September 22, 2020 – Be Fruitful and Multiply

So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female, He created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”  Genesis 1:27-28.

From the beginning, God shows His affinity for abundance and the growth of goodness. Tearing down what God has built brings sorrow, first to God.

What kind of life did Noah live?  When the corruption reached the chief point, in Genesis 6:8, we find these words, But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. In the next word, Noah is described as a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.  Think of all Noah was able to do when he walked humbly with God. Imagine God teaching Noah step by step in building the ark, without power tools and hearing these instructions!

Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark 300 cubits, its breadth 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits. Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above, and set the door of the ark in its side. Make it with lower, second, and third decks. Genesis 6:14-16.

Noah was only one man. Did he make a difference?  Yes. Just as you do.

A farmer in Kansas, my cousin, Kevin Suderman, planting seed, wrote: The single seed in this picture can produce the whole cob in the background. That cob holds another 500 seeds give or take a few. How many of us realize that the seeds we plant in our lives promulgate themselves throughout generation after generation?

From Genesis to Galatians, and we find the open secret as to the seeds that last through the years and make a difference in the lives of others.

As I compare the ear of corn to the tiny kernel of corn in the graphic, I realize it is impossible to take in what one tiny kernel of corn does when planted and cared for.

Then Jesus came to this earth, to make a Way for us to find God and to know God.  Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.  In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.  John 14:19-20.

Jesus prepared to leave this earth and promised a ‘Helper’ to live within us.  “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.”  John 14:15-17.

Fruitful, what can make us fruitful?  How can we be fruitful and multiply?  By His Love, this is possible when we love one another, even as God loves us by sending His Son Jesus to teach us about Love.  What is love? “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”  John 3:16.

The list of attributes that show true love are these: patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. How can we find these?  Through abiding and living in Jesus. God gives us Love, Joy, and Peace, when we trust Jesus and walk with Him daily.  Galatians 5:22-23.  We know these as the Fruit of the Spirit—the spiritual gifts that become ours when we belong to Jesus.  Treating others with patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control does not include a list of behaviors that cause dissention and raise enemies. The emotions and actions that cause envy, anger, idolatry, jealousy, dissension, and divisions do not include love.  Being filled with the Fruit of the Spirit makes each of us worthy ambassadors for Jesus.

          Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, you will recognize them by their fruits.  Matthew 7:19-20.

Have you ever seen kernels on an ear of corn fighting?  No, they belong on the cob, just as we belong to Jesus if we enjoy God’s Love, Joy, and Peace.

I appreciate my cousin’s Combine Wisdom… He ends with a prayer; I pray that the seed I plant is good for the Lord, no matter what my circumstances.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.  The wicked are not so but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Psalm 1:3-4.

 “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.” Luke 6:43-44.

 But what fruit did you find from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.  But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.  For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 6:21-23.

For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true) and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.  Ephesians 5:8-11.

 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment,  so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,  filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.  Philippians 1:9-11.

         You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Isaiah 26:3.