Those of us who are saved are never alone. Upon salvation the Holy Spirit takes up residence inside us, as promised by God, to be our helper, guide, counselor, and our source of heavenly power while on this earth. The Holy Spirit is our seal from God that we are His possession, which proves we are saved and heaven bound. When we die both our spirit and the Holy Spirit have to come out of our body, at which time the Holy Spirit escorts our spirit to Jesus. We never have to worry now about how we find our way home.
2 Cor 5:6 – Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.
As mentioned in my last blog, the Holy Spirit comes to us bearing the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit. These are the nine divine attributes of God that define who He is. God will make these fruits available to us in our walk with Him for the rest of our lives here on earth. These fruits of the Holy Spirit are the tools God uses to sanctify us. Let’s review these fruits again; they are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These are the tools, the heavy artillery, that God uses to make us more like Christ over time. These fruits of the Holy Spirit never leave us but the believer must be aware of what the fruits are and then work with the Holy Spirit to develop them.
There are nine gifts of God given to the believer that are separate from the fruits of the Holy Spirit. While these gifts also come from the Holy Spirit too they are not as important as the fruits and they aren’t inside you. They come from God and are manifested by the Holy Spirit as He sees fit. These gifts are more of a one time use weapon of God or over a limited time frame. Think of these gifts as small arms in God’s arsenal. These nine gifts are normally given to the believer individually by the Holy Spirit and usually in response to prayer to the Father. The believer must first of all, be aware of these gifts in order to ask for them. The believer must have a valid reason to request a gift from God and make the petition to God by prayer. The Holy Spirit may or may not honor the request by the sovereign will of God.
1 Cor 12:7-11 – But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.