The Experience of God with Man: Three Stages of Spiritual Maturity

Spiritual growth is not accidental — it moves through identifiable stages that God uses to mature every believer from infancy into seasoned partnership with Him.

True spiritual maturity is not measured by physical age, church tenure, or moral conduct. God moves every believer through three progressive stages — being led, being instructed, and operating in delegated power and authority — and most believers remain stuck in the middle stage without understanding why. This teaching uncovers what each stage looks like, what qualifies a believer to advance, and what it truly means to experience God.

---

---

Teaching Overview

1. The first stage of every believer is to be led.
2. The next stage, after the stage of being led, is the stage of being instructed.
3. The third stage is operating in delegated power and authority — working together with God as a seasoned partner in the Spirit.

Key Distinctions

---

What It Means to Experience God

• True experience with God cannot be validated by words alone — it is validated by what others can receive and participate in through what you carry.
• God is Spirit, and He cannot be truly experienced through flesh or emotions alone — there must be a dimension of encounter that others can observe and receive from.
• Morality does not prove closeness to God; God is close to you because He is good, not because you are good.

"God doesn't need me to be good for him to be close to me. God is close to me because He is good, not because I am good. Because any good that I will ever do is filthy rugs unto Him."

"The evidence of you having experienced God can only be validated by others by taking of what you have."

The Problem with Chance-Based Theology

• Many believers and ministers have a theology of God based on chance — when the Holy Spirit feels like moving, He moves — rather than on the established facts of walking with God.
• Those who cannot reproduce a spiritual experience reveal that they were used by God as a vessel but had not yet walked with God in a sustained, maturing way.
• The progression of Jesus in Luke 4 demonstrates that being led by the Spirit is a beginning stage, not the permanent condition — after the wilderness, Jesus left in the power of the Spirit, not merely being led by the Spirit.

"There is a way that can reason like that is because they have never walked with God. God has used them, but they have never walked with God. When God used them, they were not prepared. God just used them as a vessel to express himself and they left and they can never redo the same experience they had with God."

Stage One — Being Led

• The first stage of every believer is being led by the Holy Spirit because the believer does not yet know the way or the truth.
• In this stage, the believer's own witness is not sufficient — the Holy Spirit must bear witness that they are a child of God, confirming them through their errors and immaturity.
• A spiritual infant imitates and repeats what they have heard or read, but does so without revelation knowledge or depth of experience.

"When you are still in the classroom, you are being led. God has not yet permitted you to go out."

"She's still in the realm of imitating, not understanding, because she's being led."

The Danger of Spiritual Infancy Without Awareness

• Spiritual age does not correspond to physical age — there are spiritual infants who are 50, 60, and 40 years old, and their physical age does not qualify them for spiritual maturity.
• A believer still in the stage of being led may say correct things, but only because they are regurgitating what they have heard — not because they have had a genuine experience or carry revelation knowledge.
• It is a grave mistake for someone still in the infancy of the spirit to assume they can correct spiritual elders or lead others.

"We have spiritual infants that are 50 years old, 60 years old, 40 years old, 20 years old, 25 years old."

"You will speak about God, but you have no depth with God."

Stage Two — Being Instructed

• The stage of instruction begins when God moves a believer beyond being carried — He now speaks directly and gives specific instruction that demands active obedience.
• God promotes a believer into instruction not because they have been good, but because they have been broken — they have seen the true nature of who they are and their dependence on God has increased.
• The prodigal son is promoted; the son who remained in the house, confident in his own works and position, is not — God promotes those who are broken, not those who are self-sufficient.

"God promotes you when you are broken. God promotes you when you are robbed of all your strength and he becomes your strength. God promotes you when you realize that your life means nothing without him."

"God gives you instruction because from that instruction you mature. Because God wants you to grow by experience. Not just by head knowledge, you need to experience."

What the Instruction Stage Builds and Breaks

• The instruction stage is where God builds obedience, including the capacity to die to self — He expects failure in certain areas, because it is through those failures that maturity is forged.
• It is in this stage that God begins to reveal who a believer truly is, dismantling self-righteousness that crept in during the stage of being led.
• This is also where spiritual warfare becomes real — the believer begins to discern the difference between wrestling with flesh and blood and wrestling with spirits.

"It is in the place of instruction that God begins to break you."

"How many pastors are fighting pastors. It tells you where they are."

Getting Stuck in the Instruction Stage

• Most believers spend unnecessary years in the instruction stage, prolonging their time there by creating their own strategies rather than returning to God in humility when they fail.
• The instruction stage is also where God calls believers to release certain relationships and environments — those who cannot breathe at the level God is taking them to must be left behind.
• Church-hopping is a symptom of despising the instruction — believers mistake God's promotion for a new church rather than recognising that they are fleeing the very test that would have advanced them.

"You cannot be around people with a donkey mindset when God is starting to incline you."

"It is in this place that people start abandoning God, they start creating their own strategies instead of being instructed."

The Necessity of Being Under Authority

• Power is not picked up — it is delegated, and it can only be delegated to those who have been under authority and have proven themselves faithful under instruction.
• The disciples were already casting out demons before Pentecost, yet Jesus told them they were not ready — because the Spirit of God within and the Spirit of God upon are completely different dimensions.
• The centurion's faith in Matthew 8 was the greatest Jesus had seen in all of Israel — and it came not from a man of authority, but from a man under authority, who understood exactly how delegated power works.

