LIVE OUTSIDE THE BOX // S06E02

Are you wearing God’s identity? Are you walking in the freedom found in Christ? The cage is unlocked and open, ready for you to walk out in freedom. You’re free to serve God in everything that counts. Don’t be a slave to a mentality that keeps you incaged and that keeps God in a box. You’re thinking too small, don’t be limited to dreams of this world, walk in freedom! There are 8,000 promises ready for you!

VERSES FROM OPEN CAGES:

Galatians 5:1, Galatians 6, John 8:36, Galatians 5:13, Corinthians 13, Luke 21:36 and Corinthians 3:17.

QUESTIONS FROM OPEN CAGES::

• What is holding you back?
• Are you keeping God in a box?
• Are your thoughts trapped in enslaved thoughts?

QUOTES FROM OPEN CAGES::

“A lot of people will accept him as savior, but they aren’t fully aware that they’re free yet. There are still so many chains and shackles that he’s unlocked, yet you’re still wearing them like jewelry”.

Michelle Watson, The Pantry Podcast, Open Cages.

“Why are we limiting God? You know, we hear that all the time. Why are we keeping God in a box? Why? If he’s not in a box, why do I have to stay in the box?”

Shea Watson, The Pantry Podcast, Open Cages.

ANNOTATED TRANSCRIPT:

Shea: How free do you feel that we are free in Christ? We can still find ourselves sitting in old traps and clinging to unlock chains.
Michelle: The familiar ain’t always friendly, but it can feel much safer than the unknown this week. We’re taking a deeper look at the chains, the world can’t see, but still hold us down in mental slavery.

Shea: Hey, I’m Shea.

Michelle: And I’m Michelle.

Shea: There’s a battle being waged. It’s not flesh, it’s not blood, it’s spiritual, and we need to be prepared. The last thing a warrior wants on the battlefield is spiritual anemia. When the enemy attacks we need to be prepared

Michelle: We don’t always realize where the attacks are coming from or that we’re being attacked at all. This is the pantry podcast, and we’re here to remind you of who we answer to what we’re capable of, and how we are called to do it in every aspect of our lives.

Shea: This is season six, rewired when you’re saved, you’re saved for good, we all experienced sanctification differently. The more we grow in our relationship with the Lord, the more he transforms and renews our minds. The more we cut the cords of this world, the more we’re charged up in him this season, we’re arming you with the sermon of some of the culture’s most toxic snares

Michelle: Support our ministry, reaching the lost and found in over 35 countries with spiritual and literal nutrition. Every one-time and recurring donation makes a lasting impact, donate through Patreon or pantrypodcast.com. And now let’s dig into the meal.

Shea: Awesome to be here, man. We are on episode two in season six, and we’re talking about open cages tonight. Really? When we think of an open cage, we think of freedom. You know, we think of like, you think of a bird that’s inside of a cage and you know, you lock it, then like, let’s say you open that door and sometimes a fly out. Sometimes a bird won’t fly out. It all depends on their mindset. It depends on how they feel. Are they comfortable with what’s outside? Are they not comfortable? Will they hold themselves back? Right. And when I was thinking of the verses, Galatians 5:1 really, really hit me because number one, it speaks of our freedom in Christ. And of course, that’s why we’re here. I mean, we are here to encourage, we’re here to build man. Not just you guys, for us.

Shea: Yeah. And I think that we need to live in this. We need to learn this because this is a battle, right? This is a battle that we go through. This is a battle that can hold us back. This is a battle that will keep us from the freedoms that grace has given us. Galatians 5:1 says for freedom, Christ has set us free stand firm, therefore, and do not submit, submit again to a yoke of slavery. Here we are in this birdcage. This is, imagine this for a minute. We know we’re in his birdcage. The door opens, you know, we, we, we find Christ the store opens and we don’t move. We stay in what I would call a pseudo position. Yeah. Because when Christ freezes, when he saves us, that’s who we are. We’re a new creation now. Right? That’s factual. We’re a new creation now. And if we’re held to bondage at that point, it’s pseudo, it doesn’t exist. It exists in our flesh. It exists in our minds, that is not what Christ saying. In fact, he’s probably this I have to go on. It knows that you’re

Michelle: It’s about living in the identity that you have and not your old identity. I think some people will often say, well, that means you’re not saved. It’s like, how many times are you given an identity? Yet you don’t know how to walk in it just in life. As the first day on a new job, the first day that you’re married the first day of being a parent, the first day of anything like, you’re like, okay, I’m still walking in a lot of ways that are the old me. And there’s learned helplessness that comes when you’re thinking about the slavery aspect. We are all slaves until Christ frees us. Like you said, last week, everything outside of Christ is death. Right? Right. We were dead and slaves to sin. That’s who we were. And depending on how long you walked in that that was the identity, you were kind of a pro at.

