Sodagreen 苏打绿 Sing With Me 陪我歌唱 Concert, Futsal Tournament, Romans 13

Not a Sith was found amongst the fans

At the Sodagreen 苏打绿 Sing With Me 陪我歌唱 Concert at Singapore Expo's Max Pavilion, the front rows were filled with sponsors whose bottoms had politely declined to leave the comfort of their chairs and were consequently the subject of endless ribbing by Qing Feng 青峰 who asked if they were especially bothered by something that night.

Was particularly taken by the wide-ranging timbre of Qing Feng 青峰's voice, his indie use of the megaphone and the theremin, sometimes simultaneously, and his getai diva, cheeky teenager, chatty, slightly angsty persona. Exhibit 1 : 小情歌 - Qing Feng 青峰sounding like a recently pubescent boy, looking like a girl dressed as a boy. Exhibit 2: 小宇宙 - Qing Feng 青峰 sounding like a later-adolescent boy, looking slightly less like a girl dressed as a boy. So that there is no doubt on the matter, the man is 26 years old this year.

Many thanks to J and A for this very interesting experience and the third evah Chinese concert of my entire life.

A few hours later, at the futsal tournament, fuelled by a carton of Del Monte bananas, we swept through the semi-finals, then proceeded to clinch the champions' trophy on sudden death saves. There was great cheering, vigorous hand-shaking and the spraying of bottled water (no champagne lah). Hooray the goalie with both presence of mind as well as body!

After, non-banana nourishment took the form of lunch at C. Nai Hong Kong Cafe 师奶茶餐厅 and a quick run through of the first chapter of Vaughan Robert's God's Big Picture with the group. Then staggered back to the car and promptly konked off for an hour in the afternoon heat before dinner.

Thinking through the implications of the glib phrases that Christians so often profess unthinkingly made for an amusing afternoon. Eg: God the Creator (Genesis 1 - 2).

"So what did God make?"
Chorus: "Everything!"
"What didn't God make?"
Chorus: "Nothing. He made everything!"
A small voice: "But he cannot have made the serpent, what."
"What did God make?"
Same small voice: "Everything. But he couldn't have made the serpent..."

In a similar fashion, finally happened upon a glimpse of how the latter part of Paul's letter to the Romans, living as erm living sacrifices, is essentially a logical outworking of what we profess of God in the first place:

God is sovereign over all things
It is fashionable to be disgruntled with authority, to bitch about bosses, to gripe against governments. But God's word, unsurprisingly, is remarkably and refreshingly clear on the matter.

If God is sovereign over all things, then no authority exists on earth except that which comes from God and has been instituted by him (Romans 13:1). Therefore, every authority (including every Saul-like kingship and unpopular government) has been given authority and instituted by God. Therefore, to rebel against such an authority would be to rebel against God's appointed authority, which would be to rebel against God himself. And rebellion against God = sin = judgement (Romans 13:2).

Naturally, Paul was not talking about blind submission nor about being socially or politically apathetic. Yet he did not make like a Pharisee and dictate thick scrolls of subsidiary regulations to legislate when and to what extent one should be subject to the authorities. Our renewed minds must do the hard work of working this out in our circumstances in full dependence on God. While the old mind would find this an absolute burden and therefore delight in naming all the situations in which Paul's teaching would not apply, the new mind applies this teaching in all situations unless such obedience to authority causes us to disobey our ultimate authority, God.

For a bit of direction, Dick Lucas expands on Romans 13:1 - 7 here:

• The Citizen (Romans 13:1 - 7),
• The Christian Citizen - Church and State (Romans 13:1-7), and
  
• The Church and the State (Romans 13:1-13)

God is Creator
If we are to pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honour to whom honour is owed, then what do we owe people who are not in positions of authority over us?

Why, love, says Paul and does not proceed to sing Andrew Lloyd Weber's Love Changes Everything. In popular thought, love and human rights ride away into the sunset together. But not so in the mind of God.

As a pagan, I'd actually written up most of my final year thesis on human rights and had been offered internships in the United Nations and the International Labour Foundation when I realised sadly that the theory of human rights was itself baseless and could not, in integrity, submit the work nor proceed with the internships. A few years later after a bit of an overhaul of the mind, someone approached me for help on her final year thesis on human rights. She claimed to find basis for the general theory from the Bible and could not accept that the Bible did not in fact speak of rights but only of obligations.

