No More Lockdown - How to Live UNLOCKED!
- Ainsley Shepherd
- Mar 4, 2021
- 11 min read
I'm sure I'm not the only one who is utterly sick of the word 'Lockdown!' After all it is for FREEDOM Christ has set us free and our God tells us to NOT be held ensnared in a yoke of slavery that we have once put off (Galatians 5:1). We were never created for lockdown of any form! The limitless God of the universe lives inside of us! We might feel as though other people or circumstances are locking us down... but what if I told you that sometimes WE put ourselves in voluntary lockdown, without even realising it?
You see, when Holy Spirit came to live inside of us, He brought the fullness of all He is, and the fullness of heaven with Him. Yet are we seeing that freely flow in our lives? Are we seeing the fullness of His boldness and courage in all that we do and say... or are we fearful and timid? Are we experiencing the fullness of His peace in our hearts... or are we living in anxiety and unrest? Are we seeing the free flow of finances in our lives to fulfil the goals we carry... or are we experiencing limitation and lack? Because in any area of our lives that we're not experiencing victory, we are in fact living in a partial or full lockdown. And often, whether we realise it or not, it's a lockdown that our hearts have entered into because of what we believe.
God says that His people perish for a lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6) - not because of a lack of provision or promises or inheritance. We just haven't understood the importance of our hearts to our experience of life, nor have we known what was available to us in the Kingdom of God or how to access it. Did you grow up being taught about how your heart works, how to live by faith and the reality of our inheritance? I wasn't! Most people have never even heard the real message of the Kingdom of God (and therefore, neither has the world). As a result, we've lived in lockdown.
Lockdown is any time we are restricted and constricted and otherwise unable to live in the fullness of the limitless life that we have been created for. It's any time we just can't get the big things we feel inside of us, to become a reality in our lives. Lockdown is whenever we feel like we can't move forward, though we want to. It's the places in which we feel frustrated, helpless and hopeless.
Perhaps you desperately want to feel joyful, but you're trapped in depression. You might want to build the business or write the book that's in your heart, but you're too afraid to move forward. You might want to make a big change in your life, but instead of choosing faith, you keep choose reasoning. You might want to love your family well but past traumas keep tormenting you and causing you to react badly to those you love most. Whatever the lockdown you've been experiencing, which has constricted and restricted you, chances are you've been battling with it for some time. Yet there's always an answer in Christ, and once we have the right knowledge, we can apply it. There's always a key to reverse any lockdown of our hearts and see the fullness of His victory in every area of our lives.
Children of the Most High God don't have any right to live in lockdown! When Jesus paid such a price to set us free, how could we do anything else but walk in the full freedom He has provided for us?
Of course, when I say that, many people may read it and feel offended. I know, because I've felt that way myself when reading about the promises of God and feeling as though it was unreasonable to expect I could control what was going on in my life because the circumstances were all out of my hands, or I'd tried to walk in obedience for years and yet the promises still weren't manifesting. 'It's not what I've chosen!', or 'I can't help it!', you might say. I know, I've cried out similar things, when I felt as though God was holding out on me financially, or as I felt the frustration of not being able to change the way others were treating me.
Yet I realised something. God is not a man that He shall lie. If He tells us something is possible for us, then it is. I realised my financial restriction was because of the restrictions in my heart, not because of Him. And no I couldn't control the behaviour of others, but I could certainly control my responses and I would not respond by shrinking into a mould of someone else's making. I realised that I'd been locking down my own heart, when all God was wanting to do was unlock it.
We'll never see our own hearts unlocked until we take responsibility for the part we've played in coming into lockdown, and until we give Holy Spirit permission to unlock us. This is the #1 key. In Song of Songs 5:4 (TPT) it says, My beloved reached into me and unlocked my heart. That means we must realise that there's places in our heart which have not been in alignment with His heart, and we need to give Him permission to show us what they are, so that we can instead choose to align with Him. When we're willing to believe it's possible we may have unknowingly (or knowingly) participated in our own lockdown, and we give Him permission to set us free, everything is liable to change!