Michelle: And either you hated every minute of it, or you were happy with it, or you just learned. Like that was the way it is. There was nothing else, you know? And you ended up accepting it. That was what you were wearing. Right? And a lot of people will accept him as savior, they aren’t fully aware that they’re free yet. And then even if, you know, you’re free of that, there’s still many chains and shackles that he’s unlocked, you’re still wearing them like jewelry, you know, like some, you might be like, oh, I hate this ball and chain. And some you’re like, this is my Prada, Tiffany, whatever chain. And it’s a chain that makes you feel good at the moment. It’s the chain. That’s getting you things in a way you think is faster than the way God would deliver them. It’s the chain that helps you feel in control. Right? And really it’s a yoke of bondage that you could easily, and I’ll say simply, I won’t say easily. You could simply remove it because I like to say simple and easy. And it’s because it’s a simple fact that you could remove it. Sometimes depending on what it is, it’s not easy.

Shea: Right. And I liked that. I liked it because it’s not easy. I mean, okay. Some things go away quickly. It’s like, I’m going to break this down and let people really understand how the, how the psyche works though. Now we are fighting a lot, you know, we got to understand, you know, it does say that we’re not fighting flesh and blood. We’re fighting the principalities there. There is a battle within our minds. Hence why the armor is important, why Galatians 6 is important. Why having the homeless salvation is important and to move on down to the shield of faith and you know, the breastplate of righteousness and all these cool things. I say this all the time because you know what is important to Don. It is important to put this armor on every single day.

Shea: Because if we don’t have this armor, there’s no hope. There’s no hope. I mean, we’re out there like in the wind now, granted, you can’t steal my soul. You can’t steal my soul. When I was in the army, we had SERE training. This is like survival escape and evade. Right. And it’s like, they throw you out there minimally. Right. And you’re supposed to escape and you’re supposed to hide out until they capture you. Then they capture you. And I remember at one point I was thrown into this cage. Now I’d been gone for a long time.

Shea: Anyways, I get thrown in this cage and there are these dudes in there not look granted, let me tell you what Siri school does. They’re allowed to beat. You. They’re allowed to hurt you. They’re allowed to do a lot of things for you. They just can’t kill you. And these dudes are pretty shaken up and I’m sitting in there and in my mind, I’m like, this ain’t real. This is real. And I was getting, you know, you get hit, you get kicked to get whatever. These guys were in this cage and, and you know, I said, I get kicked. I could get thrown in there with them.

Shea: And I’m like, okay. You know, and I started checking things out in the guards, walkway, you know, the guards. Right. And I go and I touch the door and it’s open. And I’m like, yo, the door is open. Like, dude, I’ll pump. I’m like this let’s do this. Let’s go. No, no, no, we can’t. No. I left there by myself. They wouldn’t come, see, look open cages. I just ran again, got beat up, got thrown in a hole. I mean, there’s a, I mean, they catch you it’s just, but what it does is, is the whole point behind it is, you know, you’re holding information and long story short, you’re just, you know, it’s training. And in my mind, I’m sitting there, watch this it’s training. Yeah. The word of God is training. Right? Right. When I start to apply and I start to understand the principle behind how God and how Christ works and how they’ve changed me, I can stand against anything, a mustard seed, faith, move that mountain. And it’s like, these dudes wouldn’t move, that’s what we’re talking about tonight. That is what we’re talking about. It’s the cage holding ourselves in this cage, not allow, you know when the door opens and Christ is like, you are free. You are free. Indeed. John 8 36. And we stay in the cage. I don’t, I bet Jesus like what? Come on, come on.

Michelle: Minds me, it reminds me of, God’s not dead. That’s where this episode, the whole name of the episode came from. God’s not dead. The movie where at the end, I’m not even gonna say which characters in case you still haven’t seen the movie. You might have just come to Christ. Now you can go see a movie. Right. One of the characters drops this bomb, an epic story. And in the story, the cage door is open. The whole and the person inside is just sitting in there. And then one day it slams shut forever. Right now that is an allegory to salvation and the choice of that. Right. When I heard that story, I was already saved. And the idea quickly started developing in my head of all of the ways that we still take. We carry with us the baggage and I’ll say the wardrobe, right. I’ll get, or the pantry I’ll keep,

Shea: I’ll keep the name. I’ll keep the theme.

