We can fool people into thinking that we are “good Christians” by acting the part, but there’s One person we can never fool, and that’s the LORD Himself.
In Matthew 7:17-20, Jesus tells us that a good tree bears good fruit and a bad tree bears bad fruit. We can tell trees apart from the fruit they bear, which makes perfect sense. An apple tree will not bear oranges and vice-versa.
Unless a Christian bears the fruit of the Spirit, that is, those characteristics and qualities that only the Holy Spirit can bring about cannot be consistently observed in a person who claims to be a Christian, they are not truly in Christ.
We need to allow the Holy Spirit to take hold of us and transform us on the insider so that the fruit of the Spirit would become a part of who we are on the outside.