a theology of enough

People go to extremes with money and possessions. Some preach a gospel of prosperity, based on the idea that the good life is about using money and possessions for our own happiness, which God will provide when we do the right things (for example, give to a certain ministry or say a special prayer for thirty days). On the other hand, some preach a gospel of poverty, teaching that the way to be truly spiritual is to be poor. Both extremes are dangerous. The prosperity gospel is simply greed covered in the veneer of religion. The poverty gospel is also dangerous. There is nothing spiritual about poverty, and no one is actually better for having become poor. Dallas Willard notes:

The idealization of poverty is one of the most dangerous illusions of Christians in the contemporary world. Stewardship - which requires possessions and includes giving - is the true spiritual discipline in relation to wealth... 

[I]n general, being poor is one of the poorest ways to help the poor.

Prosperity and poverty are not the only choices we have. Author and practitioner Shane Claiborne offers a third option: "We need a third way, neither the prosperity gospel nor the poverty gospel, but the Gospel of abundance rooted in a theology of enough."

A gospel of abundance is found only in the kingdom of God, where somehow we have what we need when we need it. The kingdom of God is not like an ATM where we can get an endless supply of resources to spend however we like. It is a dispenser of resources offered to those who understand the ways of the kingdom. When there is a need and a person who can meet that need, the supply will never run out.

One of the greatest dangers in America, however, is complacency. We live in an affluent society whose values are skewed. A great question is, Where is the Spirit leading me as an individual and us as a community? This requires individual and corporate discernment. Most Western Christians are not pursuing either the gospel of poverty or the gospel of prosperity. The majority of Western Christians must wrestle with what a "theology of enough" means in a culture of excess. How will we discern what is enough? Who will make that decision? 

James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful Community (2010)

clarity

Be stable. Find out. Be clear. Leave it if it's not to be.

It's not the end of the world. Far from it - "I have overcome it."

"I have done for you everything, my love!"

"The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still."

To love at all is to be vulnerable

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”

The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis

This might just be the biggest challenge yet. 

working out the Golden Rule

As the full congregation rose to sing the last hymn, Taylor looked around. Pew upon pew of prosperous, bearded merchants, shopkeepers, visitors; demure wives in bonnets and crinolines, scrubbed children trained to hide their impatience; the atmosphere of smug piety sickened him. He seized his hat and left. 'Unable to bear the sight of a congregation of a thousand or more Christian people rejoicing in their own security, while millions were perishing for lack of knowledge, I wandered out on the sands alone, in great spiritual agony.'

...

'Is the body, then, of so much more value than the soul? We condemn those heathen fishermen. We say they were guilty of the man's death - because they could easily have saved him, and did not do it. But what of the millions whom we leave to perish, and that eternally? What of the plain command, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature?" ... What are we doing to bring them the tidings of Redeeming Love? It is no use singing "waft, waft ye winds, the story." The winds will never waft the story. But they may waft us...'

...

'If you all feel burdened, as the Chairman says, then that is one of the strongest reasons against a collection. I do not want your burden to be relieved by making a contribution here and now under present emotions. Go home burdened with the deep need of China. Ask God what He would have you do. If to give money, give it to any missionary society with agents in China, or you can post it to our London office! But in many cases God may want, not money, but yourself, or giving up a son or daughter to His service, or prayer. A collection often leaves the impression that the object of the meeting has been obtained. But no amount of money can convert a single soul.'

courage to believe

Faith is inherently un-provable. It takes courage to believe in something you can't prove...but none at all to believe in nothing. 

Francis W. Porretto

the struggle for justice

"The poorest people in our world suffer from a lot of familiar problems. They suffer from hunger, homelessness, illiteracy and sickness. And in response, all over the world, people of goodwill bring to bear familiar forms of assistance: we bring food and shelter and education and medicine.

But at the root of much of this suffering is actually a different problem - a less familiar problem - namely, violence. Many times the widow's children are hungry because bullies have stolen her land and she can no longer grow her own food. The street child is homeless because sexual abuse in the home has forced her onto the streets. The young boy is illiterate because he is held as a slave in a brick factory and can't go to school. The teenage girl has AIDS because she has been forcibly infected with the disease while held captive in a brothel.

