Step 5

There is much to be said about forgiveness and the impact it has one each life. The Bible holds hundreds of examples of people who have experienced first-hand, being forgiven of wrongful deeds: King David, Peter the disciple when he denied knowing Jesus three times, the woman caught in adultery, Paul who murdered hundreds of Christians before his conversion, Cain who killed his brother Abel because Abel's sacrifice was accepted and Cain's was not are just some to name a few who experienced the forgiveness of God in their life first-hand.

The sole purpose behind the come of Jesus Christ as a human was that He died as an atonement for our sins. He hung on the cross in our place. By all rights, WE should be the ones hanging on the cross. After all, Jesus was WITHOUT ANY SIN, but we were born into sin, yet it was Jesus who died and it is us who live.

If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. 1 John 1:8.

For all have sinned; all fall short of God's glorious standard. Romans 3:23.

John 8:12 NRSV
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life."

I am by nature probably more like a chicken than any other animal on the planet. I like to wake up with the sun and go to sleep with the sun. In the winter, I like to sleep for long periods of time in the darkness and in the summer, I am up with the light and energetic until the darkness comes. For me, all this is is a quirk of physiology or training or something. It makes it difficult for me to entertain others long into the night because I begin to drop off after nine, but other than that, it is simply a personal eccentricity. We all have them.

Humility is not something regularly taught these days. Preachers focus on salvation, on relationships, and some focus on integrity (though not many). But it’s been a long time since I heard someone teach on humility. Peter has an interesting take on humility. He states that it is the foundation of all relationships: "You must cloth yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another." For me, there are three aspects to humility when I deal with those around me.

1 Peter 5:5-9 NRSV

These are ALL of the promises as stated in the book Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book (also known as "The Big Book").

The Promises of Step Two

Page 25:

• There is a solution.
• We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed.
• The great fact is just this, and nothing less: That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God's universe.

What the First, Original, Akron A.A. Program Was and Did

The way the first three AAs-Bill W., Dr. Bob, Bill D.-got sober before there was a "Big Book." See The Dick B. Christian Recovery Guide, 3^rd ed., 2010, pp. 57-59.

1. There were no Steps;

2. There were no Traditions;

3. There was no "Big Book";

4. There were no "drunkalogs" (of the kind seen today); and

5. There were no meetings (of the kinds seen today).

Instead, each of the first three AAs:

1. believed in God;

2. was a Christian;

3. asked God for deliverance; and

4. received the requested deliverance from God.

The Summary by Frank Amos, Published in DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers, page 131.

“I’m sorry.” Why are those two little words so difficult to say?

I made a mistake. I need to apologize. It’s not that hard.

So why is it so hard?

Maybe there’s a better question. Why is it so hard to say I’m sorry and really mean it? Or even better, what does it mean to really mean it?

That’s the real question: what does “being sorry” really mean?

Apologize … and MEAN it

I know this will shock you, but I occasionally broke the rules as a kid. I recall my mom telling me to apologize to someone. I’d comply grudgingly, and she’d say, “Now go back and say it like you MEAN it.”

John 13:35 NKJV
"By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

Back in the 60's, when worship choruses first began to become widely popular, a certain chorus made the rounds in the churches, "They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love" (common tune, lyrics by Peter Scholtes). The words go like this:

We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
And we pray that all unity may one day be restored
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love

There is a duty of fault-finding. The Master Himself teaches it. In the Sermon on the Mount, He makes it very plain. We must note carefully, however, where the duty begins. We are to look first after our own faults. "Why do you look at the mote that is in your brother's eye--but do not consider the beam that is in your own eye?"

We must consider the beam that is in our own eye!

One of the most important questions we can ask ourselves, is what God thinks of us.

One has pointed out that in every man, there are four different men:

the man whom the neighbors see,

the man whom one's family sees,

the man whom the person himself sees,

and the man whom God sees.

Steps One through Step Six

We have many times documented the frequent statements by A.A. co-founder Bill Wilson that his friend, Rev. Sam Shoemaker, was the major source of the Big Book ideas and Twelve Steps.¹ In 1955, Newsweek named him one of the ten greatest preachers in the United States.² Shoemaker was known as a great communicator, and was described by his associate, Rev. W. Irving Harris, as a Bible Christian.³

There are many persuasive instances where one can find almost exact parallels between the language Bill Wilson used in the Big Book and the language Shoemaker used in his many Christian books, articles, and pamphlets.