Romans 13:8 - 10 seems pretty clear on this. And throughout the Bible the language is always skewed so that we view ourselves as debtors and obligors, rather than people to whom debts are owed and who have the right to sue for payment. Obligations do not necessarily engender rights. And God calls these human obligations "love" - the way he'd designed humans to relate to one another. Pretty far out from the you-complete-me, you-turn-me-on, you-light-up-my-life, self-centred self-gratification the world terms "love".

Even more crushing to the red rose and candlelight industry, Paul links love intimately with the Law given to the Israelites by God and says that love is infact the fulfilment of that Law. For if love is about the other and seeking the good of the other, and all good is defined by God alone (as revealed in the Law), then everything done under the auspices of love must obviously be in obedience to the Law. Therefore, to claim that it is alright to lie or commit sexual sin as long as it is done "lovingly" is a perversion of God's words and our design. (Which is why, for example, the seemingly pleasurable habit of flattery is so abhorrent to God.)

Too much to think about now? Will put it aside to sort out another day?

Paul bookends the entire section (Romans 12-13) with a reminder that we are both compelled and enabled by God's mercies to live as he made us to, in true worship of him, then with a warning to look to the time:

you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. (Romans 13:11 - 14)

Cepat jalan.


C. Nai Hong Kong Cafe 师奶茶餐厅
1000 East Coast Parkway
Singapore 449876

_______________________________________

Working through current series on Romans:
First Thai, Jay Chou's Birthday Concert and Romans 1
Feasting and Larval Thoughts on Faith and Romans 4
Privé, Cilantro and the Marvellous Comfort of Romans 8:1 - 16
Basil Alcove and the Pre-destination-based Comfort of Romans 8:17 - 39
Kapok at Newton and Romans 9 - 11
Tin Hill Wine Bar & Bistro, The White Rabbit at Dempsey, Dim Joy, True Worship and Romans 12:1 - 2
Sodagreen 苏打绿 Sing With Me 陪我歌唱 Concert, Futsal Tournament, Romans 13

Tin Hill Wine Bar & Bistro, The White Rabbit at Dempsey, Dim Joy, True Worship and Romans 12:1-2

At the birthday party of a three year old, there were veggie dinosaurs and chicken patties made to look like teddy bear faces, fancy balloons that got little hands entangled, abandoned drumsets, new electronic keyboards for drumming on, a back-patio barbecue, toy cars running over adult toes, chatter and laughter, and a bit of fighting.

In another time, in another place, these little ones running around so free and (mostly) happy might have been laid struggling and crying upon cold stone and sacrificed by their desperate parents in a fruitless bid to win the favour of their gods. We remember sick account of the time the king of Moab was beseiged by Israel and could not break through their ranks, and how, in a vain attempt to bribe his god to give him victory, he took his eldest son and sacrificed him as a burnt offering on the wall (2 Kings 3:26 - 27).

Behold the gods of human invention: we make them in our own fallen image but assign them more power. So it follows that pagan worship is like curry-favouring a corrupt official; it is all about twisting the arm of a reluctant deity who has better things to do with his time and apparent power.

And so how immensely sweet and wonderful the true God is, who (as we have seen from Romans 1 - 11) is not only a good God but has willingly worked for the good of his people even before they knew what help to ask for: despite man deliberately sinning, God saved them from his own righteous wrath; he grafted Gentile who were not his people into his own family tree; he delayed judgement so that people could be saved; he proved the Law so that blind, conscience-challenged humans might have some idea of how far wrong they'd gone in the first place; and he provided his only son to pay for the sins of the world.

So what is it like to be engaged in true worship that the true God desires?

(Why would we want to worship God? Because that is the precise reason for which we were made. Until we live under his loving rule, we will never achieve our "potential". If we do not worship God, we are missing the whole point of our existence. Plus, refusing to worship God is the heart of sin.)

