The Preachers and the Message Were Not Wrong

I have been critical of some preachers and teachers on TV.

One of them is Joyce Meyer. I was angry with Billy Graham to a small extent, since I never heard him proclaim the simplicity of Christ living in us.

Now that I look back on the Good News which I have heard  godly men and women preach, I have discovered that in many cases, the problems which I was facing in my life, the frustrations which I faced with reading and understanding the Bible had nothing to do with the preachers and teachers on TV.

It had everything to do with the messenger at home.

I was raised in Alcoholics Anonymous, even though I do not drink, and have never gotten drunk, for that matter. Any man made program which claims to add anything to what the Bible teaches is cursed:

"8But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. 9As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed." (Galatians 1: 8-9)

And indeed the person who had reared me in AA was cursed, and I lived under a curse, because to live under law is to succumb to the curse:

"10For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. " (Galatians 3:10)

I never saw anything wrong with AA, only because I grew up with this terrible cult for so long. When life was getting me down, when I found myself crumbling beneath the weight of challenges and hardships in my life, I would go right back to working the Twelve Steps.

When everything was falling apart, I found that these steps were presented to me once again as the answer to all my problems. Yet for all the times that I was going over those awful steps, it would occur to me more and more that this "program" was not working. Despite the hollow repetition of "It works if you work it", I was working it, and it was not working.

It never will -- the whole program is an evil scam designed to keep men and women in bondage to a guru-birthed cult. And local/state governments are guilty of pushing this religionized folly on other people.

Men and women need to know that every debt has been paid, and paid in full. Any religion, any form of spiritual growth or development which claims that man in his own efforts can take himself from bad to good, or from good to better, is fooling himself, and deluding others.

Many preachers do speak of the full forgiveness of God through His Son. What most preachers need to understand, and I hope that more of them will continue to do, is to inform us again and again that all our sins are forgiven.

I believe that in these last days, the wonders of this message will grow:

"And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace." (John 1: 16)

"Grace for grace" can be more accurately translated as "grace in place of grace". We never stop needing God's grace in our lives, and we need to receive more of this grace in every area of our lives, too, especially when we fail, fall short, or behave foolishly.

The preachers, the message were never wrong. What went wrong was the messenger in my life, the poor examples witnessed to me in my personal circumstances. Now that I understand the fraud which had brought me into bondage, I see the great Light of His Countenance, in which His blood cleanses us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1: 7)