Chapter 8: Levels of Authority
A Note from Gary
When I first encountered Apostle Delmar, something confused me.
I had considered myself a Christian for years. I read the Bible occasionally. I went to church when I had the time. I prayed sometimes. But when I watched Apostle operate (healing the sick, casting out demons, receiving words of knowledge that left people stunned), I realized I was watching something I didn't have access to.
Why?
It wasn't that God loved him more than me. Yes, God created him with a specific calling and gifts. But the gap between us wasn't primarily about gifting. It was about journey. He had walked decades I hadn't walked yet. He had surrendered in ways I hadn't surrendered. He had pressed into depths of intimacy I hadn't pressed into. I was nascent. He was seasoned.
The Way of Fire is not a light switch you flip once. It's a progressive journey. There are levels. You start somewhere. You grow. You ascend. And the higher you go, the more authority you carry.
This chapter changed how I understand my own spiritual development. Apostle Delmar lays out what the Bible actually teaches about spiritual maturity—and what the generals of faith demonstrated in their lives.
Where are you on the journey? And what's required to get to the next level?
Let's find out.
Gary
Written by: Apostle Delmar
I've watched believers stay stuck at the same level for decades.
Not because God abandoned them. Not because they weren't sincere. But because they never understood that the Christian life is a progression. They got saved, got comfortable, and stopped ascending.
That's not how this works.
The Way of Fire is not a destination you arrive at once. It's a journey you walk for the rest of your life. And on that journey, there are distinct levels of spiritual maturity, authority, and power.
Understanding where you are—and what it takes to move higher—is essential for anyone serious about fulfilling their calling.
The Bible Shows Us Levels
Scripture doesn't present spiritual growth as binary: saved or unsaved, in or out. It presents a spectrum of development with distinct stages.
The Apostle John identifies three:
"I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one." — 1 John 2:12-13
Spiritual children. Their primary identity is forgiveness. They know God as Father. This is foundational, but it's immature. The spiritual child is new, dependent, still learning the basics.
Critical milestones along the way:
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Water Baptism. Public identification with Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. This is not optional for believers. It's the first act of obedience after conversion, an outward declaration of an inward reality.
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Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Distinct from salvation. When the Holy Spirit comes upon you with fire. This is the experience the 120 received at Pentecost: tongues of fire, speaking in other tongues, supernatural power for witness (Acts 2:1-4). Without this baptism, you're operating with the Spirit IN you but not UPON you. See Spirit IN vs UPON. This is the gateway to walking in supernatural power.
Spiritual young adults. These believers have moved beyond basics. They have engaged in spiritual warfare and won. The Word of God isn't just something they read; it abides in them, shaping their thoughts and empowering their resistance. They are strong. They are active in the fight.
Spiritual fathers. Twice John addresses the fathers with the same phrase: "ye have known him that is from the beginning." Their defining characteristic is intimate, experiential knowledge of God Himself. Not knowledge about God. Knowledge of God. This is the maturity of deep communion and spiritual reproduction. The father can train the child because he has walked the journey. (This isn't a title. It's a maturity stage: people who've walked with God long enough to reproduce faith in others.)
John's framework establishes a principle: believers exist at different levels, and those levels are recognizable, describable, and progressive.
This Isn't Just Pentecostal Teaching
Progressive spiritual growth runs through the entire history of Christianity.
Wesley called it sanctification, the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit conforming believers to Christ's image. Eastern Orthodoxy calls it theosis, becoming partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). The contemplatives describe purgative, illuminative, and unitive stages: cleansing, enlightenment, union.
Different language, same reality: growth is staged.
The Generals All Understood This
The generals (like Smith Wigglesworth, John G. Lake, Kenneth Hagin, Lester Sumrall, Kathryn Kuhlman) operated at extraordinary levels of spiritual authority. None of them arrived there instantly. They walked a journey. And they taught explicitly about the stages of that journey.
Wigglesworth: Never Stop Advancing
Wigglesworth was blunt: "If you have not made any advancement since yesterday, in a measure you are a backslider."
