Every since I was a kid, I was taught so much about Alcoholics Anonymous.
My mother, Pam Schaper, was a "stepper Mom". Everything in her life was run through the AA program, the Twelve Steps, the Twelve Traditions, etc.
It was only until shortly before her death, in late 2011, when I began learning fully about the Gospel of Grace, and the complete incompatibility of the grace of God with any of man's systems of self-improvement.
There are no steps to getting to God. He has done the work. Jesus died on the Cross, and when He rose again from the dead, God the Father seated us in heavenly places with His Son Jesus (Ephesians 2:4-6)
Alcoholics Anonymous teaches people to identify with their sins, with their flesh, with their own fallen nature.
Never do people learn that they are a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), nor do they ever learn that they have been made the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21).
In fact, every day, they are taught that the spirit of Alcoholism lives alive and well in them, and they need to keep a watchful out to ensure that the disease does not overtake the person.
There is no rest for adherents of Alcoholics Anonymous.
What is also particularly damaging is that this cult teaches people to turn their will and life over to God "as they understand Him." This is a real problem, since I do not want to believe in a God that my puny mind can comprehend.
In fact, Paul tells the Ephesian Christians that we need strength to understand the love of God, which passes knowledge! (Ephesians 3:16-19).
There is too much self-centeredness in Alcoholics Anonymous. There is simply no way to break free of oneself as long as we are looking at ourselves: our thoughts, our feelings, our habits, our hurts, our sentiments.
For the longest time, I did not see, did not realize how alive, how vibrant, how independently true and active Jesus is in my life. Indeed, He is our life! (Colossians 3:4).
For the longest time, I treated God as though He lived in my head. I did not understand what it meant to walk by faith, or rather, I had spent so much of my time focused on my thoughts and feelings. Such bondage, such pain was so common, so overwhelming.
The last few months, I have been praying Paul's prayers to the Ephesians, in the first and third chapters of his epistles to that church. Indeed, I have begun to realize that God is real, and His real life is independent of my thoughts and feelings. All the worries, fears, cares, suspicious, and suppositions have been slowly but surely ignored. The noise, the nonsense, the nattering of bad thoughts, fears, worries, and concerns about the future have all melted away as I see Jesus, Him who has been from the beginning! (1 John 2: 13)
God is real. He is permanently at home in every person who believes on His Son, that Jesus died for our sins and gave us His righteousness (Ephesians 3:17).
He is active and alive! He is not a figment of our imaginations, nor is He a fantasy whom we have to wish or will into existence in our lives. He is our life, and He is at work around us, providing everything for us, living through us.
Our bad feelings are not us, our bad thoughts are not our identity. Our new life is hid in Christ with God.
This is really simple, and yet really profound. For so long, I lived in my head. I kept thinking that I had to alter my thoughts and feelings, hold onto certain sentiments to ensure that God was with me. Never once did I realize how active and independently gracious He is towards me.
Why did I struggle to realize all of this? Because I was taught about some arbitrary and capricious God as revealed by long-time white-knuckler and serial philanderer Bill Wilson, aka Bill W. My mother insisted on championing herself as a big time Stepper who always worked her program, and never failed to take her inventory (going over and over the Twelve Steps, etc.) Ugh, what a load of crap all of that has turned out to be.
What's worse, even when we are saved, we all still struggle with "the flesh", in that we need to learn that we are not our flesh, we do not need to identify with bad thoughts, bad feelings. Jesus does not disappear from us because of our feelings. He is our life, and He is providing everything for us.
Indeed, we are called to rest in Him, and we are resting in a real person. He also does not leave us or forsake us if we fail, sin, fall short. All of our sins have been put away forever.
We do not identify with sin, but with the Son.
All this time, I would wrestle constantly with my thoughts. Then I would try to "focus" on Jesus, as though He were far away. Yet He is ever-present, closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24)
Jesus, I am glad that I see you by faith. Not physical sight, for what is invisible is eternal. I understand now where I was mistaken, where I was believing wrong.
And I understand now why I was believing wrong, with all the nonsense from Alcoholics Anonymous and its cultic lies. You do not live in our heads, and we do not have to fight with our heads to see you! AMEN!
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