A correction has to lead. An earlier version of this page reviewed The Steps to Freedom in Christ as a health and fitness book, praising its habit trackers and its approach to physical wellbeing. None of that is real. The book has nothing to do with fitness, contains no habit trackers, and this page was filed in the wrong section of the site. It has been rewritten from scratch.
What the book actually is
The Steps to Freedom in Christ: A Biblical Guide to Help You Resolve Personal and Spiritual Conflicts and Become a Fruitful Disciple of Jesus is by Neil T. Anderson, published by Bethany House in November 2017 in this edition.
Know before you order: it is 32 pages. This is a booklet, not a book. That is by design, and the low price reflects it, but people order it expecting a full volume and are surprised.
Anderson founded Freedom in Christ Ministries, which now operates in dozens of countries, and he has written more than seventy books including Victory Over the Darkness and The Bondage Breaker. This booklet is the practical exercise those larger books build toward. If the Steps interest you, the fuller teaching is in those.
The seven steps
Each step is a pair, naming the thing to renounce and the thing to take hold of instead. Counterfeit versus real. Deception versus truth. Bitterness versus forgiveness. Rebellion versus submission. Pride versus humility. Bondage versus freedom. Curses versus blessings in Christ.
Each one includes Scripture and a guided prayer to work through, out loud, honestly. It is meant to be done rather than read. Many people work through it with a pastor or a trusted friend rather than alone, and Anderson recommends that.
The step on bitterness and forgiveness is the one most people find hardest and most useful. It asks you to name specific people and specific offenses rather than forgive in the abstract, which is uncomfortable and is exactly why it works.
An honest note on the approach
Anderson’s framework involves spiritual warfare language and includes renouncing occult involvement and generational curses. Christians who take Scripture seriously disagree about how far that framing should go. Some find it clarifies things they had no other categories for. Others think it goes beyond what the text supports and risks locating in the demonic what is really ordinary sin or unaddressed trauma.
We are not going to settle that here, and we are not going to pretend the disagreement does not exist. What we would say is that the bulk of the Steps consists of confession, repentance, forgiveness, and taking God at His word, and those are not controversial in any tradition. Take the framework as one pastor’s structure rather than as the only way through.
It is also not a substitute for counseling or medical care where those are what is actually needed.
Who it is for
Believers who feel stuck in a pattern they cannot pray their way out of. Anyone carrying unresolved bitterness toward a specific person. Pastors and lay leaders who want a structured tool to walk someone through.
Bottom line
A short, serious, well used tool for confession and forgiveness. Buy it knowing it is a 32 page workbook, and ideally work it with somebody rather than alone.
Find The Steps to Freedom in Christ on Amazon.