True worship is a response (Romans 12:1)
If it is God that always takes the initiative in saving us and making us his children, then true worship must always a response. This is what the "therefore" in Romans 12:1 is there for. In light of what God has done as spelt out by Paul in the preceding 11 chapters, true worship cannot be about us seeking to secure God's favour, for that is the basis of pagan worship. It is about us responding to God's favour already given; it is about living in the light of what God has already done for us: we are already justified, we are already holy and acceptable to him. No amount of fasts or prayers or pilgrimages will bring us closer to God...if we are Christian, we are already children of God. That is the marvellous difference between Christian and pagan worship.

Therefore, no church leader or song leader or holiness retreat can bring us closer to God than we already are. Nothing will bring us into the holy of holies because when we believe in Christ and are granted access to God through his blood, we are already in the holy of holies (Romans 5:1 - 2). When we lead a meeting of Christians we are not leading worship but giving clear statements of what God has already done for us so that people can respond appropriately.

(Singing in church then is about us responding to God in thanksgving and praise. It is also us encouraging each other and filling our minds with the truth of what God has done. All the psalms give a reason for why we are praising God. The purpose of us singing songs is to remind and share with one another what God has done for us so that we can worship acceptably - here and when we go out. Bad singing (not tuneless singing) is singing that is not biblical, that does not draw on the promises of God, or singing that is all about me. Good singing should reflect on the goodness of God.)

And do we think we can offering God anything? We have nothing we can offer to God except what he has already given, in response to what he has already done.

Compared to Knowing Jesus
Nothing I can offer to heaven
Nothing I can bring to make peace
Nothing in the way that I sing his songs
Nothing in the way that I pray

Though I can say that I love him
Though I can lift up my hands
Though I have actions and words of grace
Though I hold my head up high

There's nothing in the world or in my life
That doesn't disappear or fade away
Everything I've come to know I count as loss
Compared to knowing Jesus, my Lord
Compared to knowing Jesus, my Lord

If I am right with my maker
It is through faith in my Lord
If I have goodness it comes from him
If I am pure I give thanks

I want to know Jesus my saviour
I want to know his power to rise from the dead
I want to have fellowship in his grief
I want to be raised up with him!

© Mark Peterson

True worship is everywhere, all the time (Romans 12:1)

Even in the futsal cages of Sports Planet, East Coast Park

True worship is not confined to a particular place and particular time. God does not insist that it be done in a "holy" place or in a church building nor through a specially consecrated priesthood/pastor-hood/anointed few. In fact, to think so would be a denial of Jesus' work on the cross.

True worship is everywhere, all of the time, in all of life. Presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God (Romans 12:1) consists of 3 different ideas.

The idea of presenting one's body is taken from the command to the priestly family of Levites to present themselves to God at the temple. It is to minister and serve...as a priest! We do not need a pastor or a priest to bring us into the holy of holies because we have gained access through the blood of Christ!

The idea of a living sacrifice appears rather ironic since a sacrifice was an animal that gave its life so that the Jews could approach God. But now that Jesus has died as a sacrifice for our sins, there is no more sacrifice to be made.

A sacrifice had to be unblemished or else it would not be acceptable to God. But what Paul is saying is not try to be holy and try to be blameless. He is saying that in view of what God has done for us, we are already holy and blameless! We can do what the high priest could only do once a year after elaborately purifying himself could do, appear before God himself. Now Christ's death has washed us clean, now God already sees us as holy. We don't swish in and out of the presence of God trailing the scent of frankinsence and myrrh. We live in the presence of God 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, every year, in every situation. 360 degrees.

The implication of this is that everywhere is a place of worship: our office, the driving seat of our cars, the family meal table, tennis court and even the side of the goal post in a futsal cage. The view of worship only taking place in the austerity of a monastic retreat in the cool mountains or in a consecrated space vehemently denies the Christian faith altogether.

And true worship is immensely earthy - it is in driving the car, in honouring marriage, in giving someone a meal, in leading our Christian families...all in response to what God has already done for us.

Do we trust in Jesus to save us from our sins? Then we have been justified by God and we are part of God's family. You are a priest as much as another Christian. Now that you are finally freed from the shackles of the consequences of your sins, now that you can see and hear, worship God.

