The church as we know it today began with repentance. When Peter preached the cross at Pentecost, thousands came to Christ. This new church was made up of one body, consisting of all races, filled with love for one another. Its corporate life was marked by evangelism, a spirit of sacrifice, even martyrdom.
The wonderful beginning reflects God’s word to Jeremiah: “I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed” (Jeremiah 2:21). Yet the Lord’s next words describe what often happens to such works: “How then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?” (2:21). God was saying, “I planted you right. You were mine, bearing my name and nature. But now you’ve turned degenerate.”
What caused this degeneration in the church? It always has been, and will continue to be, idolatry. God is speaking of idolatry when he says to Jeremiah, “My people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit” (2:11).
Most Christian teaching today identifies an idol as anything that comes between God’s people and himself. Yet that’s only a partial description of idolatry.
Idolatry has to do with a much deeper heart issue. The number-one idol among God’s people isn’t adultery, pornography or alcohol. It’s a much more powerful lust. What is this idol? It’s a driving ambition for success. And it even has a doctrine to justify it.
The idolatry of being successful describes many in God’s house today. These people are upright, morally clean, full of good works. But they’ve set up an idol of ambition in their hearts, and they can’t be shaken from it.
God loves to bless his people. He wants his people to succeed in all they undertake honestly. But there is now a raging spirit in the land that is overtaking multitudes—this is the spirit of love for recognition and acquiring of things.
A man of the world said recently, “He who dies with the most toys—wins.” Tragically, Christians, too, are caught up in this pursuit.
How far we have strayed from the gospel of living through dying to self, ego, and worldly ambition.
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David Wilkerson (1931 – 2011)
Founder of Times Square Church in New York City with over 100 different languages spoken in the congregation. Wilkerson wrote many powerful books such as: The Vision and Cross and the Switchblade. His ministry was prophetic as God called him to be a watchman to the Church in North America. He gave clear messages on repentance to the Church.Wilkerson also founded Teen Challenge where there are hundreds of centres for Christ-centered drug recovery and addiction recovery. He also organized and spoke at pastors gatherings in many countries where he gave prophetic strong messages to encourage pastors and leaders.
Recommends these books by David Wilkerson:
The Vision and Beyond, Prophecies Fulfilled and Still to Come by David Wilkerson
Knowing God by Name: Names of God That Bring Hope and Healing by David Wilkerson
God's Plan to Protect His People in the Coming Depression by David Wilkerson
David Wilkerson is an American Christian evangelist, most well-known for his book The Cross and the Switchblade. He is also the founder of Times Square Church in New York, an interdenominational church.
Wilkerson is well-known for these early years of his ministry to young drug addicts and gang members in New York City in the 1950s and 1960s. He co-authored a book about his work with the New York drug addicts, The Cross and the Switchblade, which became a best-seller, selling over 50 million copies in over thirty languages since it was published in 1963. The book was included among the 100 most important Christian books of the 20th century.
For over four decades, Wilkerson's ministry has included preaching, teaching and writing. He has authored over 30 books.
David Wilkerson is the founder and president of World Challenge, Inc., a nonprofit organization incorporated on September 22, 1971. Reverend Wilkerson, the author of over thirty inspirational books, is perhaps best known for his early days of ministry to young drug addicts and gang members in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Brooklyn. His story is told in The Cross and the Switchblade, a book he co-authored which became a best-seller. (The story has been read by over 50 million people in some thirty languages and 150 countries since 1963. In 1969, a motion picture of the same title was released.)
For over four decades, Reverend Wilkerson's evangelistic ministry has included preaching, teaching and writing. Throughout that time a distinctive characteristic of his work has been his direct efforts to reach the neediest members of the population with help for both body and soul. Even now, the almost 70 year-old minister often goes out alone or sometimes with an assistant to walk through the streets of New York City, along Broadway and Eighth Avenue or down 42nd Street and nearby "Crack Alley" on 41st Street. His mission is always to seek out the lost, the disoriented, and the addicted , to tell them of the power of the risen Christ to set them free.
David Wilkerson, born in Hammond, Indiana on May 19, 1931, was married in 1953 to Gwen Carosso. The Wilkersons' two sons are ministers, and their two daughters are married to ministers. They have 11 grandchildren. The Wilkersons served small pastorates in Scottsdale and Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, until Reverend Wilkerson saw a photograph in Life magazine of several New York City teenagers charged with murder. Moved with compassion he was drawn to the city in February 1959. It was at that time he began his street ministry to what one writer called "desperate, bewildered, addicted, often violent youth.