Photo by frank mckenna
CCM band Elevation Worship has been around since 2007. Born out of the Elevation Church headquartered in Matthews, North Carolina. They span 17 locations in North Carolina, Virginia, and Florida. Elevation Worship released a total of six studio albums, nine live albums, and nine EP’s. Graves Into Gardens will be out on May 1, 2020.
Amid this crazy Coronavirus epidemic, Elevation Worship continues to offer their live performances over the internet, in response to the North Carolina Governer’s recommendations.
Don’t forget to wash your hands and smart device screens!
Also, check out my other Elevation Worship reviews. I stopped counting them…
Note to new users: This is a different kind of review site! Read About the Berean Test and Evaluation Criteria prior to reading this review. I strongly encourage you to consider the potential blessings and dangers of this artist‘s theology by visiting Resources.
1. What message does the song communicate?
The main thrust of this song is an emotional experience of the Presence of the Holy Spirit and Jesus. The changing atmosphere, overflowing a place where His presence already exists, increasing the flow of His love inside our hearts, and an unnamed miracle are all unclear. I offer educated guesses in section 2; However, clarity would improve the accuracy of the message Elevation Worship intends.
Side Note: To those sensitive to massive repetition, this song relies heavily on it. Verse 1 appears twice, each repeating its four stanzas twice and after each Chorus. The second iteration of Chorus repeats itself twice, followed by what is more like a Post-Chorus. This is succeeded by Bridge, which repeats itself three times, followed by Verse 2 which, if I am correct, essentially repeats Verse 1.
Score: 8/10
2. How much of the lyrics line up with Scripture?
All of it agrees with Scripture if we make some educated guesses to the opening lines of Verse 1, Chorus, and Verse 2; However, its unclarity will cost points.
Lyrics posted with permission.*
[Verse 1]
The atmosphere is changing now
For the Spirit of the Lord is here
My best guess is that this references the Holy Spirit that resides inside the hearts of Christians (Acts 6:5, Romans 8:9-11, 1 Corinthians 3:16, 1 Corinthians 6:16-19, Galatians 4:6, Ephesians 5:18, and 2 Timothy 1:14). It could also reference God’s sovereignty over creation (Genesis 1:1, Deuteronomy 4:39, Deuteronomy 10:14, Joshua 2:11, Nehemiah 9:6, Psalm 29:10, Psalm 45:6, Psalm 50:7-15, Psalm 93:1-2, Psalm 115:3, Psalm 135:6, Isaiah 43:13, Isaiah 45:9-10, Isaiah 46:10, Lamentations 5:19, Daniel 4:35, Romans 9:19-21, Ephesians 1:11, Hebrews 1:8, James 4:15, Revelation 4:11, and Revelation 20:11).
The evidence is all around
That the Spirit of the Lord is here
Assuming that I am correct about lines 1-2, the evidence is that Scripture states the Holy Spirit, who is God, is omnipresent (1 Kings 8:27, Psalm 139:7-12, Proverbs 15:3, Jeremiah 23:23-24, Colossians 1:17, and Hebrews 4:13). If the second interpretation is correct, then creation proves that the Creator exists (Psalm 19:1-4 and Romans 1:18-22).
The atmosphere is changing now
For the Spirit of the Lord is here
The evidence is all around
That the Spirit of the Lord is here
Repeats lines 1-4.
[Chorus]
Overflow in this place
Fill our hearts with Your love
Our hearts are already filled with His love when we became regenerate and as mentioned in Verse 1 commentary, the Holy Spirit is already omnipresent. This seems like a wasted request; However, Elevation Worship is asking the Holy Spirit to:
- Increase our sensitivity to His Presence; and
- Change our desires to align with His (Psalm 51:10, Jeremiah 24:7, Ezekiel 11:19, Ezekiel 36:26, Romans 2:29, Romans 12:2, 2 Corinthians 5:17, and 2 Corinthians 7:10).
This begs the question: “Why didn’t Elevation Worship just say that?” I agree, they should have been more clear.
Your love surrounds us
Yes, because the Holy Spirit exists everywhere. See commentary in Verse 1.
