This will not come as a shock, but Jesus is better than a 12-step program. I have the privilege of serving as a Resilient Recovery group facilitator, and many of the women in the program have gotten sober with the aid of Alcoholics Anonymous. While I am grateful for the help they received that kept them alive long enough to hear the gospel, there is a degree of reframing that needs to happen in the area of identity once they know Jesus.
Even if you’ve never stepped foot in AA, you’ve seen it on TV: “Hi, my name is Taylor, and I’m an alcoholic.”
“Hi, Taylor.”
Really? Thirty, forty, fifty years of a person’s life can be summed up by classifying their pet sin? These are mothers, sisters, entrepreneurs, students getting their GEDs or tech certifications. They’ve experienced unimaginable loss and redeeming love. They are survivors, storytellers, and breakers of generational strongholds. But most of all, they are children of God.
“Alcoholics” might be what they were, but they’ve been given a new identity. As Paul writes, “Neither … thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).
What about you? Would you rather introduce yourself as the pet sin of your past or who you are in Christ? Live in that new identity today.
