fire of love – hymnsandbooks

A spark exists within us all – alludes to John Wesley’s experience of a strangely warmed heart on the 24th May 1738 as we approach Pentecost

A spark exists within us all - Richard Rolle wrote of the fire of love - this hymn reflects that theme but also alludes to John Wesley’s experience of a strangely warmed heart on the 24th May 1738.

1	A spark exists within us all
	that, fanned, will form a flame of love;
	so let cold embers warm and glow
	then, flickering, dancing, leap above.

2	This sign of pre-existent power,
	the ground of all enlightenment,
	the blaze of which we share a part
	is love that shimmers heaven bent.

3	So let that universal flame,
	that fire which cannot be confined,
	ignite a spirit in the world
	transcending bounds of space and time.

4	Then all the earth consumed by love;
	awakened, warmed, and fused as one,
	will know a single sense of joy
	as all rejoice beneath the sun. Amen!

Words Andrew Pratt © 2002 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.
Metre LM
Tune: GONFALON ROYAL
Created by HymnQuest.com

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)