Walking With Christ

Hebrews 5:12–14  (12)For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God.  You need milk, not solid food, (13)for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.  (14)But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.(ESV)

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✒️ Forge:  The Analogy of the Tower

Imagine theology as a tall building.  Each floor represents a deeper level of understanding—doctrinal complexity, experiential intimacy with God, and applied spiritual discernment.  The natural and intended design requires stairs.  You climb them one by one.  Each step tests your balance, strength, and resolve.

But modern Christianity, in its drive for accessibility or relevance—or perhaps because of pride—has installed elevators.  These elevators let people bypass floors, skipping entire sections of foundational understanding.  Suddenly, we have believers preaching from the penthouse with no idea what’s in the basement.  They speak of mysteries while misunderstanding milk.

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⚒️ Anvil:  The Consequences of Elevation Without Foundation

1. Theological Bypass – People use emotionally compelling experiences, charismatic personalities, or TikTok theology to ascend rapidly—learning what to say without ever learning why it’s said.
2. Emotional Immaturity – Without climbing the stairs, they miss the bruises and sweat that train spiritual reflexes.  As Hebrews 5:14 says, discernment comes from constant practice.  Elevators short-circuit that.
3. Discipleship Breakdown – Elevators isolate people.  You skip the mentorship, the one-on-one stair climbing with a guide.  Instead, you arrive alone at a floor that assumes shared understanding you don’t have.
4. False Authority – Title inflation happens.  We get self-proclaimed apostles and prophets issuing directives from levels they’ve never walked through in prayer or suffering.  They speak beyond their sanctification.

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🔥 Ember:  My Witness and Warning

I’ve watched the fallout:

• People misquote Scripture to defend behavior that direct study would condemn.
• Young believers burn out under weight they were never trained to carry.
• Others become so comfortable in the elevator that they mock the stair-climbers as legalistic or old-fashioned.

But I also know what it means to climb—floor by painful floor.  To be winded.  To fall back a level.  To sit on a stair and wrestle with God.  And I know the strength that comes from that journey.  When you teach from the floor you’ve bled on, it carries weight.

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🌿 Covenant Triumph:  Reclaiming the Stairs

The Church must reclaim stair-climbing theology:

• Mentors must walk with the next generation, one step at a time.
• Preachers must stop glamorizing floors they haven’t earned.
• Churches must dismantle the elevators built by entertainment, ego, and ease.

Because there’s no shortcut to maturity.  No fast-pass to sanctification.  And no resurrection without the crucifixion of self.  Milk is necessary, but meat is earned.  And God doesn’t ask us to leap buildings in a single bound—He calls us to follow His Son, one step at a time.

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[⚓ Floatie] [✒️ Forge] [⚒️ Anvil] [🔥 Ember] [🌿 Covenant Triumph]
This post follows the Forge Baseline Rule—layered truth for the discerning remnant.