One of the primary characteristics of the kingdom of God is the principle of multiplication. This characteristic of the kingdom, oft-times referred to as sowing and reaping, has been so commonly taught in most churches that there is little need for me to expound greatly upon it here. Nearly everyone who has been part of the body of Christ for more than a few months has heard of the principle of sower and reaping … especially as it applies to giving. “He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully … Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest” (2 Corinthians 9:6, 10). As we give of our finances, sowing them into the kingdom of God, they will be returned to us by God in multiplied fashion. Jesus taught this principle in parables and declared it clearly in Luke 6:38, “If you give, you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full measure, pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, and running over. Whatever measure you use in giving — large or small — it will be used to measure what is given back to you.”

Created for Multiplication
While the principle of sowing and reaping is in operation in the sphere of our finances, it has far broader application to every citizen of Heaven. As believers, this “law of the harvest” affects every aspect of our lives. Whether it is generosity, kindness, honor, encouragement, energy, time, etc. — God multiplies back to us what we sow into others.

But this dimension of reaping what we sow is only one facet of God’s law of multiplication. For God’s kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, we must also have multiplication in our lives. God multiplies back to us what we have sown, and He desires to reap from our lives what He has sown into them! The Lord expects multiplication to be happening not just for us but from us! He looks forward to seeing all the things He has sown into our lives being multiplied from our lives. God knows that the “soil of our heart” is fertile soil, and He expects to reap a harvest from what He has planted there. The Lord is a faithful gardener who plants, nurtures, waters, and prunes our lives, and having labored so diligently He requires them to be fruitful. In the fifteenth chapter of John, Jesus told His disciples that He expected them to be fruitful. “He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit … My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples” (John 15:5,8). If you have any doubts of the importance of this to God, look how He deals with unfruitfulness: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in Me that bears no fruit” (John 15:1–2).

A Character Of The Covenant
Multiplication is far more than just a principle of nature; it is part of our covenant relationship with God. According to Scripture, Abraham is the father of our faith, and by faith we have become the spiritual seed of Abraham. Because we are the spiritual seed of Abraham, we have come into covenant relationship with God and inherited the covenant promises from God. One of these covenant promises is the blessing of multiplication. The Lord promised Abraham “I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you” (Hebrews 6:13–14). God promised Abraham that all the earth would be blessed through him, and He expects us to operate our lives in light of this covenant promise today. It is God’s nature to bestow the blessing of multiplication upon all those with whom He walks in covenant. Since God made a covenant with Israel that they would be His own people, He also pronounced the blessing of multiplication over them. “For I will look on you favorably and make you fruitful, multiply you and confirm My covenant with you” (Leviticus 26:9). Multiplication was a promised part of the covenant God had with Abraham and Israel, and has with us today.

God is looking for a people who will fully embrace the principle of multiplication in their lives — both reaping what they have sown, and multiplying what has been sown into them. He wants this to become an operating principle in our lives; a characteristic of our nature that applies to every part of our lives — the physical, the spiritual, the ministerial, and the precious things of the kingdom.

In the physical realm, God desires for us to multiply, to have children. In the very beginning God created man and blessed them saying, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). From the beginning God has expected (in fact commanded) us to increase by multiplication. When man was given a fresh start after the flood, God said exactly the same thing. As Noah and his family got off the Ark “God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” (Genesis 9:1). Yes, from our very inception we have been created to operate in the principle of multiplication in the physical realm. Father God wanted His children to reproduce, to share in His creative nature, and by this take dominion of this earth.

God created us to reproduce; to multiply — not to just replace ourselves, but to leave an increase! The great fallacy of overpopulation and covetous hearts that pursue the things of this world have led many in our day to neglect this mandate from God. That this is true of our godless society is not surprising. That it has taken root in the hearts of God’s children is distressing. Have we forgotten Psalm 127:3–5 “Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.” God has commanded us to “Go forth and multiply,” and we dare not abandon this call for the pleasure of this world.

Children In The Faith
Not only should we be procreating physical children, we should be reproducing spiritual children. Look how the apostle Paul addressed Timothy, “To Timothy, a true son in the faith” (1 Timothy 1:2). Do you have any spiritual sons and daughters? Creating spiritual children should be expected if we truly have the character of multiplication operating in our lives. In the Great Commission Jesus told His disciples that He was looking for them to multiply the spiritual life He had sown into them. When He said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations …” (Matthew 28:19), He was saying “Disciples, I have sown discipling into you. Go forth and make disciples. Disciples, go forth and multiply!”

Every believer should be reproducing children of faith. And just as in the physical realm, our spiritual children will “look like us.” From the dawn of creation, God has made all things to reproduce “after their own kind.” Apples don’t come from pear trees, and you shouldn’t plant corn if you want to harvest tomatoes. This principle holds true not just for plants and animals but for our spiritual lives as well. If you are a worship leader, you should be producing worship leaders. The life of a teacher should reproduce teachers. While we should encourage and support every aspect of ministry in the Church, the Lord expects the spiritual life He has sown into us to reap a multiplied harvest.

Multiplying The Kingdom
Every aspect of the kingdom of God that the Lord has sown into our lives should be reproduced in them. God has sown forgiveness into our hearts, and wants to reap a harvest of forgiving people. He has reconciled us to Himself, and expects us to be reconcilers of others. God has poured His love into us, and He is waiting for us to become a people who pour love back upon Him and upon others. God has sown so much into our lives, let us be truly fruitful for Him by multiplying the seed so that He will reap an abundant harvest.

There is little doubt that multiplication is a principle of the kingdom of God that is operating in our lives. But just because something is a principle of God’s kingdom doesn’t mean that it has become a part of our character. You might understand and whole-heartedly agree with the principle of honesty. You might even be able to recognize honesty in your life. But only when you determine to live your life under this principle — so that it alters not only what you do, but how you think — does it become part of your character. Principles become character when we choose to embrace them; when we engraft them into our very nature and align everything that comes into our lives or flows out of them with that principle.

This is God’s desire for the principle of multiplication. He wants more than us assenting to the fact that it is true. He wants more than us holding it up to Him when we have sown and are awaiting a harvest. God is longing for a people who will truly embrace multiplication in our lives. If we will determine to yield our lives to multiplication operating fully in and through us, our lives will begin to produce a harvest of all that God has planted — a harvest in the realm of the physical, the spiritual, the ministry, and the kingdom. Let us be fruitful as the Lord has created us to be, and go forth and multiply!