In such cases we can't meet the root cause of suffering with the familiar remedies of food, shelter, schools or medicine. It simply doesn't meet the need. In fact, we can give all manner of goods and services to the poor, but if we do not restrain the hands of the bullies from taking it away, we will be disappointed in the long-term outcome of our efforts. As the rock-star activist Bono has learned from his work with the poor in Africa, caring for the poor is "not a matter of charity; it's a matter of justice."

This then is one of the things that makes IJM's calling to the church so different. We are calling Christians to address the distinctive problem of violence that lies beneath so much of the suffering of the poor - the suffering that tenaciously keeps so many of the poor in poverty.

To be clear, among the global poor, hunger, homelessness, education and medical care are massive needs worthy of our urgent attention. But the traditional remedies for these problems simply don't address the underlying problems of aggressive violence.

Violence is different. Violence is intentional. Violence is scary. And violence causes deep scars. Accordingly, to deal with violence, Christians must be different."

---

"This then is the ultimate paradox of our despair over injustice. It masquerades in the robes of hard thinking, realistic analysis and modesty, and dismisses hope as illusory, naive and even arrogant. But truth be told, it is despair that has the facts wrong. In the long run, it is always the tyrants and the bullies who end up on the ash heap of history. Sometimes the moral arc of the universe is long indeed. Sometimes unbearably long. But on both small and epic scales, it does bend toward justice. And miraculously, God has given into human hands the power to bend it more quickly to its ultimate destination. This is what the facts of history tell us. Indeed, God intends that our hope in the work of justice be built not simply on bare theological assertions about the character of God but also on the hard factual evidence about the track record of God.

Hope is not simply wishful thinking; it is a fruit of the Spirit born of the spiritual discipline of remembering."

Just Courage: God's Great Expedition for the Restless Christian (2008)

Gary A. Haugen

woe on us

Instead of hating exploitation, we "hate waiting for buses". We "hate the hot weather" more than we hate oppression. 

Woe on our pitiful selves. We have become more concerned about arranging every little thing in our lives into neat rows and columns, than to act and live in compassion, demanding love, mercy and justice from ourselves and society.

Change is overdue. 

May our generation become less yuppie, indie, or faddish. May we face reality. And grief. And rejoice. And find hope, and value Love more than self-preservation and comfort, so we can live lives larger than our carefully curated bubbles.

prophecy for women

In thirty years Christians will have baptized their picture of Christ. He won't be a nice, banal, meek, and bearded man with softly permed hair. Instead, he will fill our imaginations more solidly, more invasively, more unexpectedly. Christ will become That Man who changes people, someone who jumps off of bumper stickers and mediocre praise songs and into lives, a presence much more like Gandalf the Grey than Mr. Rogers. 

... 

When this change comes and we see Christ differently, others will notice.

... 

Christian women will no longer be known as the quiet, meek, and somewhat pathetic group who doesn't experience twenty-first-century freedom. Instead, we will be of something of an admired anomaly, sought after as the most informed believers in the value of femininity. We will define womanhood beyond gentle and quiet submission, curves, baby production, and high heels. We will understand and cogently explain how women are both body and soul and valuable for more than sex appeal. We will be known as "those women" who are not afraid of old age and its mark on our bodies. Our self-possession will make us a challenging group for marketers to target. We will be less concerned with proving our equality with men and more intent on building our souls for the Kingdom of God. 

... 

In thirty years our souls will be bigger.  

Jonalyn Fincher 

In David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, unChristian (2007)

real courage

King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.

Shedrach, Meshach and Abednego, 6th c. BC

  

Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. 

Puddleglum to the White Witch, Narnia: The Silver Chair

I would call such zeal a farce if it were misdirected and insisted on something like "I believe shoes are living organisms". I would also not quote from a random piece of fiction except that C.S. Lewis intended Narnia to be an allegory of Christ, people and the Kingdom of God. But I am convinced that God exists and has reached down to us. I want to be able to bank everything on him - him or nothing...to have a faith in him that is courageous and big enough to trust in his infinitely bigger being. And to live my short time here according to what I know he wants me to do.

