This is a good song…it’s pretty old, so I’m surprised we haven’t sang this song yet in GT!

Evermore

Verse1

LOST FOR

I notice that people in enigmatic activities do position a lot of emphasis on the “feeling of peace” as an indication or rather an authentication to an appeal with the intention of possibly will position before God. Despite the fact that it is pleasant to have warmth of peace, but from time to time, I cannot rally round but acquire the thought that it is undeniably an excess pointer. Well, I let you know why I struggle with this concept: Did you think that Jesus felt a lot of peace at Gethsemane? Hmm, sweating drops of blood does not give the “peaceful” impression.

That (dretched) time of the year is upon us again where the dreaded TAX and all it stands for is making us cough up more $$$ in additional tax, although for the lucky few, you might get belated ang pow in the form of refunds.

While I am no longer in the tax line per se, I thought I will still send out my usual email on this subject matter and hope that it helps with the form filling etc.

Here’s some FAQs and my take on the questions:

Q: When do I need to file tax return?
A: April 30th for Borang BE (salaried individuals only), June 30th for Borang B (you have this form if you also have your own business - sole proprietorship). You only fill in ONE form.

Q: What happens if I file late?
A: 1 word - PENALTY http://www.hasil.org.my/english/eng_NO4_6.asp

Q: I still haven’t received my Borang
A: Go to nearest IRB branch, give them your tax ref number and get them to print your borang. Alternatively, you can print a blank copy online and fill out your details accordingly http://www.hasil.org.my/melayu/bm_NO5_1.asp

Q: I got a lot of additional tax to pay, short of declaring bankruptcy, what should I do?
A: Go to your nearest IRB branch, and request for instalment payment scheme

Q: I don’t have my EA form, what do I do? Still have to file tax return?
A: GO knock on your HR door and ask them where your form is. If you change jobs during the year, call your old company and ask them to send form. You need EA form to file your tax return

Q: I don’t owe the govt any more tax? So still have to file return?
A: Yes - even if you’ve got ZERO tax to pay. Of course, if you are in refund position, you definitely want to file in the return because govt cannot refund you if they don’t know how much they need to pay you.

Q: Should I file joint tax return with my spouse?
A: Entirely up to you. Personally I think its more efficient to just file one return.

Q: If I haven’t kept any receipts but I swear that I spend $$$ on books, post graduate fees, medical fees for my parents, computer, insurance, donations to approved organisations, vet fees for my pets, can I still claim deduction?
A: NO . no receipt = no claim. For insurance claims, make sure you have received the letter from your agent that sets how how much you have contributed for medical and life. There is also a max threshold allowed for these claims, they are clearly stated on the Borang.

As for vet fees - sorry, no claims allowed.

Q: My Bahasa Malaysia is terrible. I don’t know how to fill out form.
A: http://www.hasil.org.my/english/eng_no5_1.asp Go to this webpage, there is an English version of both BORANG BE and B, plus explanatory notes. However, for submission purpose, you must still complete the Malay version and submit that. The English version is only used as a guide.

Q: I want to do e-filing, how do I proceed?
A: You need to obtain a pin number. For some, the pin number is actually on the back page of your Borang form - 16 digits. For others, you will need to apply directly at the nearest IRB branch. You need the pin number to access your return form online https://spsd.hasil.org.my/PKI/e/mainpage.html

E- Filing takes only 10 mins (provided you have all your documents at the ready. Take it from me - I have waited for IRB to test run the E-Filing platform the last two years so that they can iron out the usual glitches; for 2007, I advise you guys to use E-Filing.

Once you have E-filed - if you are unfortunate enough to still owe money, then proceed to http://epayment.hasil.org.my/fpx/one.php

If your bank is not participating in the E-Payment scheme, then you need to send in a cheque or pay direct at IRB counters.

Q: I have read all the FAQs, memorise the IRB website content, call IRB hotline, BUT…. I am still stuck. Can I call you?
A: Yes. Calls charges get progressively more expensive as they are made closer to the deadline(s) above. Discounts are negotiable:->

All the best!

Well, I came across this in fact an exceptionally attention-grabbing attribute between driven and called people given by Gordon McDonald in his classic book, “Ordering Your Private World”. I have constantly thought for myself as a very driven person (perhaps so), and consequently I felt as if I have been overly slapped after reading this piece: 

Driven people think they own everything. They own their relationships, they own their possessions, and they own their positions. In fact, they perceive their identity as the sum of their relationships, possessions, and positions. As a result, driven people spend most of their time protecting what they own. We see this in a family when a parent makes sure every knows that he is the father (or she is the mother) and demands that everyone else cater to his wishers without questioning his authority. Driven people think and act as if “he who dies with the most toys wins”. And if you mess with any of their toys, you’re in trouble. The possessions of driven people become an important expression of why they are and end up possessing them. 

