Most of us would immediately say they are the words spoken in Genesis 1:28, “Be fruitful and increase in number.”
However, those words were spoken to Adam and Eve. “God blessed them and said to them. Likely those words were said right after the creation of Eve in Genesis 2:21-25.
So, what was spoken first?
“You are free” (Genesis 2:16).
Think about that!
The very first words God said to a human being: “You are free!”
We have bought Satan’s lie that God is a shalt-not God. Yet God’s first communication with us shouts, “I am a shalt Got!”
“You are free!”
We are choice-makers. We are choosers. We are free.
How powerfully that message should ring in our ears when tempted to sin. How powerfully that message should have rung in our ancestral parents’ (Adam and Eve) ears when the Serpent tempted them.
When you think of God, do you think of the Freedom-Giver?
When you think of yourself, do you think of the Free-one?
When faced with choices toward good or evil, do you hear the words, “You are free!” Free to choose good over evil.
When you are in an intense conversation and words are about to spill out of your mouth--death words, cruel words, harmful words, critical words--do you remember that "you are free" to stop; free to choose life words, constructive words.
We are not controlled by our "personalities," by our circumstances, by others. We are free.
One message pounded into my head again and again when researching Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction, is the glaring truth, practiced daily by Christian slaves that "You may control my body, but you cannot control my soul! My body may be enslaved, but my mind is free. I am free!"
If enslaved African American Christians could remember this foundational truth, then why can't we?
“You are free!”
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