 

rest

You strive, old man
And you strive again
Your heart too proud to rest
You labor on, singing those songs
To cover your weakness


Do you fail to recall
Who you really are
And who caused you to be?
Return, old man
Return and rest
To a burden light and yoke easy

Abide in your Savior

Abide in his love

The labor of God is to trust - in his Son

All you possess -
Do you forget
As if by your own strength?
You earned it all
He gave you all
Everything you have


Your righteousness, your life to breath
Your daily bread and wine
Is blood, is flesh
Is love, is death
Your faith in endless life


Open up your doors
Oh my heart is slow
Open up your doors
Let the King come in


Abide in me, Savior
Abide in me, love
And daily I'll take my cross
Follow after you, Lord


Abide in me, Savior
Abide in me, love
The labor of God is to trust

to the Ekklesia of Singapore

Singapore: 

"Post-independence growth to become one of the world's most efficient trading and financial centers. Among the wealthiest countries per capita and with one of the highest standards of living." 

"The strong, paternalistic government of Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and his successors (including his son and current prime minister) provides direction and stability for a spectacular and sustained economic growth. In return for such stability and influence, most have accepted the strong influence of government policies and the limitation of certain freedoms." 

"The increase of the Church's size and impact brings challenges. Pray for the following concerns: 

d) Fear of control and intimidation in a closely governed and multi-religious society. Legislation against overt proselytism exists, but the only force preventing effective outreach is the Church's own unfounded fears. Pray that Christians would know how to maintain inter-religious harmony without compromising on evangelism."

Operation World (2010), edited by Jason Mandryk
(emphasis his)

Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right...not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience. The authorities that exist have been established by God.

Paul to the Romans who followed Jesus in a time of 

intense persecution; Romans 13: 1, 3, 5

Have we Christians in/from Singapore been doing what is right in the eyes of God...in our complaints and satirical mocking of people imperfect and sinful like us but put in authority by God?


We not only exaggerate our fear in talking with others about the Savior of our entire persons, we also complain about our leaders but fear raising these disagreements up for fear of being targeted...or maybe because we don't actually know enough to substantiate our views?

I am guilty of being judgmental and bitter, and not doing anything or thinking of alternatives after I complain. This does not reflect any of the redemptive nature of Christ. He did not gloat or speak to Peter in seething words after his prophecy about Peter denying him thrice came true (Matthew 26: 31-35, 69-75). Instead he reaffirmed him and gave him the important mission to be a good leader to the Church (John 21: 15-19)

Come on, the Ekklesia of Singapore. We can do better, but first let's repent of our arrogance and ask Jesus to renew our minds and show us a new way of thinking about the government - in a truthful and loving way, in Christ's redeeming way.

a confrontation

The first ostensible conversation after half of my family got home, as according to my fallible memory and as a little tribute to Tennessee Williams.

Side character: (to X) _____ left a pile of clothes in the bathroom.
X: Did you guys do laundry?
Y: _____ does it.
X: And you didn't do the laundry?
Y: (irritated) We agree on a day to wash it together after every two to three days.
X: And you have to get angry?
Y: (still upset) It's not like I don't do it. We wait for a few days before doing it and _____ is in charge.
          (The bystanders who also just got home are caught in the middle. They stand alongside X and stare at Y, puzzled.) 

X: Ha. Our personalities really don't match. We shouldn't even talk to each other.
Y: You say it as if I don't know how to do it. If ______ left a pile of clothes in the bathroom, then maybe he wants to leave it there. You have to ask him, not me.  

Same with the last time - I cooked noodles for _______ and you told her you weren't sure whether it was even cooked properly!
X: I didn't say that. I said "Don't know if the noodles are soft".
          (Y shakes her head.)  

X: Our personalities really don't match. We shouldn't even talk to each other.
          (Y shakes her head again, looking at the computer screen, making effort to look unfazed by the accusation and unpleasant talk.) 

          (Eventually, X heads for the kitchen and the side characters leave the set to go to the bedrooms. Y is the last to leave. She heads for her bedroom and closes the door.) 