Called people, on the other hand, believe everything is on loan. They believe their relationships are on loan; they know they we have no guarantee we will see those we love tomorrow. Called people also believe their possessions are on loan and are to be held lightly, to be enjoyed and shared with an open hand. Finally, Called people believe their positions are on loan from God and the people they are attempting to influence. Rather than protecting their own, called leaders act as good stewards of what has been loaned to them. 

Well, frankly speaking, by no means I consider myself as a BIG champ by dying with the most toys! Er, I guess there are a few unreliable measures of fact about my driven personality then. Hey, nevertheless this is a good read… yeap, it surely gave myself a jolt.

Ching Ming was observed over a week ago, and although I don’t observe it, a few things came to mind.

A brief writeup on Ching Ming can be found at http://www.chcp.org/chingming.html. I’m a little bemused by the statement:

“Today families may be more likely to prefer simplified offerings of only the incense, paper money and flowers.”

He’s probably not Malaysian, and have not seen our petrol kiosk being burnt, along with wonderbras and BMWs and even maids..yes, I just found out that effigies of maids were also burnt. If that’s not grand, I don’t know what is.

I grew up in a Christian family, but spent a lot of time with my grandmother, who was Taoist. Or at least I think she was. She had an altar set up with the idol of Guan Yu I recall, back in her OldTown house, so as a chinese family, we were culturally influenced a lot by my grandmother, even to little superstitions like not reading while eating, or not mixing sweet and salty stuff and little things like that. We were brought up to respect our elders, not eating till they ate and asking them to eat first; and of course, the famous relative-calling everytime we go into her home. This meant we needed to call everyone who was there, except for the ones younger. So if it was a huge family reunion, I’ll need to go one by one and call: “Ah Ma, Ah Yeh, Sam Suk, Ah Pak, Ah Pak Leong, Ku Che, Ku Cheong etc etc”.

We observe Chinese New Year, of course, and had firecracker wars with the neighbours, where we would angle our moon travelers to attack a particular house or field. We even devised a bazooka, where using a firecracker can shoot a projectile at murderous speed. So much for pursuing peace with all men.

But I don’t remember Ching Ming, and I suppose, it could either mean my grandmother never believed in it (to burn incense for Ah Tai, my great grandmother) or we were shielded from such ceremonies by my parents. I do recall a portrait of my stern looking Ah Tai in my grandmother’s room, where I would sleep over night.

Hence, I never had to experience the pressure to participate in a religious ceremony that might compromise my christian faith. I am quite sure many others have. The chinese culture is steeped with such ceremonies like respecting the dead and praying to them.

How can a Christian respond without coming across as being disrespectful?

In order to address this, let us first construct the background in which such a question might be asked.

In Chinese tradition (and I’m sure in others as well), respect and loyalty to elders is often demonstrated in the event of death. Every family member has a duty to perform for the deceased, and not to do so will be viewed as being disrespectful and unfilial. Filial piety, after all, is a virtue. Emphasis is placed on being filial, so much so that in death, respect to the dead is shown by performing rituals, such as leaving gifts and burning hell money to make sure that the travel of their after life would be eased. Some might say that they don’t worship their ancestors, just showing respect, which all religion should teach.

However, there must be a line drawn for christians to participate in ceremonious rituals in the name of respect. For instance, while I agreed to be the witness and best man for my friend, I made it very clear to him and his family that I will not be part of the blessing ceremony. What about performing those rituals so as not to cause anymore distress in the family unit? What about going through the motions but praying to Jesus instead under your breath?

I agree it’s a difficult position, one which I have not been in, so I probably cannot write authoritatively about this. While I think it is OK for Christians to care for the grave site, mourn for the dead without being idolatrous, we must be careful not to confuse what is biblical and unbiblical. There’s a difference between speaking of a friend who passed away and to a friend who passed away, for instance. Whatever that implies our agreement with idolatry, necromancy and unbiblical beliefs, we must avoid it. I.e not participate at all. Of course, the keyword here is implies, and as I have written in my previous post; we need to be conscious of the interpretive gap.