What He does for one, He does for another. The God who has unlocked my heart in so many ways will also unlock yours! Let's find out how to reverse lockdown in every area, once and for all:
Reversing Spiritual Lockdown
The ultimate unlocking is when we allow Christ to unlock our hearts by receiving Him. We literally bring our spirits out of darkness and into the light when we make this choice. Prior to receiving Jesus, our spirits are shut down, dark and black. There is no connection with God or any power He gives us. But when we receive Jesus, our spirits light up with His life, and EVERYTHING becomes possible! This is where we receive Him as our Lord and Saviour and give Him access to guide our lives.
However, I've found that many people who believe they've received Jesus as their Lord have actually only ever received Him as their Saviour. In other words, they'll take the ticket to heaven they think they're getting, but they don't want to give up control of their lives and actually trust Him to direct them every day.
I hate to break the bad news, but unless He is Lord, He is not Saviour (see Matthew 7:22 - 23). And even if someone could still get the ticket to heaven without giving Him permission to direct their life, they could never work out how to make their life as extravagantly adventurous and amazing as He intends for it to be if they will just let Him.
Why bring this up? Maybe this relates to you and maybe it doesn't. But it's important to say that even if you're one who sits in a pew on Sunday morning, if you have never given the Lord permission to direct your life, nor sought Him so that you can find out what He wants you to do... if you haven't made the desires of His heart more important to you than even your own, you won't come out of lockdown. Just because people call themselves Christians doesn't make them believers. Only you and Holy Spirit will really know what's going on here, but if you are serious about unlocking your life, now is the time to ask Him to shine a light on your heart and make sure that He is the one leading your life. When He's leading, He can bring the keys to unlock everything which has been on lockdown. If you're leading, you've shut yourself out from the keys that could turn everything around for you.
Reversing Emotional Lockdown
It's easy to feel as though you are the mercy of your emotions. That if you feel something, there's nothing you can do about it. Yet we have been created as spirit, soul and body. Our spirits are already perfect if we've received Jesus as both Saviour and Lord. Holy Spirit has merged His Spirit into our spirit, sanctified us and sealed it so that nothing could ever change the work He has done (unless we choose to walk away from Him).
Our soul is our mind, will and emotions (or we could simply say the heart), and everything in our lives is filtered through our soul. When our spirit and our soul are in agreement, that which is in our spirit can flow through our soul and into our lives unhindered. In other words, there is no lockdown, and there is fullness of the Kingdom in our lives.
The easiest way to know whether or not we're in agreement with our spirit is to look at the fruit of our lives. Are we living out of our old man or our new man? Are we walking in ungodly emotions or are we walking in love?
Galatians 2:20 says that our old man has already been crucified with Christ. In other words, it's dead! Yet many people don't take God at His word on this and they instead live out of their old man, where ungodly emotions are considered normal. Depression, fear, neglect, irritation, frustration, anger, offense and so on. If you are seeing these types of emotions regularly in your life, you can immediately know that you're living out of your old man and therefore your soul is not in alignment with your spirit.
Yet the Bible also tells us that our new man has been resurrected with Christ Jesus.
Whether or not you feel resurrected, you have been! This means it's possible to live in love and the fruit of the spirit, as we align our spirit and our soul.
So what do we do when we can see ourselves living out of our old man and keeping our emotions in lockdown? We put off the old man and put on the new (Ephesians 4:22 - 24). I'm serious - choose to believe what God says, rather than what you feel, and declare your choice. Remind yourself that your old man is dead and your reality is your new man. For example, "I do not partner with depression in any way. Depression, I command you to come off, and I instead walk in the joy of my new man." That is putting off the old man and putting on the new. No longer can you see yourself as your old man. The only identity you should have is your new man. That's when you know your soul and your spirit are in agreement.
