Breakfast with Brad: What 12-steppers can teach us about (Self-)Will & Grace
Bilingual cereal boxes, Christianese words and what 12-step recovery teaches us about self-will and grace (in step 1 and 2).
Notice how the first 2 steps of 12-step recovery focus on sin as a disease and its symptoms, incurable by self-effort (religion’s game) … and belief in a God who’s grace can heal us.
Step 1 “We admitted we were powerless over our addiction — that our lives had become unmanageable.”
Overcomers look to God’s grace alone, growing in our belief in and surrender to “the care of a loving God”:
Step 2 “Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”
12-steppers use the word God or ‘higher power’ apart from creeds or dogma to make sure to exclude no one from the grace of a loving God. PTM sees the fullness of this empowering grace realized through our life in Christ (heeding the cautions from last week not to smuggle in retributive religion in his name).
Plain Truth Ministries | Box 300 | Pasadena, CA 91129-0300
