The apostle Paul said in one of his letters to the early churches, and I paraphrase "Why is it that i do not do what I want to do and do what I do not want to do?"

Why do I keep sinning?
Is it not that I have received the Freedom of Christ? Is it not now that I have been freed from the chains of sin and death? Is it not now that I stand before God clothed in righteousness in His sight?

Why do I keep on willfully sinning?
"I do what I do not want to do, yet I do not do what I want to do..."

1 John 1:9 NIV "If we confess our sins He (God) is faithful and just and will forgive us of all our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness" - bears me no meaning when I know that I am going to commit that same sin again.

Why does it seem that I am still chained by sin when I know i should be free from it?
Why do I still sin knowing full well that it is wrong?
Why does it seem others live such a close walk with God yet I cannot say with conviction that I feel God's presence anywhere?
Why does it seem that I struggle to deal with sins I commit while others seem not to be sinning?

My prayers are meaningless when I know that I have sinned and will do so again when I ask for forgiveness. All I do is repeat the sin, thus putting him back on the cross (metaphorically), and repenting, going in that endless cycle...I CANNOT TAKE IT!

I know full well deep down in my heart that the devil has to control over me because of Jesus' blood...yet I still feel I am mired deep in sin. Why?

The only evidence of any shred of the Holy Spirit in me is that I am still able to confess and repent. But what point is there in repenting when you know you're just going to do it again and again?

Is there no escape from this spiral? Will I never be rescued? I know my life is Christ's, yet how can He accept someone as filthy as me?
I sin yet I do not want to sin, while I want to live a life that is holy yet it is far from it.

The fact that I am a sinner in and out has never rang more true in my life than this very moment...

...Cry out for their mistakes, repent of their ways again
I'm sorry I didnt see Your Ways
Your beautiful ways...

The time has come to be healed
Let your wounded hearts cry out to Him
Be healed of your past pains
He's taken them away
Believe this...

Oh Father,
By your blood we're restored
Our lives forever changed

Lord, I believe in you
You've FREED me from sin
Every time that they scarred your skin
Every moment of your painful death WAS FOR ME
WHY for ME?
Never should I look away...forget of what you did for us...

You are God, You rose again... ~from Lord I Believe- Phanin Souer, 2006


Lord Jesus, Abba Father, please remove this part of me. I want to be able to respect myself, and not be ashamed of what I do. I want to live a life free of sin, to be free in You, to know full well that I'm forever in Your arms... To see your Glory, to experience it, and come back and never be the same ever again. I ask you back into my heart once more, and I pray that you will never leave, that you will always dwell in me. Make me a worthy vessel for your Spirit. Give me the strength and the instinct to turn straight to you when things go even slightly awry and not rely on what I consider my strength sufficient. I pray that there will be many more days where I can experience Your love firsthand in your embrace, and where I can share Your love with others...

Amen

"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is FREEDOM." Where there's God's freedom, "there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ."

Blast from the Past Part III: Old Ties

The third installment of my blast from the past (read the other two entries if from here on out you have ABSOLUTELY no idea what i am talking about), after a long time of nothing happening brings you:

OLD TIES

okay, my creativity on how to title stuff just went out of the window. So here's what happened:

A couple of days back after a stint of playing FLYFF, i noticed that i had new mail courtesy of the gmail notifier running in my system tray. one of the few new items in my inbox was (yet) another notification of a friend adding me on Facebook. This friend's an old high school friend from Brentwood, so no worries in wondering who it was. So without hesitation i logged onto my personal Facebook profile to confirm that Jess Choong was indeed someone i knew. Just out of curiousity i clicked on a link that indicated that she and I had 5 friends in common.

Of the 5 faces displayed there i recognised all of them, no mistake there. However only 2 of the 5 caused me even more surprise. Care to guess? Bah... i'll just say. It happened to be Lim Pi Xie and Susan Chia! Honestly, I don't know what to make of this except to say, it's not even 6 degrees of seperation any more. The world isn't as big as I thought it was. What's more is that a portion of my past has been brought to the present, much like the Time Spiral theme from Magic the Gathering series (if you don't get the reference, then dont try. it's a geek / nerd thing)...

lastly all i have to say is.... WOW. I never thought this sort of thing would ever happen in my life, but clearly, a couple of days ago-heck- even from two months ago i was proven wrong. People you've met at some stage of your life that you haven't seen for what seemed like a lifetime to come back.

Lives intersect, no journey is made where a path doesn't cross with another. Divergent paths alwasy reconverge. Somewhere down the line, in each journey at different speeds...

...we meet again...