You’re the reason we came
To encounter Your love
This is an implicit reference to Christ’s sacrifice, that while we were sinners, He died for us (Romans 5:6-8). In response, we love Him back.
Your love surrounds us
Repeats line 3.
Side Note: Chorus’ first iteration ends here.
Overflow in this place
Fill our hearts with Your love
Your love surrounds us
You’re the reason we came
To encounter Your love
Your love surrounds us!
Repeats lines 1-6.
Surrounded by Your love, Jesus
We need Your love, ohhh…o-ohhh
Apart from Christ, we are nothing. We are dependent on Christ’s love in the same way that a branch is dependent on the root of a vine (John 15:1-10). It also calls out to Casper the friendly ghost.
Come on let’s sing this together
From the depths of our hearts tonight
That is the essence of worship.
[Bridge]
Spirit of God fall fresh on us
See commentary on Chorus, lines 1 and 2. This is more clear than what Chorus has to offer.
We need Your presence
See commentary on Chorus, lines 15 and 16.
Your kingdom come, Your will be done
Here as in heaven
Part of the Lord’s prayer, found in Matthew 6:10 and Luke 11:2.
Spirit of God fall fresh on us
We need Your presence
Your kingdom come, Your will be done
Here as in heaven
Spirit of God fall fresh on us
We need Your presence
Your kingdom come, Your will be done
Here as in heaven!
Here as in heaven
Repeats lines 1-4.
[Verse 2]
A miracle can happen now
For the Spirit of the Lord is here
The evidence is all around
That the Spirit of the Lord is here
Elevation Worship is not clear as to what precisely this miracle is and where the evidence can be found for this undescribed miracle. My best guess is that it references the changing atmosphere in Verse 1. If so, then it essentially repeats Verse 1.
A miracle can happen now
For the Spirit of the Lord is here
The evidence is all around
That the Spirit of the Lord is here
Repeats lines 1-4.
Score: 8/10
3. How would an outsider interpret the song?
Given that this song is written specifically to believers in experiential form, unbelievers will find it more difficult to comprehend and identify with this song. They may understand that God’s Spirit is everywhere, that He changes Christians, and that Elevation Worship asks more of Jesus’ love.
Score: 7/10
4. What does this song glorify?
Assuming that I am accurate about my education guesses, it glorifies God. If not, then the confusion veils it.
Score: 8/10
Closing Comments
Elevation Worship’s Here as in Heaven is average. It invites its listeners to experience God’s Holy Presence. Though some of its words could be more clear, my guesses show that it has potential for Scriptural accuracy that glorify God, even if unbelievers do not fully grasp it; However, I wish that Elevation Worship was more clear and less repetitious.
This makes it difficult to recommend for corporate worship.
Final Score: 8/10
Artist Info
Track: Here as in Heaven (listen to the song)
Artist: Elevation Worship
Album: Here as in Heaven
Genre: Contemporary Christian Music (CCM)
Release Year: 2016
Duration: 8:18
Agree? Disagree? Don’t be shy or have a cow! Calmly and politely state your case in a comment, below.
*Copyright © 2017 Elevation Worship Publishing (BMI) (admin at EssentialMusicPublishing.com). All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Updates:
09/14/2021 – Per Artist Theology announcement, I expanded the red text to encourage others to study Elevation Worship’s theology.
03/24/2021 – Updated per repetition announcement. I moved my commentary to a side note, increasing section 1’s score. This raised the overall score from 7.5/10 to 8/10.
Comments
bassthumper80
I don’t like the section of “How would an outsider interpret the song?”. Worship and praise is for God, not for the believer or non-believer. As a non-believer they may not understand the Bible either, what rating would the Bible then have? The Holy Spirit will be at work in our lives regardless of our earthly and sinful understanding of words being sung, spoken or read from scripture.
Vince Wright
bassthumper80,
Thank you for your comments!
You may not like it, but most of my audience appreciates my thoughts on an unbeliever’s interpretation, even if they don’t have the Holy Spirit for discernment or understand everything the Bible says. Feel free to take it with a grain of salt or just ignore this section entirely.
-Vince Wright
Eric
Overflow in this place
Fill our hearts with Your love
Your love surrounds us
You’re the reason we came
To encounter Your love
Your love surrounds us!
