In AA, You Still End Up Playing God

So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us! God makes that possible. And there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without His aid. Many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we could not live up to them even though we would have liked to. Neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power. We had to have God's help.

 

This is the how and why of it. First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn't work. Next, we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director. He is the Principal; we are His agents. He is the Father, and we are His children. Most good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed to freedom. (AA, pg 62)

 

The Bible gives us greater hope than merely blaming us for our problems:

 

"12Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: 13(For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14Nevertheless 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: 12-14)

 

It was Adam's sin which cursed all of mankind. It was the sin of one man which brought sin into the world and into all men.

 

Now, we are not stuck in the sin of our first father Adam, because God the Father wants to adopt us through His Son:

 

"15But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. 16And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. 17For 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: 15-17)

 

Jesus the second Adam came to live as a perfect man to be the perfect sacrifice, that we may be mad the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5: 21), and through the gift of righteousness receive His life (Romans 8: 15) and the spirit of adoption (Romans 8: 15)

 

Now, the Bible presents us God in His fullness, and for all our intellect, and all our capacities, we simply cannot take in how great He is in our efforts, in our readings, in all our times. It will take eternity and then some for us to appreciate how great He is!

 

Just as any cult has some truth in it, so too AA brings us some truth, in that we must quit playing God, or stop trying to be God in our lives. However, the AA program ends up forcing people to play God.

 

How could it be otherwise? If we insist on relying on our own conception of God, are we not in the end play-acting with the true knowledge of the Creator/Redeemer Yahweh who sent His Son Jesus to be our savior and our High Priest Forever?

 

If we do not receive Himself as our life, then we have no choice but to rely once again on our own efforts. We will still wonder about the future. We will still fear, wondering if God is there for us, or if He will see us through our hard times and troubles. Because men have no understanding of flesh and spirit, people end up relying on their flesh all the more, creating the very sins and sorrows which they sought to break free of.

 

If a person's sobriety still depends on what he does, how many meetings he goes to, how many times he takes his inventory, or anything else that we do, then our life and health depends on us. Not much of a higher power, I have to say. There can be no such thing as a higher power. Either we trust in God Almighty, as revealed in His Word, or we trust in ourselves. There can be no mixture on this matter.

 

This program creates nothing but bondage, because the idea of God working in our lives means nothing if God is merely our understanding of Him. We need to acknowledge that God is beyond anything that we can understand, and that He moves far ahead of our needs, and wants, yet grants us beyond what we can ask or think (Ephesians 3: 20-21)

Called to a Person, not a Program

We are called to a Person who loves us, and works within us.

We are not called to a program or a prescription.

We are not called to principles, but rather we receive Christ Jesus, the principal thing, our Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption in this life (1 Corinthians 1: 30)

Whatever problems you are facing, none of it has to do with your doing or not doing enough.

It's always a knowledge problem. It's not just about academic or even religious knowledge. It's all about our lack of knowledge of Jesus, that He knows us, that He cares for us, that He wants to carry us through our days, and our tough times.

"But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?" (Galatians 4: 6)

Jesus invites us into a vital, growing, eternal relationship with Him.

He shows Himself through His Word, and we receive His Spirit to work in us and through us, and transform us from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3: 18)

We are called to a Person who loves us passionately, and yet we do not give Him enough time to let Him reveal Himself to us.

I was so busy trying to live, when Life in Person wanted to live through me!

Alcoholics Anonymous wants to keep people busy trying to make themselves better. Jesus wants us to receive His fullness in greater measure, and allow Himself to live through us.

Life on Life's Terms: Jesus!

"We had to learn to accept life on life's terms." (From "Acceptance is the Answer to all my Problems")

Another one of the hollow quotes oft repeated in AA meetings.

What does that mean, anyway, to accept life on life's terms?

Does that mean putting up with abuse at the work place, or setting for second place in one's work, in all one's affairs?

There is all too much about this life which should offend us, which we should not settle for.

If we rest in our own conception of God, we may find that this life actually ends up dominating us even more.

Life on life' terms is a useless statement. I need to know and understand that there is life, a life which flows and pulsates with or without my permission.

I am not responsible for creating this life on my own.

This life is a gift which we receive through Jesus 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)

Before Jesus told everyone what He was offering to all who would believe on Him (John 6:29), He talked about the thief who comes to steal, kill, an destroy. In the same chapter, Jesus also talks about those who came before Him, bring doctrines of bondage and deceit. Just as the serpent deceived Eve into believe that she was not yet like God, and that partaking of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil would grant her knowledge like God, so too Bill W. and all the other cult-adherents of AA offered up the hollow lies that working a "simple" Twelve Step program would enable us to have fun living.

Not the case at all.

Jesus came to give us life. God put the tree of life in the midst of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2: 9), yet Eve focused on the other tree, the Knowledge of Good and Evil:

"3But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." (Genesis 3: 3)

AA is another fruit from the poisonous tree of Good and Evil.

While many will claim that AA does work, it does not. Even for the three to five percent of people who do get free of alcohol and stay in the program, they end up switching the overt perversion of alcoholism for a religious fixation, complete with medications and other mind-altering drugs.

