cannot understand Him as long as we do not believe that we are righteous.

This righteousness is an ultimate gift:

"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (2 Corinthians 5: 21)

We are made the - THE - righteousness of God in Christ. When we believe on Jesus Christ (John 6: 29), we are taken from dead in our trespasses to alive and seated in heavenly places in Him (Ephesians 2: 4-6)

We should not be looking  at ourselves, to begin with, because we are not in ourselves, but in Christ.

Paul tells us to look above, to God the Father and the Son seated at His right hand (Colossians 3:1-4)

For the past few weeks, I have begun to notice how much time I spent looking at myself, looking at my resources, convinced that whatever I needed depended entirely on me.

I have been reading my Bible for a long time. I have been learning  more and more about the grace of God in Christ, and that I have been freed from the law, and that God is a god to me not because of my obedience, but because of Christ's obedience on our behalf, since He is my High Priest forever (Hebrews 7: 16)

All of this thinking, righteous believing, is quite new for me, but I am glad for this new journey, one which is upending all the lies and distortions which I was forced to learn and accept because of the crappy, evil AA cult.

For a long time, I would not come to God and ask for help, because whenever I struggled with negative thinking, I would spend so much time trying to feel better, or to change what I was thinking. If a sense of shame sprung up in my mind because I was not focusing on Jesus, then I would get fearful and worried and look at myself and try to fix my thinking, my feeling, my words, my everything else.

There is no peace in looking at ourselves. There is nothing but peace as we look more and more at the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9: 6)

Look to Christ, not yourself, and be transformed from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Supremacy of Scripture, not AA

This new revelation is really opening my eyes.

For years -- years! -- I was convinced that the AA book would assist my understanding of the Word of God.

I was raised to believe that the AA book would make the Bible practical.

What a bunch of lies.

Which came first: the Bible, or Alcoholics Anonymous?

The Bible, of course!

Now, what do we learn about the Word of God? Paul writes:

"16All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 17That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works." (2 Timothy 3: 16-17)

The Word of God is our standard, the Word of God is profitable for everything that we need for training, life, and godliness.

When we learn more about God's righteousness, then we receive more of His grace in our lives.

And what does the grace of God do for us?

"11For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, 12Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; 13Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; 14Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." (Titus 2: 11-14)

Could anything be more practical than that?

Paul also shared what the grace of God did for him:

"But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." (1 Corinthians 15: 10)

The grace of God means nothing if we do not understand and believe that Jesus has paid for all our sins (Colossians 2: 13)

Indeed, He has, and He has also spoiled every enemy who would take us down (Colossians 2:15). In Christ, we receive glory and triumph, too (2 Corinthians 2: 14)

The Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword (Hebrews 4: 12), and we are called to live by every word which proceeds from the mouth of the Lord (Matthew 4: 4)

Alcoholics Anonymous claims to rely on Biblical principles, as it quotes passages about being reborn (AA, pg 63) and the Scripture "faith without works is dead" (AA, pg 76).  Yet by incorporating Scripture, then one must assume that the writers esteemed the Bible. Yet if the AA writers esteem the Word of God, we discover that there can be no other God then He who has been from the Beginning: Yahweh, who sent His Beloved Son Jesus Christ to reconcile mankind to Himself (2 Corinthians 5: 17-19).

There can be no talk about my or your conception of God, and since this Jesus died on the Cross for all our sins and gave us His life, then there can be no use for the Twelve Steps, since they speak merely of the rudiments of the world.

The supremacy of Scripture is unassailable (John 10: 35), and the Scripture testifies of our life in Christ. Therefore, AA is not only unnecessary, but downright fraudulent and dangerous. The program wars against the Supremacy of Christ and Him Crucified and the Word of God.

The Bible could not be more practical, in that as we read the Word of God, we grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord (2 Peter 3: 18) the grace and truth which sets us free and makes us able and willing servants of the New Covenant!