(The Monday after spending a weekend stuck into Romans 12 when, after I'd told my Christian colleagues that Don Carson was in Singapore for the Living Word series organised by the Anglican Diocese of Singapore at St. Andrew's Cathedral and they'd expressed complete ignorance of his person, we got into a good discussion about why we believed in the Christian faith in the first place, the interpretation of the Bible, dinosaurs and intelligent design and the 7 days of creation, and then there was a beautiful sunset - a glowing red orb sinking behind the silhouettes of, erm, oil refineries, and I wanted to burst out singing:

All Heaven Declares
All heaven declares the glory of the Risen Lord;
Who can compare with the beauty of the Lord?
Forever He will be the Lamb upon the throne;
I gladly bow the knee and worship Him alone.

I will proclaim the glory of the Risen Lord;
Who once was slain to reconcile man to God.
Forever You will be the Lamb upon the throne;
I gladly bow the knee and worship You alone.
© Noel and Tricia Richards

Fortunately, I remembered that my life was not a musical and stopped in time. But, maaan, the joy of proclamation of the good things of God in a situation so unused to the sound of his name. Yet not just this time but every minute should be lived in light of the reality of this marvellous God.)

True worship is mindful and not mindless
"Spiritual worship" in the ESV is a strange translation. The Greek word is logicos - we get the word "logical" from it. So the NIV translation of "reasonable worship" or "rational worship" is better. As we fill our minds with all that God has done for us, then the response we make is a rational, reasonable one. Falling over and making animal noises or whatever the current fashion of the age is, is not the worship God requires.

True worship comes from a mind, a changed mind, the mind that God has renewed or changed in a Christian. Without a changed mind, we cannot worship God pleasingly.

In the Bible, the mind does not simply mean the intellect. The mind points to what we think about things and feel about things. The heart is used to mean almost the same thing. The heart is not just about feeling but also the control centre. Both are metaphors for what we are on the inside, the core of our being.

True worship can only come from a renewal of the mind

Things needing straightening out

Some things need only a bit of painful straightening out, but what true worship requires is for the worshipper's old mind to be completely recreated.

The renewal of the Christian's mind is a one-off event when God breaks into a person's life and renews what we are on the inside. It is our conversion and it is not on-going. What is on-going is the work of God by the power of his Spirit which he has given us and the Spirit's work has life-long implications.

We know from Romans 1:28 that the action of God as judgement for our non-worship of him is to deaden what we are on the inside so that we cannot truly worship him. From this debased mind which God gives us up to comes all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. It is because of our debased minds that we are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness; that we are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless (Romans 1:29 - 31). This means that any of us having a debased mind and given the right opportunity would have been an Austrian dungeon dad, a corrupt politician or a maniacal tyrant. This is what anybody could be if we were not with God. No amount of policing or laws or education would help that. It is only by washing us clean and literally recreating our minds from the inside that God gives us new desires and ambitions. We are literally a new creation; born again. And Jesus says that unless a man is born again, unless God's Spirit breaks in and renews the mind, then that person can never enter the kingdom of god.

True christian worship flows out of this renewed mind.

Romans 8 reminds us that those who are in the flesh cannot please God. For so long as we fail to recognise Jesus as Lord, we are not born again. Our inability to see his kingly rule means that we are conformed to the false advertising of this world, unable to break out of its mould, and cannot worship God acceptably, no matter what we do or how hard we try or how creative we get. We could be the archbishop or the pope or Mother Teresa or the winner of the Nobel Peace prize but we would not be able to worship God acceptably if we were not born again.

True worship requires careful prayerful consideration
We are told to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. The transformation is something that happens to us, Paul is not telling us to get out there and transform ourselves. For if it is the Spirit that renews our mind and thus transforms us, then we would not be able to do anything on our own. We could not force ourselves or screw up our eyes and think we can, think we can.

Yet this transformation is also a command. It does not say just lie back, let go and let God; hot-tub holiness. Instead, we are to take action. The tense is present continuous - go on being transformed for 6 months, 6 years, 6 decades.

God expects us to be so transformed and renewed to go on working on this project of transformation. Once we were so depraved, we couldn't and wouldn't think of how to please God. So now that we have a renewed mind, how we will change to please God! In our personal thought, in our careful application of his word, in our prayerful activity.

There is no set pattern, no rule book, no route to follow. If we have renewed minds, if we are truly Christian, God expects us to set our new minds to work to figure out how to truly worship him.

