Refusing the Mandate of the Garden

It's Morning, Jesus

By the truth of your Word
By the light of our own history
By the evidence of your works
Show us ourselves.

In your covenant with Adam you gave a mandate:
"Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." (Gen 1:28)
And even when man failed you, you still sent him
out of the garden to accomplish your task in a broken world.

But when the evil became so great, you were sorry you had
made man (Genesis 6:6) and decided to blot out the creation
with a flood.

Yet Noah found favor with you, O God, and you saved him and his
family, and in your covenant with Noah (Genesis 9:1) you said, as you
said to Adam, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth."

But now, here we are again, Lord, with rebellion in Noah's sons.
This distant grandson of Noah, named Nimrod, builds a city, and a whole
city, a whole culture, turns against you.

Rather than fulfilling the mandate of the covenant, "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth", they hold up in Babel, and decide to build a name for themselves.

We come to you this morning, Lord, as a covenanted people.
As you made a Covenant with Adam, with Noah and then with Abraham, so you
have made a Covenant with us.

Reveal to us how we wander.
Reveal to us the temptations that rob us from fulflling your mandate.
Strengthen our character, renew us in our purpose, and find us made stronger by every test.

In Jesus name,
Amen