Monday, June 10, 2013

Using The 12 Steps for Daily Spiritual Growth #24.



In this series I am posting my ideas about spiritual healing and growth. It is a largely neglected topic in my view. Few magazines discuss it hardly any blogs or books take it on as a key topic and even when the focus it usually talks only about intellectual stimulation and growth.

Some of the very best materials and practices that have been proven to foster healing and growth that I have ever seen come from the Anonymous Groups. Alcoholics Anonymous was founded as a result of a Deeper Life Movement led originally by a Lutheran Youth Minister. It changed the dynamics of growth from the duty of a Clergyman to the People.

Ever since Constantine took over Christianity and merged it with the state the church model has been modeled after a monarchy. According to the book, On the Tail of a Comet by Garth Lean, Frank Buchman began a revival of consecration and spiritual renewal called Moral Re-Armament and later The Oxford Movement which took Christianity back to its earliest days of home groups and lay ministry.  In America, some men who struggled with alcohol addiction came to Christ and got involved in The Oxford Movement. These men later developed the Steps of Moral Renewal into the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Other than scripture, they are a needed daily ritual for healing and growth for every person but especially addicts and their relatives. We call them:

The Twelve Steps of Wholeness

A process of Christian growth

Steps 1-3 get me into a personal, caring relationship with God.

1. I admitted I was powerless over my problems-that my life had become unmanageable.

2. I came to believe that a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.

3. I made a decision to turn my life over to the care of God as I understood Him

          Romans 7shows us the problem and the answer

Steps 4-6 get me cleaned up morally and spiritually.

4. I made a searching and fearless moral inventory

5. I admitted to God myself and to another person the exact nature of my wrongs.

6. Was entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Steps 7-9 help me change and get healed in my relationships.

7. I humbly asked Him to remove my shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons I had harmed; became willing to make amends to them.

9. Made direct amends to such persons whenever possible except when to do so would injure them or others.

 Steps 10-12 get me on a continual process of healing, peace and growth.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and promptly admitted when I was wrong.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God, praying only for the knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry it out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, I tried to carry this message to others and practice these principles in all my affairs.



Do you have any 12 Step Groups in your church?


  Learn more about spiritual healing and growth by reading our web pages and watching our FREE video tapes. Great things are happening at Sweeten Life Systems. Why not come along side and support our dynamic and Christ honoring program of love that brings great change?

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