Michelle: Is that going for clothes? I’ll go for food items. Right? We’re like, lemme bring all the stuff of my worldly, earthly diet with me into this new man. And then you’re like, well, I don’t really have that much space. You put in some spiritual stuff and maybe you even reach for that more often, there’s a lot of stuff still taking up space. And some of its culture, your tribe, your creed, your allegiance to whatever it is, your culture, your traditions, right. Have led you to places that make you compromise, make you, or keep you blind or bind you in ways that are unnecessary. And this even is applicable. If you came from a religious background and now you have a relationship with Christ. And you’re carrying all these checkboxes, all these burdens, all this guilt, all of these trappings that are going to distract from the relationship that is going to slow down your progression in sanctification because you’re hung up.

Michelle: And I like to think of it as balls and chains because that does slow you down. And sometimes yes, you could argue that’s good weight training, right. Yes, it’s good weight training, what do the weight like the people who wear leg weights to practice running eventually when the race happens, they take them off and they run, right. They don’t keep them on accounts and we’re running what we’re running a race. And take them off and you will be taking them off, brings the strength, taking them off. You get to see now that I know what that was now that I see it for what it is. I get to run the race faster. And that doesn’t mean, oh, I’m better, higher place. No, like that’s not what it’s about with God. it’s like, okay, well now I’m more useful. I’m more fruitful.

Michelle: My life is more full of hope and joy. Every time you drop one of these things, because we’re often fearful that what comes next could never be as good. Right? And I, I was told this earlier, it could also be that you hate what you have. All you want is something better, you’re terrified that what will come instead will make you miss the thing you currently hate. Regardless the root is fear. Right? Right. And you mentioned Galatians five, one, Galatians, five 13, all of Galatians five, Galatians 5:13 says for you were called to freedom. Brothers only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. But through love, serve one another. You will much better serve others. If you start letting go of these weights. Imagine if my daughter, our daughter fell in, in the water and I jumped in with all these weights on, I would not be the best asset. And

Shea: King David. Well, it wasn’t king at the time. Well, he always, he was labeled, he was labeled, he was called. He was not appointed, the same thing. He walks in, you know, they want to throw on worldly, weight, you know, the worldly armor. And he’s like, I’m good. That’s not how I, no, that’s not how I’ve trained. Right. That’s not how I trained. He picks up the stones. Like, can we pick up the word? You know, I’m not saying I’m David. I’m just saying, but I pick up the word, I pick up the word and I sit in the word. I like what you’re saying. It’s like, what are we doing? What are we doing when we’re allowing the influence of the world to come in? What are we doing? And then we, and then we wonder too, why am I, why am I conflicted? Why am I conflicted? You’re occupied. That’s why you’re conflicted. You’ve got the holy spirit inside of you. That is why you’re conflicted. Do you want it? I mean, do we understand this? I mean, I cast a struggle. I do. I really do, we’re trying to keep the world inside of a temple that has been occupied by the holy spirit. And then we sit there and wonder why tables being flipped. Yo,

Michelle: I just thought as a pet, we want to keep the world as a pet. Like, like we, like, we were like, well, you know, it’s not my master no more. Now it’s my pet. And we want to keep it and feed it and entertain it. Sometimes snuggle it. At the end of the day, we can put it back in the kennel if we want. And it’s like, well, putting it in a cage in the temple doesn’t work. In the same way that our cage is open and we’re technically free, keeping the world locked up for when we’re bored for when we need an escape, he won’t actually do it. That’s the good news. We already know the world doesn’t lead us anywhere. Good. Praise God that the world can’t lead you out of your problems, you really would be relying on it all of the time, it always disappoints us.

Michelle: Doesn’t it. Every time we try, even if it’s not immediate, disappointment is a very quick turnaround of dissatisfaction, right? Put on the identity of freedom in Christ. You’re free to serve the God of everything that counts. No matter your record, be fruitful in eternal impactful ways, free access to his heavenly court. The fruits of the spirit, the giftings of God to tread on serpents. Like there’s so much like we’re thinking too small. When we think I have the freedom to park my car where I want to have the freedom to build my business. I have the freedom to own land, man. That’s like, tell that to the Lord of everything is too small and that’s not to downplay it when he gives it to you. It’s like, don’t, don’t stop. Don’t limit to this world because then that’s, that’s still slave mentality, right? Because when you’re a slave, you have aspirations and goals like to become the best friend of, of the owner. That’s still slave thoughts. We don’t need that. We need to have St thoughts,

Shea: No, I liked that St. Thoughts y’all hear that. St. Thoughts. No, I can’t agree with you before I, this is, this is my discussion. This is our discussion. This is what we believe. This is what we want to achieve, listen to what I said there. What we want to achieve. This is not an easy thing to grab a hold of. The gospel is easy. Gospel. Salvation is easy. Learning how to live in that salvation. Learning how to, to lock, you know, dial-in, watch these 8,000 plus promises. Oh, like eight. Okay. Look, if you can look, I’m talking about right now, if you can, if you know, all 8,000 promises right now, email us and write them down. Cause, cause I don’t even know God’s promises.