Narrator: How unfortunate, that X should come home from a vacation to such an unpleasant conversation. 

And how unfortunate, that Y had to respond to seemingly harmless comments that accused. 

Family is sometimes tiring to be around. Too noisy, too messy, too crowded, too screechy, too negative...complaints and sighs abound. But that is where the boundaries of love are stretched to cover over conflicts and flaws. Humanly impossible - you have to help me, Jesus.

blossoms red

1. 
   
2. "I lay in dust life’s glory dead, and from the ground there blossoms red life that shall endless be." That's blood! George Matheson has such an intriguing and fascinating way to describe death and the eternal life that comes after. 

O Love, that will not let me go.

So true even though it was written in 1882.

happy birthday?

My past birthdays have been meaningful or happy. Last year I spent it in school and at a wake. But this year's seemed like neither. And it makes me ask: why do we wish people 'happy birthday'? Won't it create a false sense of privileged entitlement that people try to seek or fulfill? How does a person congratulate himself for his years of existence? Is the day I was born really my day? I didn't create it, neither do I own it, nor should I expect that others should please or maybe even pander to me and my desires.

Which firstly, makes all the birthday wishes, handmade and bought presents, lovely notes, and a surprise birthday dinner all so unexpected.

Which secondly, helps me to deflate myself. I had expected my birthday to be nice and pleasant: no school, sleeping in for the morning, chilling at home, opening a mystery package, thanking people for their wishes, and go to bed. It didn't quite turn out this way. I got woken up by a quarrel, and when I finally woke up (there's a difference), I got some bad news. It wasn't bad news about me, but it involved people I love. I was reeling from shock and anger so much that my hands were shaking. I'd be lying if I said it didn't affect me the entire day, especially since the bad news may take weeks or months to be reconciled.

My first reaction was 'Thanks for the great news on my birthday', the second was 'God, you are cruel to me, even on my birthday'.

But who said it was my day in the first place? What makes me think that all should go well and my birthday should be very comfortable - all in the name of self-preservation?

I know that the God I worship is not cruel, but it was a portrayal I created out of selfishness and arrogance. He is Sovereign and he is Love - mushy love, fatherly love, tough love, healing love, liberating love. He showed it to me by calming me down and counseling me constantly, teaching me to pray for the people I was angry towards. It's very incredible that my intense emotions simmered down in just ten minutes or so as I asked him for help on how to feel and think about the problem, and I know that it would not have been possible by human effort unless I choose apathy. Even though it hurts, I will choose to continue loving and thus sharing the hurting burdens that people I love carry, even if it's on my birthday.

So my point is, birthdays aren't always happy. Thankfully God keeps the peace of Christ in my heart. The peace of Christ, which does not fluctuate or cease to exist depending on conditions external to the person's soul, but stays the same even in the face of physical death. According to Matthew 14:27, Jesus said to his twelve selected followers (aka The Twelve Apostles) on the night he knew he was to be arrested and crucified,

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

He said that because he knew that if the good religious people clamped down on him the leader, surely they will exterminate those who were to take over his leadership (John 15: 18-21, 16: 2-4, Mark 14: 27, Matthew 26: 31). And it did happen in AD 64 when Nero framed those who follow Jesus as the culprits for the Great Fire of Rome, so they fled for the mountains and further up east into Europe.

For this sobering lesson of humility and love, I can only say - thank you for your love and mercy, Jesus. 

Bucket List 1.4

It's only been a month since I last revised it but I already have two more to add to the list! I've also been developing my own environmentally friendly and sustainable envelope art. A few people selling stamps have been thrown off by the envelopes..they don't know where to stick the stamp or where the address is. And I chuckle a little inside.

Hike the whole Grand Canyon again
Get inked.

Eat ice cream when it's literally freezin'
Change our world.
Live somewhere else.
Write poetry/songs.
Sing and play the guitar at the same time (well).

Go to Bestival.

See Lucy Rose at at least one gig.

Play dodgems (indoors with fun lights) again and again

Decorate and paint cakes. 

Knit sweaters.

Make dresses.