It’s quite a hard line approach, that whatever we do in Ching Ming, whether we say we don’t believe in it, but still accompany our family to the gravesite, still stand beside them, still help them burn incense…these actions implies our agreement to the rituals. Just as I would not participate in my friend’s marriage blessing, I would avoid any participation in grave visits. Not that visiting a grave of a loved one is wrong in itself, but doing so during Ching Ming would inevitably lend the impression that we condone to ancestral worship and rituals related to the festival.

I’ll also add that as Christians, our faith will always be tested and there will be conflicts in families regarding faith, as said in Matthew 10:34–39. But the first generation Christian must be the salt and light of the family, and face such persecutions for the faith. While we should respect the family, we must also have no part in traditional rituals of ancestral worship.

In 2 Corinthians 6:14–16:

” Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” “

Beginning this month marked April 1^st, also known as April Fools’ Day.  That morning, whilst on the way to work, I sensed something amidst – my tag, which is more often than not residing next to my car seat is nowhere to be found! I reversed home, and began searching everywhere and turning the car up down, but still to no avail.  My thoughts were flashing as to where exactly I last placed my tag…. Well, I was completely, a fool, having to move around the office without a tag. And by the end of the day, when I sms-ed a friend, he told me he had silently chucked my tag underneath the tissue box behind my car the night before, when we went out yum-cha.
 
Well, the word “fool” indeed, hmm I did not know there were various Hebrew words that point up ‘em, and well, it was somewhat, in fact, interesting to discover the story behind it. And this came from Os Hillman in Today God Is First.
 
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.” Proverbs 1:7.
 
Marvin Wilson, author of Our Father Abraham, has written incisively about the various meanings for our word “fool”.
 
In Biblical wisdom literature, the pupils of the sages and mentors are the unwise, often termed “fools” (Proverbs 1:7) or “simple one” (Proverbs 1:22). In wisdom literature, the different levels of fools – both young and old – are the raw material on which the sages had to work, and they represent the varying degrees of rawness. Perhaps as much as anything else, the term fool is descriptive of an attitude, bent of mind, or direction in life, which needs correcting. The various Hebrew words for fool occur more than a hundred times in the book of Proverbs. [Marvin Wilson, Our Father Abraham (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989), 284-286]
 
The reference to someone being a fool was not necessarily a negative term. A simple fool, or peti, was a person who made mistakes, but quickly righted them and was restored to fellowship with God and others. King David was a simple fool, one who made mistakes, but kept a repentant heart toward God. This is why God did not turn away from him for his many sins.
 
The hardened fool, kesil and ewil, makes mistakes, but never learns from them and will not listen to others. Such people can expect God’s reproof to continue and will eat the fruit of their own way (Refer Proverbs 1:31-32). The hardened fool “returns to his own vomit”. King Saul was a hardened fool, one who made mistakes and continued in them even after realizing he was wrong. We’re going to err in our ways. The question is, once we know we have made a mistake before God, do we make the necessary adjustments that will allow Him to intervene on our behalf? And will we avoid the same course of action in the future? God says that if we do, He will pour out His Spirit on us (see Proverbs 1:23). He will make known His words to us.
 
The third level of fool mentioned in Proverbs is the mocking fool or letz. The mocking fool mocks the things of God. This word means “scoffer” or “scorner.” When you encounter cynical people who disregard the things of God, you know these people are “mocking fools”
 
The fourth level of fool is the God-denying fool or nabal. This term relates to the morally wicked person who ignores the disgrace he brings on his family and who despises holiness (see Proverbs 17:21) This person says, “There is no God.” By failing to acknowledge God for who He is, the nabal declares himself to be a “God-denying” fool.
 
I have found that it is helpful to try to understand if people are teachable. Are they simple fools, those who make mistakes but seek to learn from them? I can work with those people. But if I sense I am working with a wrong hardened fool, I know I should not spend much time on that person. Jesus did not spend much time trying to convince the rich young ruler. He presented truth, and let him make his decision. Some people must get broken before they can become simple fools. Well, sometimes it is simply better to let satan to chew on people until the ground is fertile enough to present truth to them.
 

Reading 1 Corinthians 8:

v4: So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one.

v7: But not everyone knows this. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat such food they think of it as having been sacrificed to an idol, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled.

v8: But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.

A couple of months back, one of my best friends got married. He was a strong buddhist, and once contemplated becoming a monk, and spent a few months at a monastery. He asked me to be his witness (or his best man, in other words) which I readily agreed.

