Steps

A Guide to Transforming Your Life When Willpower Isn’t Enough

By: John Ortberg

Narrated by: John Ortberg

Is there really any hope for a spiritual way of living that actually works?

Admiration, comfort, love, power, success, pleasure, escape, control: we’re all addicted to something, whether we realize it or not.

In this deeply heartfelt book, author John Ortberg offers a guide for transformation when we know something needs to change but we can’t do it on our own. Rooted in the teachings of Jesus and using the framework of AAs 12 steps as a guide, Ortberg offers all of us a freeing roadmap for:

• Giving up our exhausting and fruitless efforts to fix, manage, and control our own lives
• Distinguishing between when willpower is essential and when it is futile
• Discovering how God can do for us what we can’t do for ourselves, and
• living authentically, joyfully and in communion with God and other people.

Ortberg shows us how to discover:

• Our spiritual attachment styles
• Our core doubts
• The benefits of practices like prayer, meditation, and mindfulness
• God’s sufficiency in our inadequacy

In Steps, find what’s needed to experience a new freedom, a new fellowship and a new happiness no matter our circumstances.

©2025 John Ortberg (P)2025 Tyndale Refresh

Gospel Steps Better Understood

Recovery is bringing life change back to its origins in the born-again experience. Ortberg’s review of the 12 Gospel Steps is insightful and practical!

12 Steps to Freedom

I highly recommend Steps by John Ortberg. As a recovering alcoholic who has been sober for over 25 years, I have read countless books on the Twelve Steps, but this one stands above the rest. Steps is not just about addiction. It is about the things that keep all of us stuck: fear, shame, control, trauma, and the struggles we carry but rarely talk about.

Ortberg brings a depth of wisdom and honesty that sets this book apart. He writes not just as a pastor or a teacher but as someone who has wrestled through pain and brokenness. His words aren’t just insightful, he lives them.

I truly believe this book has the potential to change how people, especially the church, understand the Twelve Steps. It is more than a recovery tool, it is a path to healing, freedom, and profound transformation for anyone willing to take it. Ortberg’s gift is in how he tells the story, weaving together truth, struggle, and hope in a way that pulls you in.

This book takes you to the hardest places but doesn’t leave you there. It walks you through the valleys and points you toward something greater. It is a journey worth taking, everyone should read this book.

JO is gifted

The ability to walk through pain beside someone clinging to a less Christian, more “spiritual” concept like AA’s 12 steps is brilliant. Ortberg is humble, selfless, well-researched and writes in a very approachable tone.

outstanding and what i have been seeking!

As a Jesús-follower whose Higher Power is the God of the Bible, I have been seeking a Christian way to walk the 12 steps. (Yes, I know AA is based in Christian principles but I needed an explicitly faith-driven approach by an author whose life I know exemplifies healing and growth.)

Fantastic!

I love John Ortberg, but was skeptical about the idea of the 12 steps for all Christians. But it surprised and encouraged me. I hope you find it helpful too.