Give free hugs on the street.
Be Gary the snail on the road.
Stick my finger into my nose for pictures.
Ask my family for forgiveness on being a badass in the past.
Feed stray cats.
Save animals and bugs.
Open a Youtube channel.
Get a menial F&B job.

Finish an entire Balut! 

Have a cat at home.

I dare you to move

Maybe redemption has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself?
Where you gonna go?
Salvation is here!

I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor

Could it really be so simple? But it is so hard. Jesus, I know now that you have dared me, you will help me.  This is not something that can be accomplished by humans alone. It is a larger spiritual reality and battle.

everything that needs a trim

Beards need to be trimmed.

So do nails, hair, hedges, fruit trees, stacks of paper, eyebrows, nose hair...and the like.

So here is my Bucket list, updated (or 'trimmed') from its latest version eight months ago.

Hike the whole Grand Canyon again
Get inked.

Eat ice cream when it's literally freezin'
Change our world.
Live somewhere else.
Write poetry/songs.
Sing and play the guitar at the same time (well).

Go to Bestival.

See Lucy Rose at at least one gig.

Play dodgems (indoors with fun lights) again and again

Decorate and paint cakes. 

Give free hugs on the street.
Be Gary the snail on the road.
Stick my finger into my nose for pictures.
Ask my family for forgiveness on being a badass in the past.
Feed stray cats.
Save animals and bugs.
Open a Youtube channel.
Get a menial F&B job.

New strike-offs and proof I'm proud to present you:

Finish an entire Balut!

It was 17 days old. It's eaten warm after it's boiled, but we happened to wait till it got really cold before eating. Swallowing was difficult but still I did it!

Have a cat at home.

We brought Ginger home in early January after he was abandoned.

My mom even sewed him two spiffy collars!

Heinous

I visited my grandpa again few days back for the first time in a few months. We call him Ah Gong and were told that he was getting weak very quickly. As usual, I tried shamelessly to speak to him in my smattering of Teochew, which was possibly mixed with Hokkien especially since I don't really know the difference between both. I know he can understand Mandarin though he can't speak it. But somehow I don't feel comfortable speaking in Mandarin to him. Whether I speak to him in Mandarin or noob Teochew, communication will still be one-way.

Because the problem is with me.

I cannot understand Teochew. I wasn't taught and continue to be refused by my parents when I ask them to teach me. And yes it is a problem because there are so many things I want to say to this dear old kind person, but I can't.

And because of that I broke down in front of him. Just two of us in the stuffy room, him looking straight and me looking at the cold rain and sunshine outside the glass window. Without my Ah Gong, there wouldn't be me. Or even if I was around, I would probably have been born in China in a place poorer than Singapore. And yet I couldn't talk to this man who was quickly fading away with his paper-thin skin covering a network of green veins that vulnerably shielded his skeleton.

I left that afternoon feeling very upset and angry. And even right now, I still am. I, like most other people my generation, are unable and uninterested in non-Mandarin Chinese languages for various reasons including its low instrumental value in Singapore, and them paling out in comparison to other more exotic languages as publicly imagined. And you notice that to call them dialects of Mandarin is a political construction of Chinese languages to justify Singapore's Speak Mandarin campaign in the 1990s to just 'let the kids learn the common Chinese language', i.e. allegedly Mandarin. Apparently, our brain was only competent enough for two languages, and so the campaign's rhetoric was that if parents continue to teach and/or speak to kids in Chinese 'dialects', then that would affect their grades in Mandarin. And surely no good parent would want to sacrifice their kids' academic performance knowing that they are the ones who affected them right? But apparently, this assumption was also wrong, because the enlightened leaders have realized that our brains can actually only take one language, and hence Chinese becoming increasingly optional in school admission up to university level. Isn't this brain thing better explained by socialization patterns than something psychologically inherent?

Looking back, this early aim of the Speak Mandarin campaign to replace 'dialects' with Mandarin in both media and society has been remarkably successful. My parents know how to speak a few dialects, and they choose not to do it at moderate extents with each other, and they choose not to speak any dialect to us at all. And I suspect that somewhere in their worldview, they have naturalized the campaign's rhetoric and expanded on it - not teaching Teochew to your kids seems so natural and it is difficult explain why (as with why pink is for baby girls, and blue for baby boys, or why pretty girls are usually thin with non-frizzy hair).