“But I’m getting married in a temple, and will be blessed by a monk,” he added, half apologetically. We have often debated about religion, him about Buddhism, me about Christianity. In fact, at one point, both of us readily agreed we were trying to witness our own religion to each other, that just as I really wanted him to believe in the freedom of Christ, he wanted me to believe in the liberation of Buddhism. It’s funny, how two good friends are trying to convert each other to what we know is the truth.

“Sure,” I responded and added, “Do I need to also shave and chant with you?”

“No need lah!”

It’s funny, that he considered asking me, thinking I might be offended to go to a temple. But I’ve been to many temples and wats and even a mosque. To me, going these places isn’t defiling what I believe in, or compromising my faith in any way. So I went and sat as a witness, met all his friends and adjourned to the chamber where he and his wife would be blessed by a Sri Lankan monk. I didn’t go into the blessing chamber but hung around outside, where I met another Christian girl who also got invited and we struck up a very nice conversation, amidst the chants of blessings. And I was just wondering, if I had actually gone into the blessing chamber and sat there just to get out of the sun, and this girl was told I was a Christian, what would go through her mind?

1 Corinthians 8 deals with Paul’s address to the church, dealing with what can defile and what cannot defile. He is basically saying, that food, offered to idols is still food, since the idols aren’t real anyway. So an apple is an apple, not some kind of poison just because it was brought to an idol. This wasn’t a new teaching; in fact, Jesus addressed it in Mark 7:14-15

Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean.’ “

And in Romans 14:14, Paul reiterates:

As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean.

Here he deals with two aspects of our actions: the actual and the perceived.

I used to not really care what a lot of people think of me. If I wanted to have a drink, I’d do it, and all these goody two shoes christians can say what they want. It’s the liberation of Christianity’s dos and donts, it’s all about ‘personal convictions’, whether I feel good or bad about it. This was a popular theme of debate back in my university days, that anything I felt was ok, then it was OK, else the Holy Spirit would have convicted me otherwise.

This is actually a very dangerous philosophy, because I dealt primarily with the actual consequences, and neglected what was perceived. For instance, if I visited my grandma’s grave and knelt before it, praying to God and thanking God for her life, I have theoretically done nothing wrong. But if another friend, a non-christian happened to be there, he would have thought, “Hey, Christians believe in ancestral worship since he’s kneeling down and praying to it.” There is that gap that leaves too much to interpretation, which is unncessary. We can call it the interpretive gap, because it sounds cool and has a management guru book ring to it. =)

As what Paul writes; if he should eat these food and another person sees him doing it, there’s that gap that might be interpreted wrongly. At that time, newer christians might have been converted from heathenism, and they might think Christianity still believed in divine powers of idols by eating the food. To Christians, it’s nothing. To new believers, the interpretive gap is too open.

As Christians, we are free. Because we know that idols are simply carvings and have no power to possess you when you eat that ’siew pau’ offered to it, we enjoy the liberation of truth. But we need to be conscious of what is perceived, and how other believers have their own interpretive gap. It is simple. Can I survive without the siew pau offered to idols? Sure. I will just make do without it, so it doesn’t leave any gap for new christians to stumble.

It’s a contentious point, true. I used to openly order beer when I go out with friends at times. But if I had a new cell member who struggles with alcoholism, how much effect would that be for him to see a cell leader with a Heineken in his hands? Can I survive without it? Definitely, so I stopped, and hopefully matured through that process.

The Bible says clearly that this is a sin for a Christian to cause a weaker Christian to stumble in this way. It even go as far as to say we could lead to them being destroyed. It is much easier for me to say, “I don’t need to eat or drink this, since there’s not much benefit it it anyway,” and do away with it. Though we are free from all these bondages, we should not abuse such freedom in a way that would cause others to fall. Unfortunately, there will be times when you will be misinterpreted. I am not discounting possibilities where one might go to a brothel to witness to prostitutes, but be sure that the intentions and motivations are God driven, and He will definitely guide your path and not allow you to stumble the weaker Christians along the way. But as much as possible, we should minimise the interpretive gap by avoiding ambiguous circumstances if possible, like drinking a beer, smoking a cigar or going into a casino especially if you are in leadership positions.

After all, the freedom of Christ has taken away our dependence on such things like these.

Well, an occasional Seremban char siew pau is still irresistible.