For Wigglesworth, stagnation was regression. The Christian life is characterized by constant movement, learning, transformation. God's purpose is to take the ordinary believer and refine them through the sieve until they emerge with extraordinary faith.
This doesn't happen passively. It requires active cooperation: embracing divine processes, surrendering personal limitations, cultivating spiritual resilience, developing radical faith.
He also emphasized that without holiness, no one will see God. Holiness is not restrictive. It's a gateway. Spiritual authority flows through purity. The believer who maintains spiritual sensitivity and immediate repentance positions themselves to receive and manifest divine power more effectively.
Kenneth Hagin: Restating John's Framework
Hagin essentially restated John's three stages in modern language in his book Growing Up, Spiritually. His "babyhood" maps to John's "little children." His "childhood" is the transition. His "manhood" maps to John's "young men" and "fathers."
What Hagin added was practical detail. The baby Christian is self-conscious and materialistic-minded, unstable, "tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine" (Ephesians 4:14). The mature believer is God-conscious rather than self-conscious. They seek the Kingdom first. They are stable in faith, able to handle the "meat" of God's Word.
Here's the critical principle Hagin taught: spiritual maturity is not measured by biblical knowledge. It is measured by your response time to the Lord. How quickly do you obey when God speaks? That is the test of maturity.
John G. Lake: The Measure of Spirit You Possess
Lake spoke of spiritual progression in terms of evolving consciousness of God. He observed that even in the life of Jesus there was growth. Step by step, Jesus discerned God and His purpose more fully.
Lake identified that believers operate at different levels of spiritual capacity based on "the measure of the spirit that we possess." This is not favoritism from God. It's the result of surrender.
The natural mind must be subdued. The soul (mind, will, emotions) must be sanctified and brought into submission to the Spirit. Authority comes through surrender, and the degree to which you allow the Spirit of God to take possession of your life determines the level of power you will manifest.
Lester Sumrall: Slight and Great Anointings
Sumrall was explicit: "I understand that there are slight anointings and there are great anointings."
This was not theoretical. He pointed to Elisha, who could not receive a double portion of Elijah's anointing until he had been a servant washing Elijah's hands for ten years.
Servanthood. Time. Relationship. Faithfulness. These are prerequisites for greater anointing. You do not leap to the highest levels. You ascend through consistent obedience, deepening intimacy, and tested faithfulness.
Kathryn Kuhlman: Lower to Go Higher
Kuhlman warned against a common mistake: confusing the anointing that comes during ministry with permanent spiritual maturity.
"There is a mighty anointing that comes upon us when we serve the people according to the call. But we can't abide in that anointing. We must abide in Him and grow up spiritually."
Many ministers mistake the flow of power during a service as a permanent state. It is not. The anointing flows when you serve, but you do not live there. You live in Him. And as you press deeper into Him, the anointing increases.
She emphasized a paradox: "The higher and deeper we seek to go, the lower and more dependent we must become." Ascending in power requires descending in pride. The pathway up is down.
The Critical Role of Covering
Here's something most believers never understand: covering accelerates your ascent.
You are not meant to walk this journey alone. God has established spiritual authority structures for your protection, development, and empowerment.
When I say covering, I'm talking about being connected to and submitted to legitimate spiritual authority: a pastor, an apostle, a spiritual father or mother who walks in greater authority than you currently carry.
Legitimate covering never controls, isolates, or replaces Jesus. If someone uses "covering" to manipulate you, that's not God. That's abuse wearing religious language. Run.
Everything in the Kingdom flows from the head down. You got Elijah and Elisha. You got Jesus and the twelve. Then the seventy. Then the 120. Everything starts from a head.
When you're submitted underneath the head and doing what you're supposed to do, that anointing flows. You can't stop it. You can't stop that body from receiving what the head carries.
God doesn't give you a covering for no reason. He gives you a covering for a purpose. You should always lean on, depend on, and believe in that covering. Honor it. Use it.
Made a mistake? Call for help. Lean on your covering. God is faithful to work through those authority structures He's established.