It sounds simple - and it IS simple! Yet you won't walk in it unless you will meditate on the reality of your new man, until it becomes more real to you than your old man. Most people won't do that - they'd rather be dictated to by their emotions. But if you're reading this, I believe you want to see victory from the emotional lockdown you've been experiencing. Why live in depression when you can live in joy and peace? It starts with knowing who you really are. In the end, you have to stop letting your emotions wear the crown in your life and put your spirit back in charge.
Reversing Relational Lockdown
Another area in which we can come into emotional lockdown is through relationships and letting someone else limit and control you so that you keep shrinking back into the mould they have set for you because of your fear of their reactions when you try to break out of it. Sadly, this is far more common than I had ever realised, before I became a coach. The number of women who are afraid of their husband's reactions to them pursuing God, for example, is saddening. Most of the time women receive it because they are afraid of not pleasing God by not being 'submissive'.
This topic needs a blog (and probably a book) on it's own, but at this point I'll simply ask you to read the story of Abigail (you'll find it in 1 Samuel 25) and then decide if perhaps what you've been taught about being 'under cover' doesn't align with God's heart. If Abigail had done what her husband wanted her to do, she and her whole family would likely have been killed. But she chose to go against her husband's wishes, to do what God wanted her to do, and by so doing, she saved her household.
To put it bluntly, obeying a person instead of obeying God is idolatry. If you want to come out of lockdown, you have to be adamant that you will seek the Lord, obey Him and conform yourself only to the image of Christ, not to an image or a mould of someone else's making. You have the God-given right to be who He has created you to be, but while you continue to participate in conforming to someone else's mould for you, you will stay in lockdown.
That doesn't mean you have to remove them from your life - most people are only controlling because they are carrying their own hurts. Pray for them and bless them. People who try to control others often do it because in their heart they think that will stop you from rejecting them. But you can love and honour someone without changing who you are and disobeying God for them. Seek God's direction together with them if they are willing, and seek God's direction yourself if they are not.
You honour yourself, Christ in you, and others by being who God made you to be. When you walk in your new man in your relationships, you set yourself free from relational lockdown.
Reversing Physical Lockdown
If you haven't worked out by now that there are plans by those who consider themselves to be the elite on this earth, to limit and control and restrict you, I'd suggest you start doing some research (Agenda 2030 and The Great Reset would be a good place to start). The plan of many governments and exceedingly wealthy families is communism, disguised as socialism. Yes, even for Australia (check out this blog).
Yet ultimately the power is with the people. First of all, we carry the Spirit of the Living God within us, and secondly there are far more of us than there are of them. So listen to the Spirit of God within you, become aware and do not live deceived and limited by elite plans to squash you.
We've seen a wielding of economic warfare is one of the main aims to achieve these agendas. Those who are deeply in debt, or dependent on the government and unable to otherwise keep up with their financial obligations because of dire financial circumstances are not in a position to argue when they are required to conform. Don't be discouraged if you've found yourself in this position over the last year - it's been done by design.
Instead, let's come in the opposite spirit, remembering that it is our Father's good pleasure to give us the Kingdom (Luke 12:32) and that we are co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17). Yet we'll never walk in this until we unlock the beliefs of our heart around finances, and until we apply the financial wisdom given to us by God. This is a strategic time to get your finances in order. It's also a strategic time to come against the agenda to destroy business and instead wield business as a weapon.
I would also add here, that Christ paid for our freedom with His very blood, and our soldiers have also paid a high price to protect our God-given freedom. Let's honour Christ and honour those who laid down their lives for us by refusing any form of lockdown! As I heard Holy Spirit say last year: TO BE COMPLIANT IS TO BE COMPICIT.
An Unlocked Life
Christ has set you free. Any lockdown we receive is a lockdown we have chosen or in some way agreed to. Conversely, when you choose to live your life unlocked, you are stepping into the limitless, wide-open, spacious life that the Lord has set aside for you. There is no one and nothing who can take it away from us unless we let them.
Let's set ourselves free from every form of lockdown today, and live in the freedom and victory of Christ.
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