"You need to be under authority in order for you to enter in the realm of power."

"Power is delegated. Power is not picked up. Authorities is not picked up."

"I myself am a man and authority. Not I myself am a man of authority. I myself am a man and an authority."

Stage Three — Operating in Delegated Power and Authority

• In this stage the believer is seasoned in the Spirit — God no longer needs to initiate every action, because what the believer speaks, God backs up as if it were His own word.
• The word of man carries no weight of itself — it only carries weight when a spirit backs it; the word of the seasoned believer is backed by God because they have been tested, broken, and entrusted with delegated authority.
• No word of Samuel ever fell to the ground — this was not said of the word of God, because God's word is always fulfilled; it was said of Samuel's word, meaning the man himself had been entrusted with delegated authority.

"In this realm now you are working together with God."

"No word of Samuel ever fell to the ground. It didn't say the word of God to Samuel because God's word cannot fall on the ground."

"The word of man has no backing unless a spirit is going to make that word happen."

---

Key Definitions

Being Led — The first stage of spiritual growth, in which the Holy Spirit carries the believer through life as an infant, bearing witness that they are God's child while they are still in the classroom of formation and have not yet been permitted to go out.

Being Instructed — The second stage of spiritual growth, in which God actively speaks and gives specific directives designed to build obedience, break self-will, and mature the believer through experience rather than head knowledge alone.

Operating in Power and Authority — The third and seasoned stage of spiritual maturity, in which God delegates power to the believer such that what they speak is confirmed by God as if it were His own word, and they work together with God as a co-labourer in the Spirit.

Spirit of God Within — The presence and seal of the Holy Spirit that every born-again believer carries, which grants the capacity to become a son or daughter of God and provides the basis for basic spiritual authority — such as casting out demons.

Spirit of God Upon — A completely different and higher dimension of the Spirit's operation, in which power is externally delegated to a seasoned believer, enabling the confirmed, sign-following ministry described in Mark 16.

Delegated Power — Authority that is not self-generated or picked up by an individual but is formally entrusted to a believer by God through proven submission to spiritual authority and faithfulness under instruction.

Key Takeaways

• Every believer begins in the stage of being led — this is not a failure but the necessary starting point of all spiritual growth, and it cannot be bypassed or rushed.
• God promotes through brokenness, not goodness — advancement into the instruction stage comes not from moral achievement but from the recognition of one's own total dependence on God.
• The instruction stage is where most believers remain stuck — self-created strategies, despising correction, and fleeing testing all prolong this stage far beyond what God intends.
• Power is delegated, not picked up — no believer can operate in confirmed, sign-following authority without first having been proven under spiritual authority and faithful through instruction.
• Maturity means working together with God — the goal is not merely to receive from God or be moved by God, but to reach the place where God reasons with you and confirms the words you speak.

Reflection Questions

1. Which of the three stages — being led, being instructed, or operating in delegated power — most accurately describes where you are right now, and what evidence in your life points to that conclusion?
2. Is there a specific instruction God has given you that you have been delaying, avoiding, or replacing with your own strategy? What is the cost of that delay?
3. Who is the spiritual authority in your life — and is that relationship one in which they push you closer to God, or simply one in which they agree with you?
4. Where in your life have you confused morality or religious activity with genuine experience with God? What would a real encounter with God require you to change?
5. What relationship, environment, or mindset are you holding onto that cannot breathe at the level God is trying to take you — and what is making it hard to release it?

---

Prayers and Declarations

Opening Prayer

"God bless you all in the name of Jesus. I hope you are blessed no matter where you are. And I believe that God will do us some good today. And I believe that it will be such an amazing amazing evening. And I know that God will move with us in a special way. I know it's super late, but I am still excited for what God is going to do. So I pray that you're ready, you're prepared, no matter where you are, and it will be a good night, and it will be an amazing night to understand some things in the spirit that will elevate us to where we need to be. We're going to learn some things and we're going to grow. It will be phenomenal because of what I'm going to cover."

---

Scripture References

• Luke 4
• 1 Samuel 16 — "But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." (KJV)
• Acts 8
• Genesis 50 — "And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence." (KJV)
• Luke 15
• Romans 8:28 — "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." (KJV)
• Genesis 22
• Matthew 8
• Mark 16:17-18 — "And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." (KJV)
• 1 Samuel 3
• 2 Kings 4
• 1 Samuel 1

---

Golden Nuggets

"God doesn't need me to be good for him to be close to me. God is close to me because He is good, not because I am good."

"The evidence of you having experienced God can only be validated by others by taking of what you have."

"God promotes you when you are broken. God promotes you when you are robbed of all your strength and He becomes your strength."

"You need to be under authority in order for you to enter in the realm of power."

"Power is delegated. Power is not picked up."

"I myself am a man and authority. Not I myself am a man of authority. I myself am a man and an authority."

"No word of Samuel ever fell to the ground. The word of man has no backing unless a spirit is going to make that word happen."

"You will speak about God, but you have no depth with God."

"You cannot be around people with a donkey mindset when God is starting to incline you."

"God wants you to grow by experience. Not just by head knowledge, you need to experience."

---

Resources and Further Reading

• Recommended Books →
• Study with a Recommended Bible →