Thursday, March 29, 2012

Errors in Alcoholics Anonymous -- Blocked from the Sunlight of the Spirit

Contrary to the assertions of many believers, those in recovery from some addiction of bad habit and those who have suffered with friends or relatives in the depths of addiction, the tenets and principles of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Gospel (and the Word of God as a whole) are not compatible.

For example, the Anonymous writers declare on pg 66:

"It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.'

"For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. . ."

One could equate "sunlight of the Spirit" with God's love:

"This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." (1 John 1: 5)

Later in his First Epistle, thet Apostle John writes:

"And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." (1 John 4: 16)

So one can argue concretely that since God is love = light, therefore love = light.

From this line of holy common sense, we can then dispute the notion that our resentment cuts us off from
"the sunlight of the Spirit":

"For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

"Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8: 38-39)

Nothing can separate us from the love of God -- not one thing -- not ourselves, and certainly not our sin:

"Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." (Romans 5: 20)

To confirm this, John later writes:

"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John 1: 7)

If we walk in the Light -- and God is light, then His blood keeps cleansing us from sin, including resentment! How does a believer know that He is in the light? Consider the glorious inheritance of believers:

"For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light." (Ephesians 5: 8)

Later, Paul writes to another body of believers:

"For all of you are children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to darkness." (1 Thessalonians 5:5)

We cannot be separate from the sunlight of the Spirit:

"Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." (Hebrews 13: 5)

Nothing can separate us from God, who is Light, and as we walk in His light, we are also cleansed from all unrighteousness, whose grace teaches us to live righteously (cf Titus 2: 11)

In the respect of resentment blocking us from God, nothing could be further from the Truth for a believer.















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