I kept thinking that some standard for living, for achieving something--anything--lay around the corner, ready to pounce (or rather pound) on me and show me how I failed to measure up.
Jesus did not come to give us a standard of living, but to give us His dynamic ZOE life!
That's what it's about!
The Twelve Steps that I was living with, or rather living under, furnished so much of this condemnation.
It was all the fault of Alcoholics Anonymous, and the abusive upbringing which accompanied this cult in my life.
The Ten Commandments are a ministration of death, and the AA "program" is another spinning of the wheels which gets us absolutely nowhere.
The program actually breeds a greater sense of condemnation.
Every day is one big demand: to line up your life in line with some fantastical notion of whatever God's will is.
This cult does not help people get better. It has a very low success rate, and those who do manage to stay sober, stay that way regardless of Twelve Steps, or end up getting by with heavy medications.
An overwhelming sense of fear follows people. Will today be the day that I take that drink? That I go back out?
Blah Blah Blah!
With Jesus, there is no going back, but walking forward, in the path of the righteous, which grows brighter and brighter until the perfect day.
Who needs AA? Who needs the shame and condemnation?
We do not transform and change people with those twin tools of Satan.
Even if force and threats make people behave on the outside at the outset, it is only a matter of time before those terrible behaviors break out once again.
Condemnation brings out the perversion, whatever it may be, in our lives.
The truth sets us free, and the grace of God teaches us all things.
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