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Introduction to the Twelve Steps
- Table of Contents
Intro
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Step 1
"We admitted we were powerless over our most
troublesome sins – that
our lives had become unmanageable."
Who cares to admit complete defeat?
Admission of powerlessness is the first step in liberation.
Relation of humility and a practical freedom from our sin.
Mental obsession plus physical addiction. Why must every sinner
hit bottom?
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Step 2
"Came to believe that the Power of God, not
our own power, could restore
us to sanity."
What can we believe in? Our spirit reaches out for God,
and the Twelve Steps helps us to believe, and to come to know
Him. Importance of an open mind. There are variety of
ways believers come to know there Savior. Plight of the
disillusioned. Roadblocks of indifference and prejudice.
Lost faith found in Messiah. Problems with intellectuality and
self-sufficiency. Negative and positive thinking.
Self-righteousness. Defiance is an outstanding characteristic
of addictive personalities. Right relation to God.
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Step 3
"Made a decision to turn our will and our
lives over to the care of God as we
understood Him."
Step three is like the opening of a
locked door. How shall we let God into our lives?
Willingness is the key. Dependence as a means to independence
. Dangers of self-sufficiency. Turning our will over to
God. Misuse of willpower. Sustained and personal
exertion necessary to conform to God's will.
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Step 4
"Made a searching and fearless moral
inventory of ourselves."
How instincts can exceed their proper function. Step Four
is an effort to discover our liabilities. Basic problem of
extremes in instinctive drives. Misguided moral inventory can
result in guilt, grandiosity, or blaming others. Assets can be
noted with liabilities. Self-justification is dangerous.
willingness to take inventory brings light and new confidence.
Step Four is beginning of lifetime practice. Common symptoms
of emotional insecurity are worry, anger, self-pity, and
depression. Inventory reviews relationships. Importance
of thoroughness.
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Step 5
"Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to
another human being the exact nature of our wrongs."
Twelve Steps deflate ego. Step Five is
difficult but necessary to achieve a practical freedom from sin and
a peace of mind. Confession is an ancient discipline.
Without fearless admission of defects, few could achieve the freedom
sought. What do we receive from Step Five? Beginning of
true kinship with man and God. Lose sense of isolation,
receive forgiveness and give it; learn humility; gain honest and
realism about ourselves. Necessity for complete honesty.
Danger of rationalization. How to choose the person in whom to
confide. Results are tranquility and consciousness of
God. Oneness with God and man prepares us for following Steps.
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Step 6
"Were entirely ready to have God remove all
these defect of character."
Step Six necessary to spiritual growth. The
beginning of a lifetime job. Recognition of difference between
striving for objective
– and
perfection. Why we must keep trying. "Being
ready" is all-important. Necessity of taking
action. Delay is dangerous. Rebellion may be
fatal. Point at which we abandon limited objectives and move
toward God's will for us.
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Step 7
"Humbly asked Him to remove our
shortcomings."
What is humility? What can it mean to us?
The avenue to true freedom of the human spirit. Necessary aid
to survival. Value of ego-puncturing. Failure and misery
transformed by humility. Strength from weakness. Pain is
the admission price to new life. Self-centered fear chief
activator of defects. Step Seven is change in attitude which
permits us to move out of ourselves toward God.
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Step 8
"Made a list of all persons we had harmed,
and became willing to make amends to them all."
This and the next two Steps are concerned with
personal relations. Learning to live with others is a
fascination adventure. Obstacles: reluctance to forgive;
nonadmission of wrongs to others; purposeful forgetting. Necessity
of exhaustive survey of past. Deepening
insight results from thoroughness. Kinds of harm done to
others. Avoiding extreme judgments. Taking the objective
view. Step Eight is the beginning of the end of isolation.
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Step 9
"Made direct amends to such people wherever
possible, except when to do so would injure them or others."
A tranquil mind is the first requisite for good
judgment. Good timing is important in making amends.
What is courage? Prudence means taking calculated
chances. Amends begin when we receive Messiah, the
Christ. Peace of mind cannot be bought at the expense of
others. Need for discretion. Readiness to take
consequences of our past and to take responsibility for well-being
of others is spirit of Step Nine.
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Step 10
"Continued to take personal inventory and
when we were wrong promptly admitted it."
Can we stay free from our tendency to sin and
emotional balance under all conditions? Self-searching becomes
a regular habit. Admit, accept, and patiently correct
defects. Emotional hangover. When past is settled with,
present challenges can be met. Varieties of Inventory.
Anger, resentments, jealousy, envy, self-pity, hurt pride
– all lead to acting
out sin. Self-restraint first objective. Insurance
against "big-shot-ism." Let's look at credits as
well as debits. Examination of motives.
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Step 11
"Sought through prayer and meditation to
improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him,
praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry
that out."
Meditation and prayer main channels to God and His
Saving Power. Connection between self-examination and
meditation and prayer. An unshakable foundation for
Life. How shall we meditate? Meditation has no
boundaries. An individual adventure. First result is
emotional balance. What about prayer? Daily petitions
for understanding of God's will and grace to carry it out.
Actual results of prayer are beyond question. Rewards of
meditation and prayer.
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Step 12
"Having had a spiritual awakening (new-birth
or revival) as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this
message to others, and practice these principles in all our
affairs."
Joy of living is the theme of the Twelfth Step. Action its
keyword. Giving that asks no reward. Love that has no
price tag. What is spiritual awakening? A new state of
consciousness and being is received as a free gift. Readiness
to receive gift lies in practice of Twelve Steps. The
magnificent reality. Rewards of helping other believers.
Kinds of Twelfth Step work (discipling). Problems of Twelfth
Step work. What about the practice of these principles in all
our affairs? Monotony, pain, and calamity turned to good use
by practice of Steps. Difficulties of practice.
"Two-stepping." Switch to "twelve
stepping" and demonstrations of faith. Growing
spiritually is the answer to our problems Placing spiritual
growth first. Domination and over-dependence. Putting
our lives on give-and-take basis. Dependence upon God
necessary to recovery and healing. "Practice these
principles in all our affairs": Domestic relations
in the body of Christ. Outlook upon material matters
changes. So do feelings about personal importance.
Instincts restored to true purpose. Understanding is key to
right attitudes, right actions key to good living.
- Forth
Step Form
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