Reminiscing Catchfire 2011: One King. One People. One Mission.

As Catchfire 2012 approaches in less than a month, I decided to take a look back and reminisce on my Catchfire 2011 experience, one aspect of which was being asked to be part of the Catchfire Writers pool and getting the inspiration from the Lord to write the article that was shared on the Catchfire website last year.

This is the article which served as my personal reflection for Catchfire 2011 which hopefully was transformed into a communal reflection as people came to read and reflect on it.

CATCHFIRE 2011:

ONE KING. ONE PEOPLE. ONE MISSION.

One King

1 Chronicles 29:11 says “Lord, you are great and powerful. Glory, majesty and beauty belong to you. Everything in heaven and on earth belongs to you. Lord, the kingdom belongs to you. You are honored as the One who rules over all.”

These words breathe life into what every Christian feels in the very depths of his soul – the Lord is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and He deserves our worship. The psalmist declares “Worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness (Psalm 96:9). We must never lose the splendor and majesty of the Lord in our very being. We are surrounded by countless evidences of His royal presence and remain in awe of His greatness and beauty. He is worth the praise and thanksgiving that we give Him because, despite His being a King, He was the one who reached out to us by giving His one and only Son to save us from the clutches of sin and inviting us to a loving relationship with Him. Imagine a King going against all protocol that the world has put in place and inviting us to be a part of His kingdom, a part of His family.

”Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:28).

Indeed, we give thanks to the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings for consuming us with His fire, a fire that envelopes our lives and moves us to choose Him over the world every day.

One People

Yet, even if this invitation to be part of His family has been extended to us in love, day in, day out, we find ourselves rejecting this invitation by living our lives our own way. Yet, even if we let him down because of the choices we make, He remains steadfast in loving us.  He remains faithful, even if we are faithless, because He cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2: 13).

Thus, we learn to open ourselves to the different manifestations of His faithfulness in our lives...

He leads His flock “to paths of righteousness for His name’s sake” (Psalm 23: 3b). This leads to our lives being filled with purpose and direction.

Because Him, we lack nothing and our cup overflows (Psalm 23: 1, 5b). We realize how generous the Lord has been in our lives despite the many times we turned our back on Him.

And even if we face trials and difficulties, we fear no evil because the Lord is always with us (Psalm 23: 4a). We become stronger and more courageous as we face trials that come our way knowing that the Lord is by our side.

“God created us for this: to live our lives in a way that makes him look more like the greatness and the beauty and the infinite worth that he really is. This is what it means to be created in the image of God.” (John Piper)

The chorus of the song “In Your Loving Presence” brings forth the yearning to praise and honor the One true King and the desire to abide always in His Presence.

We will praise You, Lord

For Your goodness and mercy thrive

We will exalt Your name, our God

In Your loving Presence we will abide

This desire to abide always in His Presence is what motivates us to respond daily to His invitation to be a part of His kingdom, to be as 1 Peter 2: 9 – 10 proclaims:  “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. ¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

  

One Mission

The realization that we are His chosen people, God’s special possession, inspires each one of us to strive daily to obey and do His will and to please Him in the way we live our lives.

For freely I have received blessing upon blessing

So freely I should give everything that I am

That I may live a life worthy of You, Lord

Pleasing You in every way

Bearing fruit in every good work

Giving thanks to You day after day.

Indeed, we have received so much from the Lord! And how else can we respond but by standing up in faith for Him who loved us unconditionally?

Each day the Lord blesses us with opportunities to share the goodness and faithfulness we have experienced in our lives to all others around us -- in our families, in our workplaces, in our daily circumstances, and even through our social media, like Facebook and Twitter.  As Christians, we  recognize that the Lord has called us to be “in the world but not of the world”, to be examples of people living radical lives of faith, hope and love so that others around us may be brought out of the darkness the world has enveloped them in and live freely in the light and love of the Lord, our King and God.

We pray that we, as One People, shall commit to pursuing this One Mission --  to bring to others the Good News that we are all called to a loving relationship with Christ, our One true King.