The Virginia GMC Conference Church Multiplication Team meets on the first Monday of each month. In September, Yeonmi Kang, a lay member of the Team and a member at Smith Chapel Global Methodist Church in Great Falls, brought the following devotion challenging us to be faithful to God’s first commandment. May the devotion connect your heart with God’s heart as we together multiply His kingdom.
Devotion By: Yeonmi Kang
26 Then God said, “Let us make man[a] in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 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.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.”
Genesis 1:26-29 ESV
God created male and female in His image and after His likeness, after preparing the whole earth for them. Then He blessed them. The very first blessing He poured out was this: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.” The word bless appears here for the first time in Scripture, and it is directed toward His people. This shows that being “fruitful and multiplying and filling the earth and subduing it” was a central part of God’s purpose for creating humanity —because it was the first blessing and command He gave them.
When God created Adam and Eve, He already envisioned countless people being birthed into life, filling the earth under His reign, and living as citizens of His Kingdom. In God’s dream, they were living out their God-given purpose, glorifying Him, and walking in deep intimacy with Him. God even provided everything Adam and Eve needed to multiply; they were created in God’s image and likeness, having qualities that reflect Him — love, intelligence, patience, kindness, and creativity — to form community, exercise dominion over the earth and all creatures, and enjoy the abundant food He provided. As my friend once said, the earth would have been glowing with the flourishing light of glory reflected from God.
But after the fall of humanity, fulfilling God’s command to multiply could no longer happen simply by having babies. People now needed the blood of Jesus to be restored — to bear God’s image again and to reflect His likeness. People needed to be discipled, baptized in the name of the Triune God, and taught to obey His commands in order to become citizens of the Kingdom and children of God. (Matthew 28:19–20) Therefore, obeying the Great Commission is actually embracing that original command to multiply, which was the very first blessing and command God gave humanity.
God has already provided everything we need to equip us to multiply, just as He did in the beginning. In fact, God prepared His people for this even before the foundation of the world. Paul declares in Ephesians 1:3–4:
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.”
Those who are saved by faith in Christ were chosen in Him before the creation of the world, and they are now blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Having Christ in us, being led by the Holy Spirit, and living with gratitude to God for the new life given through the Son of God who died on the cross to ransom us — this is what it means to live in those spiritual blessings.
In Greek, the word blessing here carries the meaning of praise. Therefore, with this blessing — that is, with praise to the Lord who gives us eternal life — we are equipped to fulfill our purpose of multiplying new followers of Christ. This should be at the very core of who we are as believers. God is determined to make a way and provide every blessing we need as we step out of our comfort zones and obey His call to be fruitful and multiply. The Holy Spirit will empower us, and Jesus has promised to be with us.
What is required of us, then, is faith — faith to obey this command to multiply trusting that God will provide what we need, even when we feel inadequate to share the gospel or fearful to approach unbelievers with the Word of God. Let us pray that the Lord would bless us with the grace to give birth to countless spiritual children, filling the earth with His glory.