Shea: Y’all, I mean, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on the provision, the provision, what he does for us, how he gets us through, why are we, why are we limiting ourselves? No. Why are we limiting God? You know, we hear that all the time. Why are we keeping God in a box? Why? So if he’s not in a box, why do I have to stay in the box? And right. I just thought Jack in the box. I don’t know why, you know, as we’re saying, as we think of these things, right, we’ve got to stay awake. Yeah. We got to stay awake. We got to be sure that we’re not being influenced by these traditions of these cultures. We’re not taking things from philosophies.

Shea: We’re not taking things from culture and we’re not applying them to the word of God, we’re applying the word of God to our lives. Test everything, test everything. Especially in these times, there are many thoughts on doctrine. These days, there are many thoughts on what the world should be doing these days. And, and let me tell you something, some of it tugs at the heartstrings. He is really good at manipulating the heartstrings. He’ll put you into a position where you fall in love with something or someone, and then maybe they don’t align correctly to whatever you believe in from the word of God. And now because you fall in love with him or you’ve loved them. It’s like you start to drift into conforming. And I’m not saying that that happens to every, we gotta be firm. We gotta make sure that you know what, we can still love and still have the truth.

Shea: loves saying it all the time. Like speak and love that doesn’t see the truth. I like putting the word truth first and then love. Now, of course, nothing happens without love or it’s Corinthians 13, I got to make sure that truth is in there because that is love. Yeah. And then for, speak the truth in love, you know? I take his truth, which is love. And now I apply it to other people, I apply it in truth. Luke 21:36 says it says, stay awake at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that are going to take place and to stand before the son of man. And that’s where we need to be.

Michelle: We need to overtime. And I know we’re using a lot of, we need to, we need to, I think it’s because earnestly so genuinely, this whole season is about waking us up. We’re all awake at different levels to the different truths of God’s word. And that’s beautiful. We all have a role to play in one, another sanctification and growth process. We’re just so adamant. And we’re speaking to ourselves because he wakes us up all the time to new ways where we’re still thinking like a slave of the world, right? We’re the world’s system we grew up in is still tainting or limiting God’s word in our life. Do you know? And that’s why we’re so passionate about it and saying, we need to, we need, because we truly, it’s not. You’ll want to that’s the goal to get to, I want to do this.

Michelle: And then of course it’s not a perfect walk, but the comfort that the pure, this is the fact of this entire episode is second Corinthians 3:17. Now the Lord is the spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is. There is freedom period. Now, how do I walk in freedom, go to the father, go to the son, go to the holy spirit, dig deep into the word, focus on the relationship above all else? And the rest comes right in a way that doesn’t need to be compared to anybody else because the more you fall in love with God, the more you won’t even want that stuff, you might not even have to actively remove it. It might just fall off because you were too busy, enjoying and being about the father’s business to be about that thing anymore.

Shea: What I really like to say is we will, that’s really what I like to say. We will move forwards!

Shea: There’s hope in it. I will. I will. I will. I will. That’s kind of like saying, I think when we’re speaking as a couple, as a, as a cohost and a wife and a husband, I get caught in that. As we will, because I’m declaring, we need to, and really that is good verbiage though, to say, I will, we will, we will stand in God. We will, you know, my, my household will serve the Lord, you know, we will, you know, and it’s like, but we also need to, and I don’t think you can get away from that. The Bible though really makes it specific in saying that we will, you don’t find the need to in there, it’s actually, you will do this. If you want this, you will do this. And I think it’s a, it’s important to, to shine that light too, that this isn’t something that is like marginal.

Shea: I mean, it feels good saying it. Yeah, yeah,

Shea: Yeah. Yeah. I’m not changing my verbiage. We’re going to rewire goodbye. We need to because that’s the hope,

Michelle: Right. And I’m not going to sit there and edit out all we need. Cause this is like a perfect example of an on-air rewiring from the spirit that just reflects. Right?

Shea: That’s perfect, man. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you guys for being here with us, for spending this time. We will see y’all next week. Be confident, stand tall, know that you’re standing on the most solid rock. They can get you through anything and man, you will not be stuck in that mental cage.

Michelle: Amen. It has been awesome. Remember, you can get in touch with us @thepantrypodcast.com as well as on all our social networks. Our weekly question is what is one chain you need help breaking. Yeah. We want to hear you, we want to spotlight some of those answers. We can keep them anonymous if you want. Just let us know. So until next week, bye.

KEYWORDS: ARE YOU LIMITING GOD? ARE YOU WALKING IN FREEDOM? ARE YOU DREAMING TOO SMALL? BREAK CHAINS. NEW IDENTITY. DREAM OUTSIDE THE BOX.