It’s amazing what you can get once you ‘kick the bucket’, or ‘cross over’, or ‘meet your maker’. These days, the industry of the dead is booming, with people selling elaborate gifts to be burnt–yes, you read it right–burnt, during festivals like Ching Ming last week. Cars, handphones, LV bags and even a petrol station can be burnt and sent DHL style to the afterlife address. I mean, it does make sense to burn a petrol station, sure, in the after life, they need some kind of fuel to run those cars, right? What about those fancy bras? Or a plasma screen TV, complete with a power cord? But what kind of power plug is there? Shouldn’t they have a universal converter as well, just in case. I mean, it would really blow if you had all these fancy stuff and not be able to plug it in. And incidentally, what’s stopping an enterprising fellow down there (or up there, depending on which way you look at it) from setting up a store, where everyone can get their own stuff with the billions of paper money they have? That’s a thought.

In all cultures, death always plays a major part. People who don’t believe in God has to believe in death anyway. I suppose, to them, they just kind of blink out of existence, the same way a mosquito is blinked out of existence when we obliterate it with our hands. But atheists aside, most people who believe in some sort of religion believes in the separation of body and soul. The body passes away, the soul survives.

In Christianity, we have many verses stating the differences in the body and the soul; the corporeal and the non-corporeal. In Matthew 10:28 - “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” ; Luke 12:5 - “But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.”; James 2:26 - “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.”.

Having said that, we do not lay claim that the body is not important! Gnostic believes in the complete separation of body and spirit, to the point where sin in the body is considered ok, as the body is ‘evil’. This deviant teachings were shattered in Paul’s letters to the Ephesians. 1 Corinthians 6:19 talks about the body being the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and that we should honour God with our body.

Christians believe in life after death. We believe that the earth is temporary, and all things will fade away like dew in the morning. All glory, all pride, EVERYTHING comes down to one tiny bottleneck we call death. Everyone faces it, kings and paupers, rich and poor, mighty and weak. No one can cheat it. It’s the reality of this life, that it gets taken away sooner or later.

As Christians we have hope. One of the most powerful scriptures can be found in 2 Timothy 4:6-8:

“For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has arrived. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is stored away for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day; and he will give one not only to me, but to all those who have delighted in his appearing.”

And John 14:1-3:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled; believe in God and believe in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have said that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, so that you may also be where I am.”

It’s an exciting way to go, to know the path, to be assured of where you’d be going.

I was talking once to a friend who didn’t believe in God or after life, heaven or hell. He says, “How can you be sure there’s something after we die?” I asked in return, “How are you sure there isn’t?”

Pondering, he said, “I’m not sure, but at least I wouldn’t waste this life chasing an after life that does not exist.”

I answered, “Then at least, I wouldn’t waste the next life wishing that the after life never existed.”

The point I was telling him was this: I am 100% assured of Christ and His promise. But to those who doubt, wouldn’t it be a safer bet to believe there is something after you die and be prepared for it; than to not believe and not prepare? At least, if nothing existed after life, you don’t lose anything, you just blink out of existence. But if something is there…well, at least you knew about it. It’s the only point of view he is willing to look from, and at least, inroads are made. There is indeed life after death, and just as in the recently concluded Broken production in church, we need to realise that the decisions we make in this life, determines where we are in the next.

I think perhaps as all the great conquerors of this earth lay dying, their thoughts were not on what they achieved in this world, but where they would be going next.

“I die before my time, and my body will be given back to the earth. Such is the fate of him who has been called the great Napoleon. What an abyss between my deep misery and the eternal kingdom of Christ!”- Napoleon Bonaparte

All the great poets and writers, for all their prose and works, must have realised immortality is a myth, that while their works survive, they have to pass on.

Now day and night are locked in combat. I see black light. - Victor Hugo

And all the ones who never believed in God, how haunting their final words become:

Caesar Borgia: “While I lived, I provided for everything but death; now I must die, and am unprepared to die.”

Thomas Hobbs: “I say again, if I had the whole world at my disposal, I would give it to live one day. I am about to take a leap into the dark.”

Thomas Payne: “Stay with me, for God’s sake; I cannot bear to be left alone … O Lord, help me! O God, what have I done to suffer so much? What will become of me hereafter?”

Sir Thomas Scott: “Until this moment I thought there was neither a God nor a hell. Now I know and feel that there are both, and I am doomed to perdition by the just judgment of the Almighty.”

Voltaire: “I am abandoned by God and man; I will give you half of what I am worth if you will give me six months’ life.” (He said this to Dr. Fochin, who told him it could not be done.) “Then I shall die and go to hell!”

Robert Ingersoll: “O God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul!”