True worship is the proof of the pudding

Happy reviews of TinHill were not proved right in the snapper bouillabaisse pie which was thin and fishy, nor the pork which was smelly and bland (though the blachan made it edible), nor the nutella cupcake which had the taste and consistency of cardboard until we got them to nuke it, nor the passable sticky date pudding which wasn't terribly tasty even with the toffee sauce.

Unhappy reviews of The White Rabbit were not proved right either at least in the post-dinner drinks department. The enjoyable makeover of the gin fizz has made the old cocktail shaking hand tingle. Now to find guinea pigs for experiments before I bust a liver.

But Dim Joy (despite the omnious name, lack of central air-conditioning and the long wait) lived mostly up to the hype. The pork and chives wo tie were delicate and tasty, and the prawns in the har gow were fresh with the right crunch. Opinions on the char siew baos and grilled pork porridge however, differed.

Unlike the uncertainty (or rather, certain inconsistency) of food/restaurant reviews which may depend on whether the cook or waitstaff or customer had a bad day or their different tastes, Paul says with great assurance that a Christian may taste and approve/prove the will of God. We can prove the will of God in the same way we prove metal or a second car; we see that it is what it says it is.

This is not the arrogant judgement of a mere human on the work of God. It is God's intention is the ordinary Christian be so transformed by the renewal of his mind, as to be able themselves responsibly, in light of gospel and fellowship of the faithful, to prove that God is doing what he had always said he would do - to make for himself a people, to both save mercifully and judge righteously. It is not that we find out his specific will/calling for us but that in our lives we demonstrate that what God has said is true. God's great will is that people will be like his son Jesus in how they think and behave.

And what about Christians who still sin terribly? Christians have renewed minds and it is the renewed mind that keeps transforming the Christian. He is not yet perfect. And how do we know the mind is renewed? Because we keep coming back in repentance.


Tin Hill Wine Bar & Bistro
797 Bukit Timah Road
Tel: 6463 3811

The White Rabbit
39C Harding Road, Dempsey
Tel: 6473 9965

Dim Joy
80 Neil Road
Tel: 6220 6986

Sports Planet, East Coast Park
1020 East Coast Parkway
Tel: 9326 6635

Lee Thian Kay Medical Hall
Blk 5 Banda Street, #02-80

_______________________________________

Working through current series on Romans:
First Thai, Jay Chou's Birthday Concert and Romans 1
Feasting and Larval Thoughts on Faith and Romans 4
Privé, Cilantro and the Marvellous Comfort of Romans 8:1 - 16
Basil Alcove and the Pre-destination-based Comfort of Romans 8:17 - 39
Kapok at Newton and Romans 9 - 11
Tin Hill Wine Bar & Bistro, The White Rabbit at Dempsey, Dim Joy, True Worship and Romans 12:1 - 2
Sodagreen 苏打绿 Sing With Me 陪我歌唱 Concert, Futsal Tournament, Romans 13

God as God Leads Us to Live with Integrity and Prayerfulness

A blur of a fortnight:

the entire backrow walking out on World-In-Theatre's Macbeth with someone muttering,"Perhaps before experimenting with process-oriented approaches one should start with enunciation? Projection? Blocking? Iambic pentameter?" as we headed to drown sorrows in roti prata and maggi mee goreng next door, before returning to collect sweaty actors for supper, over which too much information was proffered on the follicular-distribution in one-half of a husband-husband couple,

meltingly good skewers of pork belly and watermelon, equally good Kurobuta pork chop, and tasty whole roasted pink snapper at Wine Garage, while being encouraged by the perseverence of saints in very frustrating and uncertain circumstances,

ending the virgin foray in a street soccer cage with a loose bigtoe-nail and a U CRAZY WHAT?! Botak Jones burger. Behold the pound of beef in its manly chesthair-inducing patty glory!

a birthday dinner with the lush lambs at Hue Restobar, Amara Hotel, where things here today and gone tomorrow were the subject of loud cheers and applause from the entire restaurant but the bland simulacra of Vietnamese food was far less well-received,

ending another birthday celebration with a midnight 五月天 (wuyuetian, May Day) medley at a karaoke joint complete with ecstatic use of tambourines,

saying goodbye at the last ARPC service at the Kuo Chuan Secondary School building in Bishan and hullo to the newARPC building back at 25 Adam Road.