Isn't it as ironic as slapping yourself in public that by advocating Mandarin at the expense of my learning of Teochew in order to pass down the celebrated values of Confucianism, I have been denied an urgent and genuine expression of the very same values?

What I experienced that Sunday afternoon is the effect of this heinous campaign. I would even say that it borders on immorality, given its already moralized discourse when people are encouraged to speak Mandarin and preserve the Confucian values of propriety, righteousness, humility, trust, loyalty, filial piety, integrity, and love.

Some say "it's the thought that counts, so don't get too worked up that you can't communicate". But if you are the one fading away into nothingness, won't you desire to communicate with others? Dying or alive, we all know how precious it is to be able to talk with someone in your own language, especially your heart language/s, the one that allows you to connect people at a deeper level than other languages you know.

It is futile to wholly blame the social engineers behind this Speak Mandarin Campaign because I know that it is also my choice to have not learned Teochew all this while. But what I do want to underscore is that our leaders lacked foresight, and now we are systematically affected by their successful eradication of non-Mandarin Chinese languages from most Singaporeans' linguistic repertoires. I say that they lacked foresight because I do not wish to give them the benefit of doubt that they saw this coming but decided that it was ultimately not worth protecting anyway.

This is my Ah Gong. He came from Shantou, a formerly bustling coastal city in the Chinese province of Guangdong appointed for Western trade and contact in the 19th century. He was born into a commoner's family in 1901 and later sailed with many other Chinese immigrants across the South China Sea to Singapore to hopefully eke out a living and then later have his wife and his son (who unfortunately passed while he was away) join him.

He carries with him an entire century of history - from the Qing Dynasty, the early days of modern Singapore, Japanese Occupation, Singapore's independence all the way through till today. And not to mention what little I know about his very hard life, a life that would be unthinkable for many of us in our comfortable cushy world.

And this is the grandpa who will pass on, burying with him the real stories that media has sometimes only fantasized about in serial dramas, burying with him the socially marginalized status the government has relegated to him when they owe him credit for building Singapore to what it is today. But before that, I have many things to say to him, many very important things that he needs to know while he still can.

Muddy conscience

(the daryl sng blog)

I cannot accept that to be realistic means to tolerate misery, violence and hate. I do not believe that the hungry man should be treated as subversive for expressing his suffering. I shall never accept that the law can be used to justify tragedy, to keep things as they are, to make us abandon our ideas of a different world. Law is the path of liberty, and must as such open the way to progress for everyone.

Oscar Arias Sánchez

Do not exploit the poor because they are poor
and do not crush the needy in court,
for the LORD will take up their case
and will plunder those who plunder them.

God

Rescue those being led away to death;
hold back those staggering toward slaughter.
If you say, "But we knew nothing about this,"
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who guards your life know it?
Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?

God

God, I don't have a clear conscience about this. Thank you for forgiving me, and for purifying all unrighteousness in me. You demand perfection, and yet you say I am lying if I claim to be flawless as a follower of Jesus. Thank you for according me righteousness and goodness in your eyes because I believe that this was the purpose of you killing your Son for me. You also promised me that you will complete the process of refining me and it will take my whole life.

So...as wounded and bleeding as I am, I know you love me for eternity. I love you too, Jesus, for dying for me before I was born on the road for condemnation and eternal guilt and suffering.

Douchebag

I would call myself what a friend calls himself when he feels trashy.

Douchebag.

If not for God's rich mercy (Ephesian 2:4), and endless forgiveness (1 John 1:9-10).

Tell me. Is there ANY WAY for me to feel like I DESERVE my disobedience to God, and I can MAKE UP FOR THE WRONG I'VE DONE???

No.

That's why my Father of beautiful perfection sacrificed his Son to pay for the impossible, un-payable spiritual debt I owe to him.

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Romans 13:8-10

I think I will go and ask two people for forgiveness now. I put this out in public so I can't chicken out from shame and awkwardness in order to do the right thing :S