MinistriesRecovery
The 12 Steps
How can the 12 steps be of any use to committed Christians already seeking to be God’s people and do God’s will? Especially how can the program be of use to Christians who are not alcoholics, overeaters, drug addicts, compulsive gamblers, or sex addicts and do not have family members involved in such addictions? Even if we thought the 12 steps would bring one closer to God and doing His will, how would a Christian take the steps without a specific addiction on which to focus?
Without a strong motivation, usually involving pain, it is difficult for a Christian to pay the price to master any of the classic Christian spiritual ways. Any person with a sin disease who is facing the loss of family, job, health, or freedom in court has some very concrete evidence that he or she needs help. However, Christians who have not faced these particular difficulties do not see that they are powerless and need help too. Yet, many of these same Christians have become aware of feeling spiritual and emotional pain, anxiety, and confusion within themselves. Does that sound familiar? We believe that these symptoms are indications of the same spiritual disease that underlies alcoholism, and other addictions.
Recovery at IBC: The 12 Steps and their Biblical Comparisons
Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviors, that our lives had become unmanageable.
Romans 7:18: I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
Step 2: We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Philippians 2:13: For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.
Step 3: We made a decision to turn our wills and our lives over to the care of God.
Romans 12:1: Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship.
Step 4: We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Lamentations 3:40: Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.
Step 5: We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
James 5:16: Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for each other that you may be healed.
Step 6: We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
James 4:10: Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will lift you up.
Step 7: We humbly asked Him to remove all our shortcomings.
1 John 1:9: If we confess our sins He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Step 8: We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
Luke 6:31: Do to others as you would have them do to you.
Step 9: We made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Matthew 5:23-24: Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.
Step 10: We continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
1 Corinthians 10:12: So if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall.
Step 11: We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry it out.
John 15:5: I am the vine, you are the branches; those who remain in me and I in them, will bear much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.
Step 12: Having had a spiritual experience as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4: Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
