Church Survivors

19/08/2025

Earning Your Salvation?

I have come to the Conclusion the Churches that teach works as a manifestation of Salvation have succumb to Gnosticism's!

The Gnostic believes that through knowledge Salvation is learned!

All IFB Churches that teach you must do to prove you are really saved are therefore Gnostic.

They have forsaken the Gospel of Grace Paul warned the Galatians of when he said in Gal_1:6 "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:"

Thomas A. Wheeler ( Church Survivors )

19/08/2025

Grace vs Law!

Grace means that God does something for me; law means that I do something for God. God has certain holy and righteous demands which he places upon me: that is law. Now if law means that God requires something of me for their fulfillment, then deliverance from law means he no longer requires that from me, but himself provides it.

~Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life

19/08/2025

It's Either a Matter of Grace or The Letter of the LAW!

After close to 4 years of speaking and sharing my ideas, I can deduce that these 2 subjects are the ones that offend people the most.

-Love homosexuals (love thy neighbor)
-War is never the way (Love thy enemies)

Both subjects anger people like nothing I've ever seen before. People tend to get defensive and insulting over both issues. Yet, like it or not, love thy neighbor and love thy enemies are at the CORE of Jesus' teachings. Folks, that is not an opinion, that is a fact, pure and simple.

I find it ironic, that it was also the subject that infuriated the Pharisees. Now, you might think that 'only those who attend the IC are offended over this, right?" NO. Not just 'them'. Love thy neighbor and love thy enemies bothers a lot of people.

Why? How come? Can we say Jesus is my Lord, my savior, but the hell with what he said? I can understand that some things were spoken under law, to those under law. I am clear as far as that is concerned. But not this. Love thy neighbor and love thy enemies should be the way our walk is defined, because if we are 1 with God and he is love, how can our fruits be anything but love?. Bless!

JG

19/08/2025

19/08/2025

Distorting Word Meaning
A. W. Tozer

The constant use of biblical terms to express non-biblical concepts is now common. Yet not everyone who misuses religious words is guilty of wrong intent. For two full generations the habit of emptying words of one meaning and refilling them with another has been taking place among the churches; so it is quite natural that many sincere ministers should engage in theological double-talk without knowing it.

Certain biblical words along with certain theological terms embody what God has given to be intellectually grasped by man. It is critically important that the same word should mean the same thing to everyone in a given language group. To permit a change in meaning is to invite disaster. To preserve life the physician and the druggist use words of fixed meaning common to both. How much more should the pulpit and the pew have a clear understanding about the words of eternal life.

The modern effort to popularize the Christian faith has been extremely damaging to that faith. The purpose has been to simplify truth for the masses by using the language of the masses instead of the language of the church. It has not succeeded, but has added to rather than diminished religious confusion.

19/08/2025

5 Causes of Abusive Authoritarianism! 5 of 5

*5. Pride:* at root, all the above mentioned sins of office bearers stem from an inflated sense of their own importance. John Calvin once shrewdly observed that from the king on his throne to the scullery maid in the kitchen, each of us harbors a kingdom in our hearts. Such is the sinful pride of the human heart. Creatures saved by the sovereign grace of their Creator and put into service of their fellow creatures may all too quickly forget that they are but clay pots made out of "proud dust" (to use Thomas Watson's apt expression). We must be reminded that we hold our office by our Master's pleasure, to do His bidding, and to further His Kingdom. Humble shepherds never forget from whence they have come nor to whom they must give an account.
Humble shepherds look to God's sheep with compassion; prideful shepherds look down upon the sheep with scornful contempt for their weaknesses and failings. Humble shepherds remember that even the Great Shepherd of the sheep patiently endured the misunderstanding, scolding and fleshly rebukes of His sheep (cf. Matt. 16:22; Mark 4:38; 1 Peter 2:21-23). Prideful shepherds however react to every real and perceived slight to their "august personage." How unlike their Master! Shepherds must learn that they cannot be conformed to the image of Christ as longsuffering and forgiving unless they are "long bothered" and wronged. Pride, however, responds to the irritations of sinners with anger. An angry leader is a prideful leader.

18/08/2025

To become a Christian is not about EFFORT, but rather about a very important DECISION.

Paul Dames

18/08/2025

When you Understand This You Are Truly Liberated!

17/08/2025

You'll Never Measure UP!

It's More important than Emotional Honesty or Human Need!
From "The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse"
by David Johnson & Jeff Van Vanderen.

Spiritually Abusive Churches where preoccupation with performance is the expectation it results in a extremes in three areas:

1. Self-righteousness
2. Shame
3.Judgementalism
Self-righteousness is:
a sense of spiritual superiority based on your own behavior.
Shame is:
the opposite of self-righteousness, it's a sense of inferiority, a negative self-assessment , an indictment on our very person-hood.

Judgementalism:

a sense of spiritual superiority based on someone elses behavior.

The end result of these performance based spiritual systems where love and acceptance is base upon behavior and you don't measure up the above three spiritual conditions!