When you position yourself under proper spiritual covering, you receive:
- Protection from attacks you can't yet discern
- Impartation of gifts and anointing through the laying on of hands
- Correction that keeps you from error
- Acceleration as you benefit from someone else's decades of intimacy with God
Elisha served Elijah for ten years before receiving the double portion. Lester Sumrall received impartation from Smith Wigglesworth that marked his entire ministry. Find your covering. Submit to it. And watch your spiritual authority increase.
Where Are You Now?
Let me give you some markers to help you assess where you currently are.
Signs You're Still in Spiritual Infancy
You're easily swayed by new teaching or popular opinion. Your spiritual life is inconsistent: hot one week, cold the next. You're self-conscious rather than God-conscious. You depend heavily on others to feed you spiritually and struggle to feed yourself from Scripture. Your prayers are primarily petitionary: "Give me, help me, fix this." You have not yet engaged in spiritual warfare, or you don't recognize when you're under attack.
Signs You're in Spiritual Young Adulthood
The Word of God abides in you. You think biblically, not just culturally. You've experienced victory in spiritual warfare and can recognize the enemy's tactics. Your spiritual life is more consistent; you have established disciplines. You're beginning to serve others and see fruit from that service. You have discernment—you can distinguish truth from error. You're asking deeper questions and grappling with complex spiritual truths.
Signs You're Moving Toward Spiritual Parenthood
You have intimate, experiential knowledge of God, not just knowledge about Him. You consistently bear the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). You're spiritually reproductive—making disciples, training others. Your response time to God's voice is immediate. You accept and even embrace the disciplines and trials God allows. You love God and others with increasing depth. You carry spiritual authority that others recognize. Your life produces consistent supernatural fruit.
The Ultimate Standard
Paul makes clear that the ultimate measure of spiritual maturity is "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:13). That's the standard. Not comparison with other believers. The fullness of Christ.
You will never reach that standard in this life. Perfection is reserved for glorification. But you can and must continually grow toward it. And the beauty of this standard is that it keeps you humble (you never "arrive") while keeping you hungry: there is always more.
How to Ascend
Understanding levels is not the goal. Ascending through them is. Here's how you move from where you are to the next level.
1. Hunger
Every person who advanced in spiritual authority had insatiable hunger for more of God. If you are content where you are, you will not advance. Hunger is the fuel.
2. Secret Place
Authority in public flows from intimacy in private. Wigglesworth, Lake, Kuhlman, Sumrall: all built their lives around consistent, deep communion with God in the secret place. This is not optional. If you want greater authority, go deeper in the secret place.
3. Surrender
Lake said it clearly: the degree that we allow the Spirit of God to take possession determines the level of power we manifest. Kuhlman echoed it: the higher you go, the lower you must become. Surrender is the pathway to power.
4. Obedience
Hagin's metric was response time. How quickly do you obey when God speaks? Delayed obedience is disobedience. The mature believer hears and obeys immediately.
5. Holiness
Without holiness, you will not see God. Purity is not legalism; it's the gateway to encountering and manifesting God's power. Holiness positions you to carry greater anointing.
6. Warfare
Spiritual young adults are defined by their victory over the evil one (1 John 2:13-14). You don't advance by avoiding battle. You advance by engaging and winning. Every victory positions you for the next level.
7. Covering
Submit to trusted, legitimate spiritual leadership and learn under it. This is how anointing is transmitted across generations.
8. Patience
You will not leap to the highest levels overnight. This is a journey. Trust the process. Trust the timing. Keep pressing. Keep surrendering. Keep obeying. And one day you will look back and realize you have ascended to a level you once only dreamed of.
A Word About Rest
I need to say something here because some of you will read "perpetual ascent" and burn yourselves out trying to climb.
This is not about striving in the flesh. This is not about white-knuckling your way to spiritual maturity. That path leads to exhaustion, not authority.
Jesus said, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28). The journey of spiritual growth happens in partnership with the Holy Spirit, not in competition with Him. There are seasons of intense pressing. There are also seasons of rest, recovery, and simply abiding.
