Last night I was meditating on the concept of multiplication. In the garden, one of the charges God gave to man was that he was to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it. And before this occurred, the Lord had made man in His own image. He gave man His likeness and told man to go and multiply. Too often church history has focused on this passage to come to the conclusion that God was interested in man physically filling the earth. While God was certainly commanding that man physically multiply, I also believe this was a directive for man to multiply spiritually. Because when God made man, he made him a being that had a body, soul and spirit.
From two humans and over a few thousand years, man has multiplied to over 6.5 billion people!! That's some multiplication in the physical realm. But how about the spirit realm? What's occurring there? To understand this better, I like using examples. My wife and I were married 23 years ago. During our marriage we have been blessed with 4 beautiful daughters. So in the physical realm, the union of 2 became 6. Or you can say that we multiplied by a factor of 3 times (2 x 3 = 6). For the average American family, that's not too bad. For the largest family I know of, the union of 2 became 12, or they multiplied by a factor of 6. However, the physical realm is limited in how much it can multiply. For example, a woman only produces so much seed during her lifetime. So at the maximum potential a couple could multiply by 20 or 30 times. Unheard of yes, but we are just exploring possibilities.
However, the spiritual realm has infinite capacity to multiply. One of God's calls is that we are to be conformed to the image of His son (Romans 8:29). This means that God is in the process of redeeming our character to the point that not only will we be saved, but we will take on the very likeness of Jesus Himself. This isn't being done in the physical realm, but in the soul and spirit of man. And since Jesus is infinite (without limitations), this then becomes our potential. That's something to chew on. But lets bring this down to a practical example to understand the multiplication of Jesus in and through us.
Suppose I do something kind for someone today. By my action of kindness, I affect someone else. Maybe that someone else had a bad attitude. However, my act of kindness turned their heart and helped them overcome depression or anger. My kind act resulted in the multiplication of Godly character in another human being. But just suppose I do something kind that is witnessed by ten people at one time. I now have affected ten with Godly character. And what happens when those ten affect someone else? The increase of Godly character is multiplied several times over. This is a simple example, but I think it illustrates the potential that God has given to man. We have the ability to multiply the likeness of God beyond our wildest imagination.
A sobering thought is that God gave man the ability to multiply, however, when lucifer deceived Adam and Eve another multiplication variable was introduced. Now man can either multiply the character of God or the character of lucifer. Regardless which character man chooses, the end result is that man will multiply.
So, who are you? Or in keeping with this blog thought, who are you multiplying?
Blessings to you!
P.S. Much more to come on the "Who Am I" topic
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