wow today's E3 sermon was excellent. i wanna blog about my reflections.

first, Peter Hsu's sermon reminded me once again of the gulf between society's 'well to do' and society's 'poor', something which i learnt when i went to china and upon returning to singapore quickly forgotten. His story about an indian who came to singapore to work as a cleaner so that he can earn the dowry for his 2 sisters to be married off struck a deep chord in me. wow. to simply say that guy earns my respect would be a severe understatement of what that guy has done. that concept is alien in our singapore society. yet it is commonplace amongst the world's poor...

Let this be made clear. there is definitely great social injustice in the world. the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Micah 6:8 "....to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." until today, i have found the bible concept of justice as abstract at best. i used to think what is justice the bible talks about? i even sing about it : Let justice and praise, become my embrace, to love you from the inside out.

What i got from Peter Hsu about justice is simply to put right the social injustice in this world. Meaning to give justice to the poor who are manipulated, oppressed, and cheated of their money, their time, their life. Jesus himself walked amongst sinners, the poor, the sick, the unwanted of society. He listened to them and fellowshipped with them.

Can we ever understand what the poor in this world go through? i sense that i am afraid to find out. why? because i realise i have ambitions of a comfortable life in this world. i love to live comfortably. but can it possibly be justice if i have a porsche at home and there are millions in the world struggling to even survive till the next week. CAN IT? i try to vindicate that it's possible. but Peter Hsu has brought me closer to the stand that it is not justice for me to be driving a porsche when there are millions in other countries crying out to God for justice.

Oh, all the vain things,
that charm me most,
i sacrifice, them to His blood.

i am willing to be changed so that i don't lust after the things of this world like fast cars and nice houses. but it's hard.

i can sense somewhere deep in me, there is a desire to one day go to places in the world where people are in dire need of medical help, places where pple have great injustice in their lives. To really turn their lives around and to help them, even spending years there. but that would mean giving up my comfort. giving up my luxuries in singapore, giving up the chance to scale the career ladder, which i guess i sort of really really hope to do.

a scenario of my future i can think of : maybe when i'm 60. i'm a retired surgeon. i used to earn 300K a month. i live in sentosa cove and have a yacht parked by my waterfront house. i have 5 cars, a porsche carrera GT2, an audi Q7, an enzo ferrari, Mercedes CL and a Bentley Continnental. i am a religious church goer. i love God and i have a close relationship with Him. Last time i used to go for short term medical mission trips but that's that. i donate a lot of money to the poor and i feel passionate for the lost on and off. and when i do i just like donate more money to the poor. but i could never go to really help the oppressed, the maligned, the hungry, the orphaned, the widowed, cos my hectic career means i will never have enough time to go for something long term like that.

You know come to think of it, this is something which i'm actually sort of unconsciously longing for. it isn't wrong u know. as in if i were to really become like that, it's not wrong what. but what's bugging me now is that if this really happens to me. and i'm 60. will i be thinking that, despite of all the luxuries i have, this is not what i'm really after in life? will i be satisfied? it's clear in the bible that the lust for worldly things can never really satisfy, only God can. think about it. how many of the pple in this world who own a ferrari are like really really satisfied with their life because they own a ferrari. of course they'd be really really happy with their ferrari. but then will that truly give them satisfaction with what they're doing in their life? Don't we all know that material things can never truly satisfy us? yet day after day we're just longing after material things, and after getting that which we long for, we sort of don't get satisfied by it anymore and long for something else.

another scenario : let's say i put a great deal of my time and financial resources in reaching out to the poor in singapore, like the foreign workers here, setting up clinics catered to them, where from there i'm able to spread the gospel to them also. and then maybe after a while, i fly overseas, to like india, or africa, or places in the world where nobody wants to go there to help. and i live amongst the people. treating the sick, helping them build schools, build houses, teaching them livelihood, sharing with them the gospel, living with them. maybe for like 2 years. then after that i move to another place and repeat all that. when i'm 60, which one would i be more satisfied with, or more happy with? the first one where i have a house in sentosa cove with 5 cars? or the second one when i probably don't have much money.

if you ask me, i'll tell you it's the second one. but to do the second one, man it's going to take a freaking lot of courage, determination and conviction from God.

i think that many pple in singapore, actually feel a lot for the poor in the world. but their ambitions for worldly desires cripples them. i think i feel a lot for the poor in the world. feel a lot of compassion or righteous anger when i learn about the injustice in their lives. but those compassion and desire to help are in a lot of danger from being covered up by my lust for worldly desires.

my lust for worldly things is real. my ambitions in this world are real. it is not easy to simply just give them up like that. Only God can convict me, only the love and compassion that comes from Jesus and the Holy Spirit can truly convict me, to bring me to a place like scenario 2. but i know even now, i still long for scenario 1. what a struggle within me.... the forces of evil in me and in this world are real...

James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.