You speak emphatically about how we are not under the law - we live in freedom and liberty in Christ. A beautiful message, indeed. But while we shouldn't live by dos and dont's, are we still not to follow Christ wholeheartedly, which can mean doing away with many things in our lives that would distract or cloud the realization of our reality in Christ?

If Christ is our life, then to follow him wholeheartedly is the only living reality before us. Many things will be done away with that are seen to be standing in the way of true life. I can attest to this in my own life. Somehow, though, I suspect you also realize that law has found its way into our consciousness as to the meaning of "wholeheartedly" so that we are often caught between its reality and the imposition of a concept. After all, since "wholehearted" is to be true to myself would it be correct to also call the attempt to be true to another's perception of me (or of my path) as being wholehearted? But we do.

The truth of Christ is the truth of real life, for his life makes us whole. To wholeheartedly follow Christ is to wholeheartedly follow the life that is within us ... for that life is Christ. But do you think our spiritual leaders actually trust us to truly live in such wholeheartedness, or to even know what it is that we're supposed to be doing or thinking or following? Furthermore, intimidated by such an elementary perception (for this is the very wisdom of the world) do we really trust ourselves to live wholeheartedly ... or have we mostly defaulted to another's demand?

Fortunately, God does not abandon us even in the midst of our attempts to carry out someone else's perceptions, for his life in us keeps making another insistence from another place. That insistence waits for true validation, which is found in Christ, which we hear proclaimed in the true good news of miraculous life from the dead.

Following Christ wholeheartedly, in the religious twist of the imagination, no doubt has produced an awful lot of activity in the doing away with distractions and hindrances. What if the religiously motivated substitute for wholeheartedness IS the real distraction, the real hindrance that would distract or cloud the realization of our reality in Christ? What if you've gotten yourself into your current situations because you've been trying to juggle the religious concept of wholeheartedness with the real thing that screams out within you?