In today's world, Christianity is highly corrupted, with fake preachers, false prophecies and stuff that focus more on prosperity and fame in this mortal world.
Many preachers are mere motivational speakers, and they preach without proper understanding of the word of God.
People calling themselves as prophets, conduct prayer meetings titled and marketed as breakthrough/blessing meetings, collect funds all in the name of God, without knowledge of God's approval to their actions.
Some seem to get involved in such acts despite knowing it's not God's will to market His name for carnal wellness.
Most of these preachers are twisting God's word, and claim that worldly blessings will flow upon everyone accepting Christ as their savior, even though JESUS NEVER PROMISED like that anywhere in the Bible!
Instead, He interestingly, conveyed the opposite!
To be more clear, anyone reading the Bible carefully with a real hunger to find the truth will know that Jesus frankly let His followers know that they will be hated in this world (John 15:18).
When Jesus fed thousands of people miraculously with few loaves of bread and fishes, the crowd intended to follow Him all their lives. But Jesus moved away from them because they were following Him for a similar miracle again in order to keep filling their stomachs without hard labor.
This is a clear sign that Jesus's focus wasn't in making us abound with worldly blessings.
Hence, it is important for those in search of the true God to know that a major part of today's Christianity is not focused on Jesus at all.
Therefore, it's far more important to filter out today's namesake Christianity from the action of truly following Christ.
Firstly, when we think Jesus, we must forget the denominations in the Christian world. The world looks at Christianity as a religion.
There's Roman Catholic, Protestants, Pentecost, Seventh Day Adventist, and many more denominations in the Christian world existing today.
Now, please don't get offended!
The core focus of this post is not to find out which among the above denominations is right or wrong (as I myself don't know exactly what each of them is about), but about Jesus Himself and what it means to follow Him truly.
Today's world seems to think wrongly that anyone born to Christian parents is a follower of Christ. That's not true!
But there's no denial that some of them have accepted Him as their personal savior, with carnal goals.
In this post, we refer to a Namesake Christian as a person who have accepted Jesus as his/her personal savior for salvation alone, and/or seeking Him only to meet their worldly needs and wants.
However, following Christ truly is not just about accepting Him as one's personal savior, but also about truly seeking to understand and obey His commands, and living in a continuous communion with Him.
In John chapter 15, Jesus emphasizes obedience repeatedly. He is stressing on the point that a person truly loves Him if they obey His commands.
In other words, Jesus measures our love towards Him by our obedience to His commands. It's not just about accepting Him as our personal savior alone.
A true follower of Christ will be aware that prosperity Gospel is deceiving. They are aware they look like losers to this world when they truly follow Christ, but never back down.
A true follower of Christ is not behind their worldly needs and goals, and they are happy and contented at all times, like in Philippians 4:12 :
".. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want."
The success in career, name, fame, money, possessions, (and every other thing the world is after) doesn't bother a true follower of Christ, because they know their needs are met by God, and their life on this earth is temporary.
That doesn't mean a true follower of Christ should not pursue a good career. It's not wrong as long as they are skilling up and moving up their career ladder itself in obedience to God's commands.
In summary, a true follower of Christ never lets his/her peace or happiness get affected by their situation in this world.
He/she is happy and contented at all times, because they rely on Christ for everything, who alone can satisfy the hunger and thirst of a soul.
The true followers are living their life in this world, in the ultimate pursuit of the eternal life that Jesus promised them.
In this world, even if a person gets everything they want, they cannot enjoy it after death.
And even during the life on earth, they will have to deal with many insecurities like thieves, natural disasters, sickness and so on, to safeguard and sustain their ownership over their possessions.
However, in the eternal life that Jesus promised, there's no worry about such problems at all. It's a whole, new perfect life God has prepared for the true followers of Christ - those who love Him (by obeying His commands).
The choice is yours in choosing to be a namesake Christian or a true follower of Christ.
If your choice is to become a true follower, you must stop believing preachers (and this blog post too) blindly, even though some of them are true followers of Christ, and start evaluating their teachings based on the Bible.
So, read the Bible earnestly and start living in communion with God.