12 Steps or 2 Steps

Always a sinner, or dead and resurrected? Always an alcoholic, or healed and delivered?
Romans 8:2 – the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

Religion would have me believe that it is proper humility to call myself a sinner, saved by grace. Twelve Steps programs would have me confess at each meeting that I am a slave of whatever my program is teaching me to live with. Righteousness would have me believe that it is proper to see myself as my Father sees me: old identity dead and gone, new identity righteous and full of eternal life.

Also it was in union with him that you were circumcised with a circumcision not done by human hands, but accomplished by stripping away the old nature’s control over the body. In this circumcision done by the Messiah, you were buried along with him by being immersed; and in union with him, you were also raised up along with him by God’s faithfulness that worked when he raised Yeshua from the dead. You were dead because of your sins, that is, because of your “foreskin,” your old nature. But God made you alive along with the Messiah by forgiving you all your sins. He wiped away the bill of charges against us. Because of the regulations, it stood as a testimony against us; but he removed it by nailing it to the execution-stake. Stripping the rulers and authorities of their power, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by means of the stake.
(Colossians 2:11-15 Complete Jewish Bible)