Lutheran 12-Steps

A biblical 12-step program, as excerpted from:

 Freedom from Hurtful Behaviors:
What the Bible Teaches about
Liberation and Renewal

 by Rev. Charles T. Knippel 

Biblical Truths for Liberation and Renewal

God has called us to be His own in Jesus Christ. He has given us the gift of repentance to acknowledge our sins and to trust in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and the newness of life. Because God has made us His forgiven and renewed people, we are able to:

Recognize and admit that we continue to be sinners even though we are restored to God’s presence and power through the forgiveness of sins that we obtain through faith in Jesus Christ. We acknowledge that we daily sin much and are powerless over aspects of our thinking, feeling, and doing that are not yet under the influence of the Holy Spirit and thus produce sinful behaviors by which we disobey and dishonor God and hurt ourselves and others.
Believe that the God of our salvation daily forgives our sins for the sake of Jesus and, in our struggle with sin, renews us through the working of the Holy Spirit first received in Holy Baptism.
Live each day under the Holy Spirit’s power so that, in the promise and new life of Holy Baptism, we decisively turn our wills and our lives over to the care of God and His re-creating power and make fuller use of His gift of the Holy Spirit to obtain freedom from our controlling sinful behaviors of mind and body.
Make a searching and fearless inventory of our besetting sinful and hurtful behaviors of mind and body that require immediate attention.
Acknowledge to ourselves and confess to God and another Christian the exact nature of our sinful and hurtful behaviors. Mindful of the comforting and reassuring benefits of individual absolution, we value the opportunity to make private confession before the pastor and receive individual absolution from God through him as God’s representative.
Be ready and willing to have God remove our sinful and hurtful behaviors of mind and body.
Ask God, with a humble mind, to remove our sinful and hurtful thoughts, emotions, and actions.
Make a list of all persons we have harmed and be willing to make amends to each of them.
Make direct amends to the people we have hurt when it is possible to do so without hurting them or others.
Continue day by day to take a personal inventory and when we sin, promptly acknowledge and confess our sins, ask God’s forgiveness for Jesus’ sake, and receive God’s forgiveness and liberating power to find freedom from disobedient and hurtful behaviors.
Use the Word of God and the Lord’s Supper to enhance our faith relationship with God, and through the use of God’s Word and prayer obtain a clearer understanding of God’s will that the Holy Spirit empowers us to carry out.
Pass on the saving and liberating Good News of Jesus Christ to all in need of God’s love and power to overcome sinful and hurtful behaviors, and seek to live every facet of our lives in the freedom of God’s people.

The Necessity for Christian Truths

Even though the Oxford Groups took many of their teachings from the Bible, and Bill W. built on those teachings, the Twelve Steps are not explicitly Christian in their content. As a matter of fact, basic Christian teachings were omitted so that the Steps might be acceptable to people of many faiths or of no faith at all. Thus there is no mention of Jesus, and God is defined as “as Power greater than ourselves” and as “God as we understood Him.” Furthermore, even though the Steps produce for many, by the goodness of God, a personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism, the Steps wrongly suggest that the doing of the Steps produces or enhances a saving relationship with God. In contrast the Bible teaches that God is the triune God-one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. According to t h e Bible, we obtain a right relationship with God only through faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior from the guilt, power, and consequences of sin. Since, however, Bill W.’s Steps have their roots in teachings of the Bible, we can use them to aid us in formulating and practicing ways of liberation and renewal that are faithfully rooted in the whole counsel of God revealed to us in Holy Scripture. We are blessed to possess and practice truths that are Christ-centered.

Benefits of Biblical Truths

What are the benefits of the biblical truths of liberation? What do they offer that other things, such as the Twelve Steps, do not offer? First of all, the biblical truths insure that we are looking for help where the full and powerful help we need is to be found. They assure us that we are depending on the true and living God, whom Scripture declares to be the only God. He is the one Divine Being who has revealed Himself in Scripture as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is the God of our creation and salvation. We do not have to wonder who God is or how to understand Him. He makes Himself known to us.

Second, the God on whom we depend in applying Christian truths assures us beyond any doubt that in Christ we do indeed have a right relationship with Him and authentically possess the forgiveness of sins. We do not simply wish for God’s love and forgiveness. We do not suppose that we may obtain a right relationship with God by simply wanting it or because of some actions of our own. We are fully assured of God’s love because of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We believe what Scripture teaches — that Jesus died and rose from the dead to pay the debt for our sinfulness and sin and to free us from the guilt, punishment, and power of sin. We know with certainty and confidence that we are restored to God’s presence and power through faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior and Lord of our lives. We do not have to wonder if God loves us or simply wish that God may love and accept us. We can and do confidently believe we live in God’s love because it is His sure and certain gift, the blessing of His undeserved favor in Christ.

In the third place, God’s love for us in Christ has an effect on our behavior. We have the life-transforming power of God Himself available to us. When God forgives us our sins for Jesus’ sake and claims us as His own, He gives us the gift of His Holy Spirit, who renews our lives. Zacchaeus quit cheating people. Unstable Peter became a powerful preacher. Saul the blasphemer was transformed into the apostle Paul, who later said, “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works” (Ephesians 2:10) and “Do not let sin reign in your mortal body” (Romans 6:12). It is the Holy Spirit who enables us to find in God’s Law not only condemnation but guidance. The use of biblical liberating truths produces more than a psychological change. It produces God-generated radical changes in our mental and physical behaviors because God Himself works through His Word at the center of our lives as spiritual beings. He sets us free from all that hurts us and others. By His own presence and power in our lives God enables us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. St. Paul affirms, “It is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose” (Philippians 2:13).