This song strikes my heart and I felt, Jesus love me so much from the beginning of my life.
racefangurl
Well, at least the radio version, if there’s a radio version. I only know it as the singing version.
racefangurl
I don’t this song that well, since I don’t listen to K-Love sustained unless I’m in the car and even then it’s sporadic. We don’t always have the radio on it the car, but it’s usually K-Love when we do. It’s been almost 11 months since my place of work, a food court at the PX mall near my hometown, went takeout only. I normally clean the dining room, but they haven’t reopened it, to my knowledge. Unless they just did and I back to work this Thursday. But apart from work, I’m rarely in car for more than a few miles. At home I listen to Internet music more, like K-Love 90s or 2000s and also music videos. Maybe I’ll listen to K-Love briefly at home, since there’s a particular room with a radio tuned to K-Love playing for our youngest cat. He lives in a big room in the house and the older cats have the rest of house. Unless they go out. If the older cats go out, the youngest has run of the house. If they’re both in, he can go out if he wants. The old cats were littermates and are sisters. The boy was seemingly dumped a few years ago, just showed up one day. If we want to listen to K-Love or be with him we go in that room if the girl cats are in. At night it’s a bedroom, so the radio’s off until everyone sleeping there, except the cat, wakes up.
Steve Barhydt
I have always taken this song to be an invitation to the Holy Spirit to meet with believers who are seeking His presence in a specific place at a specific time.
The words of the Chorus are as follows…
Overflow in this place (What Place? Where two or three are gathered in His Name (Matt 18:20))
Fill our hearts with Your love (Ephesians 3:14-19)
Your love surrounds us (Psalm 33:22 NLT 22 Let your unfailing love surround us, LORD, for our hope is in you alone.)
You’re the reason we came (Psalm 95:6)
To encounter Your love
Your love surrounds us!
We believe that God is omnipresence!
However, there are times when our perception of His presence is heightened. (Either emotionally or physically Acts 2:1-4, Acts 10:44-47, Acts 11:15-18, Acts 19:5-6) It is this type of “outpouring” that the singers of this song are longing for.
Why? Because there is power and sustenance in the presence of God
2 Cor. 3:17 Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
2 Cor. 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Psalm 16:11 Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.
It is this awareness of the presence of the Holy Spirit that “changes the atmosphere” and is the “evidence” that He is truly among us.
To quote from John Piper, (https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/what-does-it-mean-to-live-in-gods-presence)
So in summary, God is yes, to be sure, omnipresent in some of his influences like his sustaining all things at all times, holding every electron and every sub-nuclear particle in its place. But he makes his influence more manifestly felt and experienced in particular ways and particular times, and this is what we are referring to when we say with the psalmist, “For me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord my refuge, that I may tell of all your works” (Psalm 73:28). Here is Psalm 145:18: “The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.” That doesn’t mean that God traveled some distance. It means he is near in the sense that he exerts his influence for our good in special ways and causes us to experience the sweetness of his reality in special ways.
As to what is the nature of the “miracle”, I believe that it is any miracle that needs to happen. (Physical healing, restoration of relationships, etc.) It is left vague on purpose. The point being made is that all things are possible in the presence of God.
I do agree that unbelievers will probably miss the intent of the songwriter but it’s not really a song written to the unsaved.
However, I believe that a worship service is the very setting for which this song was written.
Vince Wright
Steve,
Thank you for your comments! The ambiguity is what makes it difficult to recommend, as I offered what I thought was the correct interpretation with less certainly than in most other reviews. If what you say is correct, then it’s appropriate for worship.
This brings up something else that often bothers me. Some artists sing of the Holy Spirit “coming down” or say things like “we need more of Your presence”. If God is omnipresent, in what sense can He “come down” or become more present than He is? This seems to be a reference to our sensitivity to God’s presence, as opposed to an actual “coming down” or an increase in his “presence level”. Perhaps I am overthinking this, but wouldn’t it be clearer if they said: “increase our sensitivity to Your presence”?
