Jesus and the taxman

If accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour is as taxing (pun intended) as submitting our tax returns online, I would have remained an unbeliever.

Imagine, just as you are about to submit your returns, you are greeted with some cryptic error message and when you try to save your partially-completed returns, another unintelligible error appears (http yada yada unga wonga, contact your system administrator, unga unga unda unda haha haha who ask you to submit so late ah?).

You found yourself logged out and when you try to log in again, it doesn't allow you. You can either refresh the URL again & again until your face turns blue and your finger turns numb from clicking the Refresh button, or you can make yourself a drink, sip it slowly, take a few deep breaths, go to the toilet, and then try to log in again. After you manage to log in again, you find the whole cycle repeating itself like the classic MRT announcements (Dear passengers, please be reminded that eating or drinking is not allowed on the stations and the trains. Thank you for helping us keep the trains clean for the comfort of all passengers). Depending on how busy the server is and how patient you are, you may have to try anything from 3 to 30 times before you can submit your returns successfully. I gave up last night and tried again this morning at 6.30am before finally submitting it at about 6.45am. Well, you can say 'Praise the Lord!' to that.

Yet, despite the hardship and trying moments, many pressed on without fail, patiently enduring the taunting and mocking until they are able to submit their returns successfully. You wonder why, and then you remember the penalties of not submitting returns by the deadline.

If only people know the penalties of not accepting Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour by the time they are dead. Most people either don't know the penalties or think that these penalties are not for real. Like the tax return, there is a penalty for not responding by the deadline; unlike the tax return, each person has a unique deadline which is unknown except to God. If the penalty for not accepting Jesus is along the magnitude of that for not submitting returns on time, then it's no big deal. Unfortunately, the penalty we are talking about here is paid for with one's life & carries a permanent residency in hell, whether you want it or not.

As Apr 15 draws near, as a public service, I would like to remind all taxpayers to submit their tax returns on time. At the same time, on humanitarian grounds, I would like to remind all living persons to make an appointment with Jesus before it's too late.

God bless you,

Thomas