Peace is Found in a Person, Not People

One of the greatest crimes of the AA cult rests in the sponsorship game.

Men and women who enter the rooms are told to seek out a sponsor, a mentor of sorts, who listens to the people take their inventory, grant them "advice" on how to deal with major issues.

For years, I tied my peace and wholeness to someone else fixing my feelings.

I cannot believe that I put with such an outrageous routine, but year after year, if I was angry, fearful, frustrated, or anything else, I was running to my mother.

She was the one who pushed me through the AA program in every way.

I am learning not to condemn her. She was deceived greatly by the terrible AA cult, referring often to the fact that she was able to stop drinking.

Yet breaking free of any addiction is all about breaking free of condemnation. The AA cults attempts to divest individuals away from one addiction, alcohol, then bring them into bondage to another addiction: religion.

Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. God wants us to eat from the Tree of Life, and that Tree is Jesus Christ!

There is no life in our conception of God. None. We need the revelation of Jesus and His love for us, not our own works, not our own ideas, and certainly not the habits of sharing our sins and shame with other people.

For too long, I was running to other people to find peace. When I was full of fear, I was taught to run everything by someone else. That is the essence of emotional dependence, which is evil and wrong. Our peace is found in one person, Jesus! He is our peace (Ephesians 2: 14), the prince of peace (Isaiah 9: 6), and our perfect peace (Isaiah 26: 3).

It has taken me a long time to accept that every time I feel guilty or shameful, that I am dishonoring the sacrifice of Jesus at the Cross. In effect, I am not permitting Jesus to sit down, since He sat down at the right hand of God the Father because He paid the finally penalty for all our sins:

"Who 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)

We cannot run to other people to convince us, or to make us believe that Jesus finished the job. In fact, every time that we honor the fears and frustrations of other people, we are basically affirming that whatever problems they are facing, God's grace is somehow not enough.

How dare we live in worry! How dare we claim that someone else besides Christ and Him Crucified can atone for our sins!

The habit of resting in His righteousness, of walking by faith, is not easy for our flesh. We want to feel an answer. We want our feelings to be at peace. But any peace which matters must come from the truth that Jesus is the Person who gives us peace, not persons.