-Vince Wright
-Vince Wright
Steve Barhydt
To a certain extent it is a matter of semantics. Song lyrics are, most often, poetic and, therefore, not meant to be a complete theological treatise on a given subject.
As long as a phrase does not go against the scriptures the simple truth is that some phrases sing better than others.
Someone who is familiar with Pentecostal / Charismatic lingo and teachings will probably not see this as a contradiction.
However, as I thought more about this subject, I realized that the concept of God “coming down” is not without Biblical support.
Throughout the Bible there are references that indicate both the omnipresence of God and instances of His specific presence…
Quotes are from the KJV unless otherwise referenced
1) In the Garden of Eden (Gen, 3:8) And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
2) Cain in Gen. 4:16 And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.
3) Tower of Babel Gen. 11:5-7 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
4) Mount Sinai Exo. 19:10-11 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go unto the people, and sanctify them to day and to morrow, and let them wash their clothes,
And be ready against the third day: for the third day the LORD will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai.
5) Entering into the promise land Exo. 33:11-15 And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.
And Moses said unto the LORD, See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people: and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight.
Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people
And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.
And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.
Skipping ahead to the New Testament…
6) The promise of the Holy Spirit John 14:16-17 ESV And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper,[fn] to be with you forever,
even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
7) The outpouring of the Holy Spirit Acts 2
1And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 2And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. 3And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. 4And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Acts 10
44While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. 45And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. 46For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. Then answered Peter, 47Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?
Acts 11
15And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning. 16Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. 17Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God? 18When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.
Acts 19
5When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied.
7) The exercise of the Gifts of the Spirit 1 Cor. 14:24-25 ESV But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all,
the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.
I could go on and on but I think that the point is made that although God is omnipresent there is also a palpable presence of God that believers in Him have experienced since the beginning of time.
It is this conspicuous, perceptible presence of God that we long for.
How does one experience this type of the presence of God?
James 4:8a Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.
The phrase “Draw nigh” comes from the Greek eggizō which according to Strong’s Concordance means…
ἐγγίζω engízō, eng-id’-zo; from G1451; to make near, i.e. (reflexively) approach:—approach, be at hand, come (draw) near, be (come, draw) nigh.
David Guzik has a wonderful commentary on this verse (https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/guzik_david/StudyGuide2017-Jam/Jam-4.cfm?a=1150008)
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you: The call to draw near to God is both an invitation and a promise. It is no good to submit to God’s authority and to resist the devil’s attack and then fail to draw near to God. We have it as a promise: God will draw near to us as we draw near to Him.
i. “When a soul sets out to seek God, God sets out to meet that soul; so that while we are drawing near to him, he is drawing near to us.” (Clarke)
ii. What does it mean to draw near to God? Spurgeon considered a few ways:
· It means to draw near in worship, praise, and in prayer.
· It means to draw near by asking counsel of God.
· It means to draw near in enjoying communion with God.
· It means to draw near in the general course and tenor of your life.
iii. In one way, this text illustrates the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant. In the old covenant, God told Moses to not come any closer to the burning bush and take off his shoes. Under the new covenant, God says to the sinner: “Draw near to Me and I will draw near to you.” Now the ground between God and the sinner has been sprinkled with the blood of Jesus, and we can come close to God on the basis of that blood.
iv. This also shows what God wants to do for the sinner. It doesn’t say, “Draw near to God and He will save you” or “Draw near to God and He will forgive you,” though both of those are true. But what God really wants is to be near man; to have a close relationship and fellowship with the individual.
v. From the rest of the chapter we see the results of drawing near to God:
· Drawing near to God helps us to resist the devil.
· Drawing near to God helps us to become pure.
· Drawing near to God helps us to sorrow for sin.
· Drawing near to God helps us to speak well of other people.
· Drawing near to God helps us to think of eternal things.
In conclusion, even though God is everywhere, all the time, there is a special sense of His presence that believer’s can have if they seek for it.
(End of quote)
It is by worship, singing songs such as this one (amongst other things) , that we both prepare ourselves for His presence (“Draw nigh to God”) and invite His presence to be with us (“He will draw nigh”)
That is what we mean when we sing “Come Holy Spirit”, “Overflow in this place”, “We need your presence”, etc.