Article December 30, 1985 Issue

First Commandment: basis for freedom

JEANNE STEELY LAITNER

Truly free individuals are those who are so firmly convinced they are dependent upon God alone that they know nothing can ever confront them that will separate them from God. Such freedom is based upon a solid realization of man's inseparable oneness with God, the Principle of all reality and goodness. No more basic guideline for gaining such freedom has ever been uttered than the First Commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."^{Ex. 20:3.}

The great significance of the First Commandment must sink deeply into our thinking. Our constant need is to measure our obedience to it by asking ourselves whether we are giving power to anyone or anything other than God. Deity is the source of all reality. Everything He knows is real, and He knows only good. Therefore good alone is real. There is, there can be, no other power than God because He is All, He is One, and there is nothing outside His allness. Increasing dominion and independence result as we learn the vital significance of subservience to no other power than God. But if we accord power or reality to anything or anyone else, we are, in effect, having other gods and breaking the First Commandment.

Through the centuries mankind has made tremendous efforts to gain freedom from enslavement of every description. And freedom has been courageously won in many areas of human experience. Freedoms such as the right to vote, the right to private ownership, to a fair trial, to a free press, and to the worship of God according to one's own conscience have been extremely important—if not yet universal—gains, which have blessed people immeasurably.

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