What does internal freedom and transformation look like?

When your heart invites Jesus Christ in, you become internally regulated. Meaning the relationship with the Person of Truth and Grace that delivers you from self-destructive and foolish ways of death, because the Person of Jesus is always actively at work within you (through the Person of the Holy Spirit) for wholeness, redemption and what is in the highest and best interest of yourself and others.

That does not mean you live in your old comfort zone. Just the opposite; it means you become a risky lover, a radical giver. You stop calculating ways to survive and dominate others, and look for how to serve and bless them.

So when the Spirit of God is active and moving inside your heart and behavior, you don’t need external regulations. You don’t need to conform to any herd or group. You draw your LIFE from God Himself, not from any earthly identity or source. This is how you flower into the REAL YOU that God intended (desires, purposed) you to be all along.

This blossoming is a forever-unfolding process of course, but you don’t need outside approval and outside rules. You’re not powered by rules; you’re powered by love itself. You are God-connected, God-enlivened and God-powered. That means you are in the connection to and presence of: real life and real love. For this is who Jesus Christ IS. This is flow. This is harmony. This is intimacy. This is life. This is called “sanctification” and “walking in the Spirit of God” and “walking in love” in Bible terms. And real love ends up doing all the right and positive things the external rules were there to be signposts pointing towards in the first place.

Why does love do this? Because love knows it has first been given TO from Jesus Christ and therefore reflects back upwards in trust and gratitude towards God Himself, and also overflows outwards in the actions towards everyone around them that most empower, uplift and restore them. Having received of God, it is transformed by God and then extends the will and life of God to others. It does not do this via religious human institutions; it does this by intimate communion, loving submission and grateful trust in God’s presence.

So, the more you are in God’s presence, the more you are in love, are restored by God’s Grace and the ore and more you see, understand and want to choose that which is truly GOOD. You are coming more and more deeply into alignment with the heart of God. You experience yourself as a force for goodness in this messy world. You experience yourself, no longer as an ego, but as someone grateful to be empowered, enlivened and rescued by God’s love. Life becomes an opportunity to express gratitude and bless others. You experience yourself as a conduit of God’s love towards others in this world.

You become a redemptive force to the situations around you. You embody and extend the Kingdom of God inside Earthly time and space. You are purpose-driven because the love of God beats in your heart and mind to bring answers to the situations all around you as you exercise the gifts and abilities God put within you for this very purpose.

You are not self-focused; you’ve been freed from that limited obsession. You are God-focused, and that is what lifts you above your circumstances and past into a life of giving to others from joy.

In this way, by responding to God’s heart day after day, you enjoy wholeness and forgiveness, because conversational intimacy with God meets your deepest needs (for security, safety, love, peace, belonging, significance, adventure and on and on). You are FULL through intentionally engaging intimately with God.

Your past psychology no longer has hold over you as your identity is now that of a son/daughter of God. You then become FREE. You become a GIVER, naturally, as you are saturated by continuous, conscious exposure to God’s heart — the original and ultimate giver. Giving is simply overflowing.

The herd is about safety and conformity. But their external regulations — both with their positive intentions and with their controlling intentions — apply less and less to a heart that is actively in relationship with the source of love and wisdom. The herd (any tribal, cultural, institutionalized religious, society or club) is there to give those without a secure definition of themselves, some semblance of comfort, freedom from thinking for themselves, and reference point to what their version of “proper” behavior looks like. That might help a baby, but their crib and its bars was never meant to define or contain you. Your heart was made for larger and more loving adventure than that! You don’t draw your life from the herd; you draw your life from God directly.

You don’t need to identify yourself as a “such-and-such” (insert the label here). You are simply you — the object of divine love and the reflector of God’s heart. You are that which has been loved and forgiven, and infused with the literal life-force of God Himself. You are the intimate ally of the Holy Spirit. You are an active collaborator with Jesus in expanding His Kingdom. You need no other security, badge or approval than that to “legitimize” you. So the heard will recognize that your energy no longer comes-from-and-it-given-to them, and will eject you (like in the Matrix).

You’re no longer one of “them”, you’re “you.” And you is not defined by the world’s labels. Your life is not sourced in your own ideas about what you prefer or what you imagine to be best. Your life is sourced in Jesus Christ, who internally delivers correction and guidance. Jesus IS your life!

You no longer need to get a sense of approval from conforming to the external behavior of the herd. Your life energy and your guidance comes directly from the source with no intermediate filters. All of you is thus free to lavishly drink of the Water of Life that Jesus flat out said he alone provides. (John 4, John 7:38, Revelation 21:6, Revelation 22:17, etc)

This is real living and THIS is exactly what Jesus died to restore to you — to give you his heart, first free from sin and restored to relationship with Father God SO THAT you can live as a child and as a friend of God — full of bold love, ruthless compassion and radical grace.

Fear can no longer dominate you. Labels can no longer define you. Rejection can no longer back you down. Even death cannot stop you! You are more and more free to open-heatedly Receive and Give love.

And this love is far more than nice feelings; love is a Person. Love is that life-giving relationship with Jesus Christ. This victory over everything that formerly defined you and held you back is true life. Realizing this, the New Testament writers are moved to express:

“Jesus personally bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness — by His wounds you were healed.” (1 Peter 2:24)

“For me to live on Earth is Christ, and even to die here would be winning even more life in Heaven with Christ. I can’t lose!” (Philippians 1:21 paraphrase)