Why do men and women overeat, drink to excess, or engage in other empty pursuits? They want life, they need the love of the Father, yet they are seeking this love in broker cisterns:

"15Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 17And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." (1 John 2: 15-17)

People are looking for something permanent, that unconditional, eternal love which only God is and has and does for us. We recognize and receive this love because of Jesus, who not only dies for us, but serves us after the power of an endless life at the right hand of God the Father.

Life on life's terms means nothing if we do not understand life:

"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)

This statement cannot be ignored. If we believe on Jesus, then we accept Him as our life, as well as the way and the truth in our lives. He is alive and active in us and through us. Instead of looking at Twelve Steps, let us spend more time looking to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of faith, and allow His blessing to flow in us, to allow Him to live through us:

"In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him." (1 John 4: 9)

That we might live through Him -- we are not trying to live this life on our own. This life is not even ours to live. Never once should we feel alone or lost, that we are facing the challenges, hurts, and setbacks of this life in our own strength. Never.

The revelation of how great is Jesus love for me is more than can be expressed in one blog post. Yet years of AA made it very difficult to understand that His life living and flowing through me is exactly what Jesus wants to do for everyone of us. Still, so many Christians do not understand the great privilege of Christ living in them, and that this life allows Him to do great things for us, through, and for others, too.

Live your life on Life's terms: Jesus, full of grace and truth!

He Prospers My Soul (I Don't Have to Work a Program)

Faith and works are completely antithetical.

Grace is a gift which we receive by faith, and God wants us to keep receiving the gift of righteousness and abundance of grace with it (Romans 5: 17)

The biggest sham/shame/fraud of Alcoholics Anonymous rests on the empty notion that we have to fix our feelings and prevent ourselves from emotional upsets.

I kid you not. The whole program rests on maintaining emotional balance, when the steps, the pages, the meetings, and all the other nonsense end up creating people caught up constantly in their feelings, in their heads, in their minds, unable to meet with the troubles and strifes of the world.

Add to the hardships of this life the challenges of keeping yourself in emotional balance throughout the day, or worse, add to all of that the idea that you have to guess what God wants you to be doing, as if He is not working in you and through you to desire exactly what you want to do.

There is no life in Twelve Steps, as there is no life in the Ten Commandments. A list of "do nots" and "must do's or else" is not life.

Yet the biggest pain, the greatest hardship of Twelve Steps, is that every time we get upset, fearful, angry, etc., we have to do something about it.

We have to make sure that we do not get angry, hurt, bitter, etc. as if everything in our lives hinges on how we feel.

There is mention of God's everlasting, unconditional love in our lives. No mention of His love, which transforms us from dead in our trespasses to alive and seated in  heavenly places, that God the Father looks at every believer and sees us as His Own Son!

Not only that, but God is actively prospering us, inside and outside by His Holy Spirit:

"Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." (3 John 2)

A full rendering of this powerful verse would look like this:

"Beloved, I want you in all things that you be prospered and have health even as your soul is prospered."

We do not prosper ourselves. We have nothing in and of ourselves, so what can we bring to our impoverished, powerless state?

Yet we are more than powerless in and of ourselves. We are dead, but through Christ we receive His Holy Spirit and His life in us, that we may live through Him (1 John 4: 9), and thus He prospers us spirit, soul, and body (1 Thessalonians 5: 23)

He is prospering our soul, Beloved! He is taking care of us. He is granting us His grace and truth throughout our walk in this world. We do not live in our own strength, and never once should we feel that we face this life on our own. Never.

He prospers our soul as we walk in the truth (3 John 3-4), and this truth is the Gospel, which is grace for all things, in all occasions. We are who we are because of His grace (1 Corinthians 15: 10). Instead of focusing on ourselves, let us see what grace He has, and keeping receiving from Him.

A Ploy of the Enemy, Put Away Forever

Our sins have been put away, paid for, sent away forever.

I did not believe this.

Part of the evil of Alcoholics Anonymous is that men and women who sit in the meetings identify every day with their sins, their failings.

Imagine: every day acknowledging "I am an alcoholic."

That is not God's best, never was, and never will be.

The true revelation of Christ and Him Crucified demonstrates a powerful Creator and Redeemer who wants to take us out of our dead-in-trespasses state.

Granted, alcohol addiction/abuse one element of this sin, this shame, this terrible death that every person is born into, through no fault of their own, by the way.

When we receive a new life, Christ in us, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27)

Yet we still walk around in these bodies. We will still feel temptations in our flesh. Satan will seduce us out of our rest time and again.

While AA taught me to keep up with resentments, find ways to push past them, or get rid of them somehow, I often found that the victory I was looking for in the realm of my emotions never happened. People could make me made. I felt powerless over so much, and it only got worse. I never knew what to do about the people who upset me. Was it something that I had done, or that the other person was responsible for? I could never tell.

This confusion made it impossible to work with other people. There is no getting away from a very troubling trend in AA: this program makes it almost impossible for people to find and keep work.

But more on that later.

