Can a person be on their way to true spiritual maturity if they are not partaking of Christ? Obviously not. How can we give to God what He wants if we have not prepared ourselves to know what He wants?

You may not be familiar with what it means to “partake” of Christ, so I want to talk about that first. And just to clarify, we aren’t talking about partaking of physical communion, but rather dining on the doctrine of Christ to make His knowledge our starting point to reason with God.

We’ve all heard the warning that we are what we eat, physically. The foundation of the structure and function of our body depends on getting the nutrients from what we eat. A healthy diet means a healthy, strong body that functions as it should.

We can see the same thing is true in God’s kingdom. We are what we eat, spiritually.

This comes down to the diet of our doctrine. I want to unpack this deep mystery of Christ to see why God connected His doctrine to our spiritual eating habits, growth, and maturity.

What’s the one thing kids don’t know a lot about until they’re told? They just don’t know how to separate healthy eating from junk food eating. What parent hasn’t struggled to get these important food choices across to their kids – and even then, your little one doesn’t always agree.

When you place a sweet treat in front of a child their first instinct is to pick it up and eat it, without even thinking about it. Before you can say, “Hold on, eat the healthy food first,” the sweet has been gobbled down.

It’s the same in God’s kingdom. We’re going to liken junk food to false doctrine, or fast-food doctrine and we will liken healthy food to the true doctrine of Christ because that’s how we partake of Jesus. God wants us to take in the knowledge He sanctified to get us ready to reciprocate to Him because that’s what spiritual maturity is all about.

Why can’t ministers be allowed to preach what they want from the scriptures? Why is that so dangerous? Fast-food doctrine is dangerous because it takes a few key elements from your fallen nature to talk about your life and your vulnerability, then adds God’s promises into the mix to make a very attractive and sweet tasting pastry treat that most Christians can’t say no to.

Take for example something that Ryan LeStrange said in a recent interview, “When people can give you detailed information about your life, when they can identify where you’re at emotionally or a season you’re going through, especially if you’re in a vulnerable place, that can really speak to your heart.”

LeStrange called this “the power of the prophetic” and “a type of gifting [that] has the power to bring us together”, yet in truth, it is psycho-phecy, dangerously misguided, deceptive prophecy that the spirit of this world speaks as he aims a hard blow at the heart by speaking what is true about man’s basic vulnerabilities while neglecting Jesus’ doctrine, His apostolic stewardship, and His priesthood.

Think of psycho-phecy as empty hands. Prophecy that speaks what is true about man’s nature cannot reciprocate to God because it is not an equal exchange. Man’s nature and God’s nature are not the same, so one’s hands are empty, having no gift to give to God such as He delights in. Spiritual maturity is not possible under this influence.

Psycho-phecy is gobbled down just as quickly as sweets by a child because there is nothing sweeter to the natural man than to see his vulnerability, mistakes, wants, and needs laid out in a journey to a better self… to be understood and accepted. This teaching is neither apostolic nor prophetic.

Though sweet words speak to the heart of the natural man –it isn’t a spiritual transformation, and God’s warning label comes with this package.

Proverbs 23:8
The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up, and lose thy sweet words.

Apostle Eric vonAnderseck’s recent post on X also addressed this issue, saying, “Jesus called Satan a thief because he steals the Word of God to repackage it to benefit his own way and justify his independence of the Godhead. His [Satan’s] ministers copy his habits misleading the eye of the unlearned.” (1 Jn. 2:19; 2 Pet. 3:16; 2 Cor. 11:12-14)

Don’t be mistaken, God does care for your transformation from start to finish, but sets that work within His new covenant where His Intelligent Design for Christ-Centered Spiritual Transformation does not exploit your vulnerability.

God’s work in your heart takes place each day through covenant contact whereas Jesus is placed first. That means that the anointing works through a new set of gifts that brings Jesus to mind as we work with His power to overcome self, Satan, and the world. This holy reciprocation requires a new and holy priesthood.

The problem is that preaching what one wants from the scriptures, does not lead to good doctrine because it does not prepare us to reciprocate to God what He wants, but instead leads a person to continue to use the scriptures to reference self. When your faith is in this zone where self is your measure, then Jesus Christ is not your measure.

Even when a minister says they preach the whole red-letter Word, we can see that by not setting scripture in order according to God’s character, purpose and plan (which is the framework of truth) they end up preaching from their own heart and mind which is not transformative.

And, no, Jesus did not transfer His authority to text so that anyone that preaches from it does so by His authority – but rather Jesus’ name (authority) is in His restored apostolic government and in His apostolic doctrine which He regifted to the church for her restoration and purity.

God brings to light the dangerous error of current ministry leaders that claim Jesus’ authority by preaching the scriptures apart from the apostles’ doctrine, which leads to preaching the admixture of their own mind.

This admixture is about private interpretation of the things of God and is what Apostle Peter was talking about.

2 Peter 1:20
Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

When wholesome doctrine is reduced to simply mean “teaching” from the text, we see a major breakdown taking place whereas the reality of Christ is set aside. When people claim the authority to teach the scriptures apart from the apostolic calling, we see an effort to break open Christ, but in the wrong way.

God now clears the way for those who seek to come out from under the influence of false teachings that took up dominance in the church today.

As the restored apostolic government of God preach, we break open the mystery of Christ which is tied to God’s purpose and plan to birth unto Himself many sons and daughters through covenant faith.

God sets contrast for discernment which empowers our walk of faith to remain spotless before Him so that we can return to Him with souls remade in His image and likeness.

A minister that claims to preach with Jesus’ authority will talk about the need to preach like Jesus did and do the things Jesus did (emulating authority) but they cannot set the scriptures in order according to God’s mind.

