Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;“
Genesis 2:16

This is a positive command. It is a command to expressly enjoy the things of this world that God has provided for us (and an indirect allusion against theft, which is expressly enjoying the things of this world that God has provided for someone else). It is a command to enjoy those things as WE see fit – it would be impossible to over-indulge.

God emphasised the importance of eating in order to keep alive and healthy by making sure humanity was aware they were commanded to eat – and to eat freely, not holding back when they had a need. They would not need to ask ‘what about this one’ for every tree, but could eat as they wanted from where they wanted without checking in with Him over what He had already provided for them.

This is also a confirmation, albeit unspoken, that they were not to eat even a minute amount of live tissue from any animal. It wasn’t a command not to eat meat, it was phrased so that WE understood that at that time NO MEAT was consumed – things were DIFFERENT in the garden. There was NO LACK and NO NEED to kill and death was NOT part of reality at that time for ANY reason – especially for the basic reason of nutrition and sustenance.

This is a command of prosperity. This is the essential command that the devil reversed in Genesis 3:1. Here God says humans could eat freely of every tree of the garden. Later, the devil asks if it’s true God says they couldn’t eat of any tree. The devil always attempts to get us to see ourselves in poverty. We have EVERYTHING if God is our Source. We will never get too much. We will never lack. We will get what we need when we need it – all will arrive in the perfect time for us to enjoy it and not have a negative attached to it. The devil tries to get us to focus on what we don’t have – right now or yet. The devil tries to get us to focus on the empty seats in the vehicle and forget that we are on the way to pick up the passengers. By focusing on the physically delivered, we can forget about what is coming in the mail. The devil says a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush. God says when we have a need, the bush will be overflowing with birds. That’s why when God teaches us about our prosperity, He exhorts us to focus on the SPIRITUAL before the PHYSICAL (3 John 2). We need God’s point of view to see everything that is COMING, so that we will not be overwhelmed OR underwhelmed by what is currently HERE. We need to see all the trees that are in our power. We do NOT need to focus on what isn’t.