The ploy of the Enemy which I want to report on: a program which teaches you that every time you get angry, you have to do something about it. Every time you have a bad memory, or a bad thought, you have to get rid of it, either by sharing it with someone or doing something good for someone else. When I refer to this un-merry-go-round, I am talking about the Tenth Step, continuing to take one's inventory and correct every mistake, or else.

This habit has died very hard. I still wake up and struggle from time to time with bad thoughts, or bitter hurts. But wait, those hurts are not "I" or "you":

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

"For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." (Romans 8: 13)

and

"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. 5Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:" (Colossians 3:1-5)

Whenever I would feel bad or angry, I would get fearful, wondering why God was not doing something about those hurts and unhappy feelings:

"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 feel troubled or upset from within, let us remember that we are in a different fight, a labor to rest in His Finished Work:

"8For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. 9There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. 10For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. 11Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief." (Hebrews 4: 8-11)

God has put away forever all my sins, and instead of thinking that the work is not done, I get to rest in Him and all that He has done!

Hallelujah! I love writing about all that Jesus has done (and down with AA!)

Again, AA is a cult, and Has No Place in Christ

In the past few weeks, I have met people who share with me that AA works, that the program helps people.

Yet when I compare other tenets within the Twelve Step movement compared with the Bible, I find that the two teachings are incompatible with each.

The AA book says that we outgrow our fear. The Bible offers us the promise that perfect love casts out fear.

The Bible outlines that man is born dead in his trespasses. While the AA book mentions that we need to be reborn, there is no recognition that our bodies still have sin, but all of it is purged. Furthermore, AA prescribes a program of doing more about our thoughts and feelings, rather than growing grace of all that Jesus has done for us.

The last part has brought me the most peace. I still face challenges and frustrations, but instead of trying to put out emotional fires, I learn to see more of Jesus and receive more of His grace, His favor in my life.

The other issue which has brought me so much peace is the Life issue. Jesus did not die on the Cross to make us better people, but to take us from dead in our trespasses to alive and seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

What does AA say? Here's the third step:

3.Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

We do not have any life. We need life. How can anyone of us turn over something that we do not have?

This step always frustrated me. What does it mean to turn everything over to this God? How do I know what is His will, and how can I be sure that I am not being deceived?

So many questions, which were never answered for me. Nothing but frustration and fear and shame dogged me because of this terrible program.

AA is a cult. There is nothing to discuss about this.

Consider another portion of the AA book:

"We were now at Step Three. Many of us said to our Maker, as we understood Him: "God, I offer myself to Thee-to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!" We thought well before taking this step making sure we were ready; that we could at last abandon ourselves utterly to Him." (AA, pg 63)

All of this talk about "our maker" and "our God" is empty folly in itself. The program starts with a god of our understanding, yet at the same time we ascribe this god as our maker. Not only that, but all of this talk about "our" is very disconcerting. How can anyone grow in greater contact and grace with a god of your own conception, when at the same time this god belongs to other people, too?

I had prayed that third step prayer religiously for a long time, when I started working that AA cult in greater earnest. At the same time, the fears and tumults in my life did not go away, but actually got worse. At the time, I never made the connection with what a terrible trap that Twelve Step programs end up becoming.

When we receive Jesus, we receive everything about Him, because He receives us completely into Himself. We are no longer called to live our own lives with His help, but He lives His life in Us!

"In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him." (1 John 4: 9)

and

"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)

There is no compromise with the Gospel. AA is a terrible cult, masquerading as some add-on, or something that can complement the Bible. Such thinking is false. Nothing needs to be added to "It is Finished!" Either we believe Him, or we do not.

This life is not about fixing our flesh, but fixing our eyes on Christ, and seeing Him take care of all things for us.

AA is Negativity Based

Alcoholics Anonymous teaches people to see the glass half-empty, and then get ready for the world to drink the rest of it away.

Once there is no water left in the glass, you have to take your inventory, because the loss causes you a resentment, and it's your fault that they drink the water.

AA is nothing but demands, and the program tells members that they have no supply of themselves. There  is no wisdom, no life imparted to anyone.

So many of the emotional ills which I struggled with begin and end with this cult.

I did not have to live in fear, except that I had no idea that God was watching over me and living in me, just as Christ died for me and now lives in me (Colossians 1: 27)

One of the things that I was taught rested on this premise:

You need to be afraid of making the same mistakes.

You need to remember the wrong things that you did, so that you do not do them again.

No.

My Bible does not speak of fear with any reverence, but rather rejection:

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." (1 John 4: 18)

If we want people to behave better, the answer does not lie in threats and provocation, but in more of God's grace and righteousness revealed to 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; " (Titus 2:11-12)

It's the grace of God, not His law, which make us obedient and holy people.

Fearing that we will fail, or looking at ourselves in order to keep ourselves in line, creates sin-consciousness, and gives off the folly of self-righteousness in our flesh.

And self-righteousness, I learned, is as literal as trying to make ourselves righteousness. We just cannot do it. We can't. We need life, not just steps for living better.

And the steps are negativity at its worst.