You did receive the Holy Spirit when you accepted Jesus as your Savior and were born again. He came to stay and live inside your spirit forever.

But you have not experienced the power of the Holy Spirit until you walk through a doorway. This doorway is known as the baptism or anointing of the Holy Spirit.

This is a big subject on its own, and we will cover it under the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit and the Doctrine of the Anointing. But I will touch on this briefly here without going into too much detail.

You must go through that doorway. It is not automatically available when you are born again.

You have to pass through that doorway and break through into a new relationship with the Holy Spirit. Until then you cannot fully function in these gifts and fruits.

This does not mean that God cannot fully use you. It does not mean that you cannot see any manifestation of these things. But until you have received that anointing and learned to flow in it, these things cannot come to life within you.

This applies especially when you go out to do the work of the ministry.

How do you go about getting this Baptism of the Holy Spirit and the anointing that you need? Firstly you should really want it. I have heard people saying,

"If God wanted me to have it He would give it to me, so I will wait until He gives it to me. And since He has not given it to me yet, He obviously does not want me to have it."

Earnest Desire

The Scripture says we must earnestly desire these things. God gives us things according to what we desire. He never imposes Himself on us in any way. So if you want to have the power of the Holy Spirit, you have to reach out and receive it.

I will teach on that in detail when we deal with that subject alone.

You must desire to be used by God for these things to be in your life. Then you will find that all of these are empowered by one very important quality, which is love. There is a Scripture that brings these two together. Paul said,

Follow after (pursue, chase) love, and then earnestly desire spiritual gifts.

That word earnestly is a bit stronger than you saying,

"I think it would be great if I had spiritual gifts. It would be cool. I would love God to use me in the spiritual gifts. That would really be nice."

That is just ordinary desire, not earnest desire. Earnest desire is something much stronger than that. It is what we call a 'core desire'; a passion that gets you to the point where you say,

"I've got to have it! I want it now and I will not give up until I get it."

That is the kind of desire that moves God. If you do not earnestly desire the power of God or His anointing, then you will not get it.

God will not force something on you that you do not want. He is a Gentleman, and He does not impose His will on us.

Experience

So the baptism of the Holy Spirit opens the door to the Gifts of the Spirit. But what opens the door to the Fruit of the Spirit?

This is a little thing called experience. The Fruit of the Spirit comes about when you learn to do what the Bible calls 'walking in the Spirit'.

That word walking can be illustrated by what you see when you visit the military and you see soldiers marching together in rank. You see them going,

"Left, right, left, right, left, right"

Usually there is a sergeant or someone walking next to them and shouting out the commands. If you have ever been in the army you will know that sound.

The key is that you must walk 'in step'. And to experience the Fruit of the Spirit you must come to a place where you learn to walk in step with the Holy Spirit. That means you must be able to hear His instructions and then obey those instructions.

That is all it means to walk in the Spirit. When you first accept Jesus as your Savior you are not even aware that the Holy Spirit is there because you have not heard His voice yet. It takes experience and spiritual growth to learn this.

Over time you get to know the voice of the Holy Spirit within you. It certainly helps to put more Scripture in. The Scriptures help you to understand the impressions that come up out of your spirit.

It takes experience to walk in the Spirit and use the Fruit of the Spirit. So you need to follow after love, which is a possible subject on its own. Then you need to earnestly desire or passionately want the power of God and the gifts of the Spirit.

Finally you must learn to hear the voice of God and walk in the Spirit. You need to experience God and come to know Him better before you come to the place where the Fruit of the Spirit is manifested in your life. Then you come to a place where the gifts and the fruit are both manifested.

The Picture of a Dove

One of the best ways of illustrating this is to realize that it all comes from the Holy Spirit. And one of the most common pictures of the Holy Spirit is the picture of a dove.

Imagine a picture of a dove with its wings outstretched. There are nine feathers on each of the wings of the dove. Consider one wing as being the nine Gifts of the Spirit and the other the nine the Fruits of the Spirit.

Example: Two Wings of the Dove

For a dove to fly correctly it needs both the wings. A dove flying with one wing is like someone trying to swim with one hand. You could go around in circles and get nowhere.

Some people seem to think that we do not need both the Gifts and the Fruit of the Spirit.

Some think that the most important thing is the Gifts, the power and the glory. They get hyped up on the power and the anointing; the glory, the miraculous, and the supernatural.

They think that this is all that counts in ministry because it is exciting stuff. They love to experience that exciting realm of God.

They love the awesome things that take place in the Holy Spirit, when the power of God comes upon you and the Gifts of the Spirit start to manifest.

Then you have another group who are afraid of the Gifts of the Spirit. Some are so afraid of it, that they have made a doctrine that says the Gifts of the Spirit have been done away with and are not needed anymore.

They say that what we really need is the Fruit of the Spirit, because that is far more important. They want to do away with the power, because it is only the fruit that counts.

They are simply flapping on the other wing of the dove. But God wants us to have both of these together in order to be effective in ministry. Both wings should be flapping together for you to have the full power of the Spirit manifesting in and through you.

That is how God will be able to pour into you and out through you to other people, in order to carry out the work of the ministry.

Seven Feathers for Ministry

If you look at the nine feathers on each side, you will find that in both cases there are two feathers that you can use mostly for you. The other seven you use more for other people.

You will see that in both the Gifts of the Spirit and the Fruit of the Spirit. The number seven is God's perfect number.

So why did God choose nine and only reserve seven of those for ministry? Perhaps it is because He was kind enough to let us use two of them for ourselves.

Some people make the mistake of thinking that if they get the power of the Holy Spirit it becomes a wonderful experience. They go to revival meetings where the power of God is manifested, so that they can shake under the power and fall under the power.

They like to experience the awesome 'highs' that we get when the Holy Spirit comes on us, because this is what the Holy Spirit does. But I want you to see that each of these two things takes place through a different kind of operation and relationship that we have with the Holy Spirit.

I want to look briefly at the nine and show you what these two relationships with the Holy Spirit are. They are taught in detail under the Doctrine of the Anointing, but I will mention them here for you to understand them.

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