Recorded in Luke 4 verse 18 and 19, Jesus reads of Himself from the book of the Prophet Isaiah (Esaias), fulfilling what foreshadowed Him. This same language can be read in the book of Isaiah.

Isaiah 61:1
The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

The people who heard Jesus’ words were witness to the One that the scriptures spoke of, the One who has now come to reconcile the soul and the conscience to God for healing. Jesus Christ was pointing to Himself as our refuge, to set free all those who believed His doctrine.

Today we are again witnesses of Christ – partaking of Him in His wholesome doctrine and thus partaking of His power that reconciles us to God for His work in our inner man to bear the mark of the things He sealed to us in Christ. This is the fruit God receives back to Himself.

Jesus’ stewardship (the measure of grace that He gives to the calling) is in His restored apostolic government. All 5 callings are present in Jesus’ government: His apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. Jesus is the Head of the church and His government is upon His shoulders.

Isaiah 9:6
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Jesus’ name is in His callings that function within the boundary of His covenant, instructing and overseeing the entire body of Christ in the wholesome apostles’ doctrine.

God’s spiritual government is made up of the men and women that God has called, prepared (having the foundation of truth set in them) and confirmed to teach believers how to walk in Jesus’ restoration and reconciliation power.

God restored all the things of His covenant back to the church because He intended to reconcile us back to Himself by these things. Ultimately the tokens of reconciliation are what the Spirit works with to change our souls into His image and likeness. This is not going to happen apart from His callings overseeing the church with wholesome doctrine.

As we partake of Christ (His doctrine) the soul is furnished with virtues of Himself and the fruits of iniquity are uprooted.

This is why wholesome doctrine is so important. From God’s perspective, wholesome doctrine is designed to be the daily diet of your faith. Wholesome doctrine is the apostles’ doctrine that God wishes to equip your faith with, so that you fully comprehend the labor that we are called to, in order to bear His fruit in the soul and upon our lips.

When doctrine is reduced to simply mean “teaching”, it changes God’s meaning and purpose through Christ, thus opening faith up for the admixture of man.

Current ministry leaders that attempt to get the church back to taking the Word seriously again say it’s about getting back to preaching the whole red-letter Word, but this is recycling something the church already tried so many times, and is missing God’s point of restoration – it is admixture and not wholesome doctrine as we saw earlier in LeStrange’s comments where he took what is true about man’s fallen nature and our vulnerabilities to mean that he was preaching the truth of Jesus’ gospel. The two are not the same.

God’s purpose of sound doctrine is to bring the church into agreement with Him by bringing the church into one mind, the mind of Christ. We know Jesus’ mind through first receiving His wholesome doctrine through God-ordained apostles.

Wholesome doctrine means that nothing of man is added (no admixture) and nothing of Christ is missing. Having nothing of Christ missing (that wholesomeness) points to all the elements of Jesus Christ being present and active in your faith, which God has packaged and made accessible to us through His covenant knowledge.

God brings the church into agreement with His plan, pattern and purpose as the church embraces and partakes of the things of His Son, Jesus Christ – which are the things of His covenant.

In absence of Jesus’ covenant knowledge, the Bible is not read from a covenant perspective as God intended, and despite good intentions with the written word – ministers end up preaching what comes from their own mind (admixture).

Despite ministers having preached the letter of the whole thing – still, the church is not in agreement but instead plagued with the systemic issue of having many interpretations of the things of God and therefore, have many conflicting views (many strange doctrines).

God’s correction for the lack of wholesome doctrine looks different and is God’s point of restoration that must not be missed.

Hebrews 13:9
Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.”

It’s not news to most Christians that having many strange doctrines means that many forms of Christ are introduced into the church (admixture), but God’s plan of correction is new to most.

Jesus says, “I am that bread of life” (John 6:48) and the significance of the bread is that it points to knowledge (wholesome doctrine of Christ) that fills the soul with the substance of Himself which in turn sustains our faith and allows us to reciprocate to God what He wants.

The Lord ministered a word of wisdom while I was in prayer one morning, “Those who do not labor do not eat, and those who labor are filled and sustained by the Lord’s provision.”

The word “labor” is often used by the saints to describe the time they spend at the altar and rightly so. God designed salvation in Jesus Christ with our participation in mind, that we would reciprocate the likeness of Christ by using the tools He sanctified to serve Him and know Him as we partake of his grace that we are obediently yielding to. All the commandments of the second covenant are joined to the priesthood and require our active participation with tools that represent Jesus Christ for faith to reflect and express his righteousness.

There are other words that frame our understanding of God’s perspective and expectation of labor, like building on the foundation of Christ, using the tools of the covenant, offering spiritual sacrifices to God, stewarding the grace of God, these words describe how faith is to function within the boundaries of the covenant where the soul is filled and sustained by the Lord’s provision.

So then, the type of labor that the Spirit is speaking of is the labor of faith which is connected to our covenant responsibility to partake (to eat) of Christ daily (spiritually speaking), to thereby be filled and sustained with the substance of Himself.

The Lord’s provision is about the exchange we experience as God issues grace that ministers Christ to us and we reflect on and reciprocate that provision which means we are keeping our vessel full of faith.

We do this daily so that when the enemy of our faith, Satan, comes to challenge our faith with his suggestions to misplace our peace and security in ourselves and the world, that we remain ready to draw on that provision of the Lord to remain at His table rather than wandering in doubt among the thorns and thistles in the wilderness of the flesh.

Always remember: that Jesus’ presence and actions meant that He was the bridge that transitioned faith to the reality of Himself, that He is the One that fulfills all the things that pointed to Him, that foreshadowed Him. His covenant provides access for us to be partakers of this reality.