It takes courage
To open your heart,
Courage to let people
See you cry,
Courage to trust God
When you’re hurting
And don’t know why
But that courage
Produces exuberance
That you could never buy.

Exuberant living
Requires the inner light
Of heart-transforming insight
That produces true delight,
Not outward attempts
To disguise the dark night
That’s consuming your soul.

A delinquent culture needs exuberant holiness — not outward rule keeping but inner transformation. True transformation is of the heart. Changing a person’s body without healing their hurting heart is just cosmetic.

Aligning your life to feelings and desires that tell you to deny logic and reason is bondage, not transformation. Unless your heart is transformed, your life may look different, but internally you’ll still be the same.

Self-focus kills exuberance. We need a vision beyond self-interest and self-comfort to make life meaningful and joyous. Boasting about desires that torment and control you and seeking people’s approval of them won’t produce transforming inner peace.

To keep your heart always open to the risen Jesus is stay plugged in to the experience of exuberant living. If Christ isn’t producing ever-flowing exuberance inside you, there’s a disconnect somewhere. “Rejoice in the Lord always!”

To let Christ continually expose, forgive, and heal your inner dark spots is to experience the exuberance of supernatural transformation. If Christians aren’t trained to open their heart, speak up, and freely express Christ’s exuberance in church, where will they learn how to do it?