The remaining time not spent eating was for listening to Mike Raiter speak on living with integrity on Wednesday and Thursday evening, prayer on Saturday morning and Romans 9 on Sunday morning. There is something about this sort of immersion in the word of God that causes dim eyes to make out, a little clearer than usual, for a little while, a little more of the flesh to the outline of the person of God.

Living the Christian life is not a matter of following rules, being "good" or having a strict morality; neither is it primarily about squabbling over the teachings of gurus - you follow John Calvin of the TULIP, I follow the free-form theology of Dance Praise 2 with extension packs. It is what being Christian is in the first place: having a relationship with God.

Who is this Father whom we are sons of and have a relationship with? It is interesting how fans hang on every act, every change in hair style, and every word of pseudo-wisdom that falls from the lips of their idols but we Christians who claim to worship God are far more concerned about what God can do for us than about knowing anything about him. Like meetings of obsessive fans and rabid stalkers, the focus of our sermons and Bible studies should be on God and his manifold and mightily admirable characteristics. No one who asks "How will knowing Master Chou 周大侠 help me get rich?" will last very long in a real Jay Chou 周杰倫 fan forum.

So we know that God the Father is the creator of the universe, it sustainer and its ultimate judge. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good. But our minds are so befuddled by sin that we are hard put to make good use of this knowledge.

God as Judge
If God (or rather, his delegated authority Jesus) is all-knowing and the ultimate judge, then we live not to be judged by others; neither by our proud/disappointed parents, nor admiring/sneering peers, nor to make a mark in human history that generations might remember us. We live for an audience of one, with judgement day integrity.

Matthew 6:1 - 18 warns us not to practice our righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then we will have no reward from our Father who is in heaven. There should be a oneness and unity within ourselves so that we are the same person at work, at church and at home. Our profession and expression must be the same. Why do we aspire to preach or lead the singing or a bible study or to go out to missions? It ought not be to be seen by others. If it is, then we will get what we deserve - a good reputation and the esteem of people...for now...and judgement of God on the Last Day.

God as Sustainer and Creator, God as God
Again, if God is our all-powerful and all-good sustainer, then we are dependent on God and not God on us. He does not need our time or money (although a church might need them to do its work for his glory) but we need him for our very life breath. Because we are dependent on God, we ask him for things: this is prayer.

If it is God we are asking for things, then praying for the purpose of impressing other people is absurd and bile-inducing. (Matthew 6:5 – 6)

And if it is an all-good God whom we are asking, then we do not have to spam him with empty phrases, manipulative 24 hour prayer marathons that go on and on all day long. As if God were deaf or unwilling to help. (Matthew 6:7 – 8)

And if this God is the ultimate of ultimates who should be our first love and object of worship, then we should feel strongly for his reputation and his name. We get angry when a righteous man is maligned, how much more indignant should we be when a good God is deprived of his rightful glory by people bowing down and glorifying idols made with their own 2 hands? In this way, the salvation of people is secondary to the glory of God. So we ought to pray first and foremost that God’s name be hallowed. (Matthew 6:9 – 10)

If this God is our creator, then he does not exist for us, a heavenly vending machine, but us for him to do his work and to give him glory. And if he is also sustainer and preserver, then we ask him for our daily bread: food and water and air to sustain our life, and also whatever we need to do his will and make his name known in this world. We ask for just enough to do his work, for he will not grant us perfect skill or perfect health because we can still do our jobs in our fallen incompetence as jars of clay, and through our cancers and migraines and amputations. (Matthew 6:11)

And if this God is all-powerful, then nothing in this world happens without his permission. Remember how Satan in the Book of Job had accused Job of loving God not for whom God was but for what God had given Job and asked permission to test Job to prove that once all these goodies were taken away, Job would throw a tantrum and curse God (Job 1:6 – 12). Remember also how Jesus had told Simon Peter that Satan had sought permission to sift him like wheat – oh sure it was cool to follow the all-curing, all-pontificating Jesus while he was free to roam and people adored him. But wait till Jesus was captured by the authorities and strung out to dry on a cross and see which rock the trusty disciples would be found cowering under. (Luke 22:31 - 34 for prediction of chicken-ness at rooster crow) We pray that in his mercy, God will not put us through these trials, but if it must be done, then we ask that he deliver us from the Accuser.

