John Fischer writes “!2 Steps for the Recovering Pharisee (like me).” A happily uncomfortable read with all the honesty and insight of a… recovering Pharisee. The jacket of the book reads:
“We have met the Pharisees, and they are… us. That’s because we are all slaves to self-righteousness and judgmentalism.”
It’s no use yelling “amen” at me; I already know; am repentant, and am woefully recovering. The recovery has been life long, and I simply trust that Our Lord will patiently work though the curriculum, “being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6).
In “The Prodigal God,” Timothy Keller says “the key difference between a Pharisee and a believer in Jesus is inner-heart motivation. Pharisees are being good but out of a fear-fuelled need to control God. They don’t really trust him or love him. To them God is an exacting boss, not a loving Father.”
In the desire to live inside out – – to live toward trusting God as our loving Father, here are the unadorned 12 Steps. Walk through these slowly, and if so piqued, learn more by picking up the 150 page book by John Fischer:
1. We admit that our single most unmitigated pleasure is to judge other people.
2. Have come to believe that our means of obtaining greatness is to make everyone lower than ourselves in our own mind.
3. Realize that we detest mercy being given to those who, unlike us, haven’t worked for it and don’t deserve it.
4. Have decided that we don’t want to get what we deserve after all, and we don’t want anyone else to either.
5. Will cease all attempts to apply teaching and rebuke to anyone but ourselves.
6. Are ready to have God remove all these defects of attitude and character.
7. Embrace the belief that we are, and will always be, experts at sinning.
8. Are looking closely at the lives of famous men and women of the Bible who turned out to be ordinary sinners like us.
9. Are seeking through prayer and meditation to make a conscious effort to consider others better than ourselves.
10. Embrace the state of astonishment as a permanent and glorious reality.
11. Choose to rid ourselves of any attitude that is not bathed in gratitude.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we will try to carry this message to others who think that Christians are better than everyone else.
More Enigma Than Dogma 
Ouch! God be merciful to me, a Pharisee…
Very helpful and practical.
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Amen. I sometimes re-read this post – to look in the mirror as it were… and repent!
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