The FRUIT of the Spirit

A friend of mine and I were exchanging email correspondences last week and she asked me if a person can be considered Spirit-filled if they do not have the nine fruits of the Spirit, as mentioned in the book of Galatians. It was an interesting question that made me go back to that passage of scripture and study and meditate on it.

I told her the following through my email reply:

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"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." -- Galatians 5:22-23

Since the Bible uses the term FRUIT for all nine, I think it is an all-or-nothing deal. They are part of a package that I believe Holy Spirit gives to us once we receive Him. But like the fruit of earthly plants, some take more time to ripen than others.

So, I believe that we get the FRUIT of the Spirit [all nine of them] when we are baptized with the Holy Spirit, with some of the nine maturing faster and manifesting earlier than others. You are a Spirit-filled Christian even if some of the nine aspects of the FRUIT, which I believe are already in you, have not matured yet. You are Spirit-filled because you are filled by the FRUIT of the Spirit, though maybe wa pa lang ni ripen ang tanan.

Remember, we are a work in progress. But God has already given us everything we need for life and godliness [2 Peter 1:3-11]. So that means it's all there already but we just need to cooperate with God to perfect what He has already deposited in us. That's why that passage in 2 Peter encourages us to "make every effort".

Some people may have already matured in the area of patience but may lack the manifestation of joy. That doesn't make them not filled with the Spirit. It just means they need more work in the area of joy. The fruit of joy is in there but perhaps it just needs to mature more.

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All of us seriously need to mature in the fullness of the Spirit. It takes time for the FRUIT to mature but if we cooperate with God and allow Holy Spirit to do what needs to be done, we'll get there much faster.