The things in the Lord's Prayer are hardly prayed for, possibly because of our terribly and unconscionably erroneous idea of the person of God in the first place.

Wine Garage
30 Merchant Road, #01-07
Riverside Point Singapore 058282
Tel: 6533 3188

Kiss Me

Photo: Straits Times

Yet, victory never felt so cheap...

Liverpool Lyrics and Fellowship Songs

You'll Never Walk Alone
"When you walk through a storm

hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark.
At the end of a storm is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark.
Walk on through the wind,
Walk on through the rain,
Tho' your dreams be tossed and blown.
Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone,
You'll never, ever walk alone.
Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone,
You'll never, ever walk alone."

This Liverpool anthem was a staple for Catholic funerals in my youth. I'd always figured there must be something wrong with a song that could be used without a qualm both for the comfort of the religious and to encourage the football-mad.

It advocated the sort of empty fellowship that could also be created in a fuzzy warm campfire-bonding session, singing songs like:

Dedication
We have shared our morning days
And gone through all rainy nights
Even in the darkest of nights
Stars still light up our way
Tomorrow is a beautiful dream
A dream that will be fulfilled
Cross the bridge of rainbow
In search of the gold
For here we stand (For here we stand)
Our dearest friend (Our dearest friend)
Sincerely from our hearts we wish (From our hearts we wish)
May streams of sunlight
Shine like rays of hope (Shine like rays of hope)
Hand in hand, we work and strive
For the best things in life (For the best things in life)

As One
We were once all strangers
Roaming near and far
Lost in a world of fantasy
Don't know who we are
Then one day destined we were
To stand together here as one
We'll be together, together as one
Day by day our spirits grew
Bonding us with love
Striving, working, never rest
Striving for the best
'Tis our story, 'tis our song
Filled with joy, spirit strong
As one, la la la
We'll be together, together as one
As the years pass us by
In many ways we fly
But the spirit still remains
It can never die
We'll be together, together as one

Friends
Sometimes I wonder if I made a wrong step somewhere
And times don't seem as good as they have been before
It's not so hard then to want to break down and cry
But then I hear a chorus of voices calling from the other shore
"look up look up"

You are my friends, my friends
Just some people walking the same road with hands
Joined as one together
Cross the bridge, see the rainbow
Feel the breeze, watch the flowers grow
Touch the sky, don't you know
We can go higher higher higher?

And through the years, as generations come and go,
Yet still this flame burns strong inside despite the rain.
It's not so wrong then, when I stumble and fall,
It's then I hear a chorus of voices calling from the other shore, "Look up, look up"
These are my friends, my friends,
Just some people walking the same road
With hands joined as one together
Cross the bridge, see the rainbow, feel the breeze, watch the flowers grow, touch the sky

Don't you know, we can go higher, higher, higher...
My friends...

Welcome to the Family
Welcome to the family
We're glad that you have come
to share your life with us
As we grow in love and
May we always be to you
What you would have us be
A family always there
To be strong and to lean on
May be learn to love each other more with each new day
May words of love be on our lips in everything we say
May the spirits warm our hearts and teach us how to love
That we might be a true family

Promises of long-lasting loving relationships and commitment for eternity. And the morning after the campfire, we'd wake up, and carry on with our own lives. All the promises in song of last night quickly forgotten. Empty words based on the good camaraderie at that point in time were put out with the damp ashes.

Surely Christian friendship is different. Surely Christian fellowship is based on a solid foundation and is more thus more lasting. The challenge of this weekend was the hard work of true Christian fellowship when warm fuzzy feelings were completely absent. A fellowship based on the fellowship God graces me with, which is stable and committed and loving and selfless. A fellowship that remains even when affection has evaporated. A fellowship that still cares even when feeling aggrieved.

It is difficult to know what this entails, for lack of experience. Yet, when I consider the faithfulness of God all through thousands of years of ignorant, arrogant, over-reaching, pitifully pompous people like myself, I see dimly through a glass the best model of all - God’s perfect unchanging steadfastness.