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Quoting from the fifth chapter of the original anonymous recovery text book, which was published in 1939, is necessary to get us in the right frame of mind. The pertinent quotes for this topic are as follows: A. "We stood at the turning* point." B. "If we are sorry for what we have done, and have the honest desire to let God take us to better things, we believe we will be forgiven and will have learned our lesson." C. "This is the how and why of it. First of all, we had to quit playing God." *To turn means to repent. Luke 24:46-49 (NLT) And he [Jesus] said, "Yes, it was written long ago that the Messiah must suffer and die and rise again from the dead on the third day. With my authority, take this message of repentance to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem: 'There is forgiveness of sins for all who turn to me.' You are witnesses of all these things. And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised." There are several things that we need to mention at this point. Hundreds of times we have heard, "I am having a hard time forgiving myself." Our opinion is that if we could forgive our-selves, we would either not need God, or we would be God. We do understand the self-pity and incomprehensible demoralization that we have personally experienced though, and have great empathy for these souls.
This scripture is at the end of the crucifixion. Our comment on this scripture is that even God's very own son did not have the power to forgive, but he knew that His Father did, and still does, have forgiveness available. As a matter of fact, we believe that people in this world would be much better off if they could learn how to put all of the names of people that make up their ill feelings of resentment, hurt, anger, revenge, and hate into the name of Christ, when seeking forgiveness, so that our Father can better bless all of our thoughts, words, and deeds, which will let God deal with those offenders, if and when he is supposed to. The trick is to be hard on our-self, yet easy on others. But maybe that is why the third step prayer, in the original text book of the first anonymous fellowship is written as it is. And there are many serious implications surrounding that prayer. Let us now quote that prayer.
It seems to us that difficulties might be taken away, if we can have our heart judged as being willing to learn how to witness to His Power, His Love, and His way of life. Our experience is that we have had to experience the scriptural spiritual rebirth, in order to have our eGo deflated, so that our human self could be put, not only into remission, but in the trash can, where it belongs, so that the Self of God's Son's Spirit could come to the forefront of our being. And that is a real tricky one too. God likes for us to just anonymously be, rather than do what we always did. The most important issue on forgiveness however is to throw out all of the things done to us, if we really desire to be on God's side, and desire his favor. Remember reading or hearing, somewhere, "Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord." Each is responsible for all of their own actions, and we only need to be concerned about what we did wrong, in the first nine steps of the anonymous Twelve Steps, not what they did, that might be wrong. John 14:6 Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had known who I am, then you would have known who my Father is. From now on you know him and have seen him!" In our process of recovering from a seemingly fatal malady, we finally understood that only the pure at heart could see God face to face, which is commented on in the Beatitudes. The founders and early pioneers of the first anonymous fellowship, before they had their own literature, studied the Sermon on the Mount, which contains the Beatitudes. The Sermon on the Mount is explained in detail, in the fifth, six, and seventh chapters, in the Book of Matthew.
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by: Fulfilled Mansions
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