The Spirit’s Fire

Tonight I have my monthly planning meeting for an annual singles conference we’re putting on this summer (this is our sixth year now, hosting this conference). Thinking about the conference reminds me of a song I would like to share with you. It is a song that is a collective prayer for help from God.

God brings each of us to those points where all we have is him, when we are spiritually desperate, in need of guidance and help from his Spirit. Sometimes we experience that all together.

Seven years ago, our church was at a point of spiritual desperation. We were going through a bit of an “identity crises” as a church, restructuring, rethinking the way we did things, and God had humbled us (pruning us for our benefit, I believe). As we were talking about what we could do to meet the needs of the church, to help people move forward, to be what God was calling the church to be, I brought up the idea of having a conference. It had been so long since we had done something like that, and I remembered seminars and conferences of old as being unforgettable times of spiritual renewal (these days we’ve got a lot of conferences going on around the country, but back then we didn’t). The way the planning worked out it ended up becoming a conference specifically for single adults. As we discussed the idea a theme that would reflect our desire for spiritual revival, one of the ministers, Tom Brown, suggested “The Spirit’s Fire” and that became our first singles conference theme.

I wrote this song for that first conference as a prayer for spiritual revival during a dark time. I was inspired by the last verse of an old hymn, “Revive us again – fill each heart with thy love – may each soul be rekindled with fire from above.” Now that things are going great in our church –we are learning, growing, feeling like God is really blessing us –I am reminded of the need to stay humble, moldable, dependent on God, glorying in his power, grace and mercy and not our own success.

Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?” declares the LORD. “This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.” – Isaiah 66:2

I am including below a video recording of the Spirit’s Fire, link to sheet music, and a chord chart.  [Also, lately I’ve been singing a contemporary of arrangement of “We Praise Thee O God”, the hymn I reference above. I’ll stick a demo recording of that on here as well.]

For the guitar players out there, I am using an alternate tuning for this video recording. The guitar strings (starting with the lowest) are tuned to D – A – D – G – A – D

Link to Spirit’s Fire Sheet Music

 The Spirit’s Fire

We need you now
We need your fire within
We need your love
We need you as our friend
We need your light
To guide through what’s ahead
We need you now
We need you now

The Spirit’s fire,
Almighty flame
Calling us higher,
Never the same
Burn in our hearts
Flow through our veins
The Spirit’s fire,
The Spirit’s fire.

Your power made
This universe we see
Your power saved
Our lives and set us free
Your power’s here
Among us as we sing
You’re everything
You’re everything

Give us your fire
To carry us along
Give us desire
To build the kingdom strong
Give us the dream
And when the dream is done
We’ll be with you
We’ll be with you

The Spirit’s Fire (chord chart)

Verse:
Gadd2 / Asus / D / D
Gadd2 / Asus / D / D
Gadd2 / Asus / bmin / bmin
Gadd2 / Gadd2 / Asus / A (break)

Chorus:
Gadd2 / Asus / D / D
Gadd2 / Asus / D / D
Gadd2 / Asus / bmin / bmin
Gadd2 / Asus / D / D

We Praise Thee O God – contemporary arrangement

---