The secret place isn't a performance. It's a relationship. You don't earn your way to the next level—you receive it through surrender. The pressure you feel should be the pressure of hunger, not the pressure of self-condemnation.
If you're exhausted, rest. If you're burnt out, stop. Reconnect with the Father who loves you apart from your performance. Then, when you're ready, get back on the journey. The next level will still be there.
The Perpetual Ascent
There is no ceiling to spiritual growth in this life. There are always deeper waters, higher levels, greater measures of anointing and authority.
Gary looks at me and wonders how I operate the way I do. But I didn't start here. I started as a baby Christian just like everyone else. I walked a journey: 42 years of surrender, intimacy, obedience, warfare, and faithfulness. That same journey is available to Gary. It's available to you.
The question is: how hungry are you? How surrendered are you willing to become? How deep are you willing to go in the secret place?
The Way of Fire is not a single step. It's a lifetime of ascending from glory to glory:
"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." — 2 Corinthians 3:18
You are somewhere on this journey right now. The next level is within reach.
Press on.
"Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." — Philippians 3:13-14
Appendix: How I See the Spectrum
Gary Sheng
When I first met Apostle Delmar, I needed a way to understand the gap between where I was and where he is. John's three stages are the biblical foundation. But I found it helpful to map my own journey in more detail, from where I started to where Apostle operates, and where I'm headed.
Before I Believed
Level -3: Settled Unbelief. This is where I started. For many, it's not just disbelief; it's a settled confidence that God doesn't exist. Christianity may be viewed as irrational or outdated. From a biblical lens, that's separation from God, whether it feels hostile or simply indifferent. Most people at this level aren't angry at God. They just don't think He's there. That was me.
Level -2: Spiritual Seeking. Something shifted. I began recognizing that material reality didn't fully account for human experience. I experimented with Buddhism, New Age practices, mixing traditions. Looking back, I believe this was the Holy Spirit wooing me toward truth.
Level -1: Cultural Christianity Recognition. I came to acknowledge intellectually that Christianity built Western civilization, that it "works" in some sense. Respect without surrender.
Level 0: Conviction Point. The moment of decision. "OK God, if you're real, I'm prepared to consider you." This was my threshold.
A note: Not everyone's path is linear. Some skip steps. Some cycle back due to trauma, culture, or life circumstances. These levels are a map, not a railroad track.
After Conversion
Level 1: New Birth. Sins forgiven. I knew God as Father. This was spiritual infancy. I was under a church tradition that didn't illuminate the full spiritual reality: the daily warfare, the available power, the Way of Fire.
Water Baptism. Public identification with Christ. I was baptized, but honestly didn't understand the full weight of it at the time. Looking back, this was a critical step of obedience.
Level 2: Spiritual Childhood. Growing in fundamentals. Learning to pray, fast, worship. Still primarily a consumer of spiritual content.
Baptism in the Holy Spirit. This is when everything changed. At Encounter Church, Apostle Delmar laid hands on me. I spoke in tongues for the first time in my life. The fire came upon me, not just in me. This is the experience described in Chapter 3. Without this, I was operating at a fraction of what was available. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the gateway to walking in supernatural power.
Level 3: Spiritual Young Adult. Overcoming the evil one. The Word abides. Victory in spiritual warfare. Trained discernment. This is where I am now.
Finding Apostolic Covering. Another critical milestone. I found Apostle Delmar. I'm receiving impartation through the laying on of hands. My calling is becoming clearer. This isn't a maturity level—it's an alignment that accelerates everything else.
Level 4: Spiritual Parenthood. Intimate knowledge of God. Spiritually reproductive. Making disciples. This is what I'm pressing toward.
Level 5: Operating in Calling. Clearly functioning in your role. Making a dent in the devil's kingdom. Strategic impact.
Level 6: Deep Intimacy and Rare Authority. This is where Apostle Delmar operates. It's rare, not because God withholds it, but because few are willing to pay the price of surrender and consistency. Fully on fire. This is the level of anointing I dream of.
If this map helps, locate yourself and pick one next step.