Retain or Contain, that is the question?

Scott cut the small branch from the fruitless tree. He dipped the cut end into a solution that helps promote growth and laid it aside. Then with a very sharp tool, he cut deep into the trunk of the fruit tree. Carefully he pressed the prepared branch into the opening in the trunk of the fruit tree. I watched all of this wondering who figured it out? Some fruit farmer or a tree expert? And why did Scott pick that particular tree trunk to place that fruitless branch into? As it turned out, that newly grafted branch is now my lemon tree. Every year it produces more and more lemons. The juice from these particular lemons is of course sour as it should be but interestingly it has a sweetness to it as well.

The fruitless tree had pretty leaves but never flowered and never had lemons. It did not contain the necessary genetic structure within to bear fruit. It is considered a lemon tree but I must say, that is a trespass of the name. The grafted branch completed its' transformation and grew into a good transplant size, full of blooms. The new tree contained all the good genetic structure of a productive fruit tree. It's branches are full of fruit. I knew when I saw it that lemons were on their way to my glass. I love fresh lemonade.

John 20:22b,23: "Jesus breathed on them and said, receive ( contain) the Holy Spirit. Who so ever sins you forgive, they are forgiven, and who so ever sins you retain, they are retained".

I was intrigued by this verse and looked up two words: contain: to incorporate, hold in, bear, carry, comprise or represent. retain: to remember, think of, hold, keep on, continue.

I recently watched a friend work through a betrayal situation in her workplace. Most of us face such difficult circumstances many times in our lives, whether with work, family or friends. As a believer in Christ, she is constrained to forgive. Sometimes forgiveness is easy and other times resentment seems to pop up in the soil of our hearts like one of those thorny weeds that is almost impossible to dig out. My friend and I decided we want to be like my new lemon tree. In our past, we were like branches from a fruitless tree. Jesus came and cut us free from our old lives and grafted us into His fruitful tree of life. Now we are new trees altogether. Like my new lemon tree, we became containers for the fruit bearing dna that is in Christ. Our lives now contain the fruit of His Holy Spirit. We are not retaining the genetic dna of our old lives. Resentment and bitterness are produced when forgiveness is absent. By forgiving, we stop retaining the bitterness of the past. In His words, we are not retaining the sins of our past. We are completely new creations. II Corinthians 5:17: "Therefore, if anyone is (grafted) in Christ, he/she is a new creation altogether, the old moral, spiritual condition is passed away. Behold, the fresh and new one has come".

We can choose to remember, think of, continue or keep on in the old ways of our old life. We can retain trespasses but that would be like the new lemon tree with the fruit bearing dna refusing to bloom and produce lemons. My tree is a completely new kind of lemon tree.... it was grafted into a completely different kind of tree trunk. The life force flowing through it now is carrying, contains and is incorporating fruit bearing into every new branch. Lemons are on the way! That is inevitable!

So if... I am a new creation.... and the one I am grafted into produces love, patience, kindness, gentleness, joy, peace, long suffering, goodness and faith, then those fruits will be in me. I now contain the life force of the one who contains that fruit. I am grafted into the perfect love of God the Creator. My wounds have been dipped in the healing oil of Holy Spirit and I am pressed into Christ. I am a NEW sort of tree... I am a holy fruit bearing tree. I am in Christ and He flows through me. I choose NOT to retain sin. I choose to contain Him. Harvest time is near. Get the baskets ready, the pickers of coming! What about you. Are there fruit trees in your life that DON'T produce the fruit their name inclines? Are you producing the kind of fruit others would want to enjoy?