Tag: fire of love

Incendiary God – hymn for Pentecost and Wesley Day

Incendiary God, your fire of love, 
ignites our hope, within this place 
when we allow the sparks to spread
we know your presence, sense your grace.

On through the stubble of our lives, 
love burns out hatred, kindles faith, 
beyond the fire-breaks of our doubt 
you sign our path, you mark and trace.

Great conflagration fire our hearts 
until the world warmed by your breath, 
is spirit filled, infused with love 
that lasts beyond each human death.

Andrew E Pratt Words © 2013 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk . Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.

Ash Wednesday & Lent Hymn

A calendar will call us to share with Christ in Lent,
to walk within the darkness: some drawn, yet others sent;
and here we sense contrition, an ashen cross we bear,
reminder that the fire of love of God is everywhere.

In many different places God’s people bear the strain
of human expectation as cruel norms constrain;
for each convention sealing another person’s fate
forgive, release, give freedom before it is too late.

We witness acts of hatred dressed up as self-defence,
where vengeance is the motive hid deep in self-pretence;
great God forgive those moments, when hate and human pride
leads to the domination of those we might deride.

As Christ you suffered torment, the torture and the hate,
yet on the cross forgave them, the ones who sealed your fate,
so as we kneel confessing complicity, we pray,
great God forgive humanity when selfishness holds sway.

Andrew Pratt 15/2/2020
Words © 2020 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, http://www.stainer.co.uk.
Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.

Tune: CRUGER (Thy hand, O God has guided)