we were the reason.

As little children we would dream of Christmas morn
Of all the gifts and toys we knew we’d find
But we never realized a baby born one blessed night
Gave us the greatest gift of our lives

We were the reason that He gave His life
We were the reason that He suffered and died
To a world that was lost He gave all He could give
To show us the reason to live

As the years went by we learned more about gifts
The giving of ourselves and what that means
On a dark and cloudy day a man hung crying in the rain
All because of love
All because of love

We were the reason that He gave His life
We were the reason that He suffered and died
To a world that was lost He gave all He could give
To show us the reason to live

I finally found the reason for living
It’s in giving every part of my heart to Him (every part to Him)
And all that I do every word that I say (you know I’ll be saying)
I’ll be giving my all just for Him, for Him (every thing for Him)

We are the reason that He gave His life
We are the reason that He suffered and died
To a world that was lost He gave all He could give
To show us the reason to live.
-- We Were the Reason, Avalon

Two main things for this post - Easter, and the Scholar's Cup...

Salvation in Jesus Christ is one thing I am quite amazed at, partly because we live in a world where hardly any "deals" as good as that are offered... Technically, I'm not sure but if I'm not mistaken, the atonement for our sins happened on Good Friday (we usually say Jesus died for our sins, not Jesus rose from the dead for our sins); Easter was to show that Jesus was truly God and had conquered death. I'm somewhat confused on this, still...

God really gave us all that He could give us, with regards to sin and salvation. In our world, if we commit crimes / offences, we (usually) have to pay for them in one way or another...

With regard to Scholar's Cup, what happened was truly amazing. I never expected to win like 7 prizes, including overall best individual and overall best team. I really didn't expect to do so well but I guess my "all-round" strategy paid off somewhat as I pushed through almost 800 pages of notes over the past 3 days.

I need to thank the following people for the Scholar's Cup success:

• of course, Shaun Ong and Tim Liang, my team-mates who studied, mugged and debated with me;
• the main competitors for me - Shaun Lee, Jarrel Seah, Jonathan Tan; as well as, indirectly, Levin Tan and Adwyn Chong, for making me push myself quite hard for this competition...
• Mr Andrew Wong for hosting this entire thing and having some confidence in me...
• Daniel Yee for understanding my reasons for changing teams;
• Russell Chan for understanding my reasons for changing teams as well as for wishing me luck before the competition this morning;
• Kevin Wong for helping out with the organization, as well as the rest of the helpers,
• the Organisers for making a successful albeit late competition;
• and lastly, God; for without Him none of all the achievements we made would have been possible.

jk