In Matthew 28 we read that when they saw the Lord Jesus on the mountain, immediately they worshipped Him (Matt. 28:16-17). When we meet with the Lord in His resurrection, we meet on one hand as His very brothers, but on the other hand we have to worship Him. It is not just to greet Him, not just to hail Him as did His disciples, but to worship Him. This does not mean that we need to kneel. We may kneel or we may not kneel. To worship Him means to adore and exalt Him as the very Lord in our spirit. If the situation permits us to kneel, that is good; but many times it is not so convenient. In any case, it is not a matter of outward forms, but absolutely of the inward spirit. We need to worship Him. We need to adore and exalt Him in our spirit. We need to praise Him, sometimes even with shouting—“Hallelujah! Jesus is the Lord!” I would say that to shout in this way is much better than kneeling in deadly quietness. The worship I am speaking of is not the dead worship of today’s Christianity. I tell you, if a young sister could shout in the meeting, “Jesus is my Lord, Hallelujah!” that would be marvelous worship.
This is real and living worship. It is not a religious performance. It is in the Spirit exalting, adoring, and magnifying the Lord Jesus. Do not bring that old, dead, religious way of worshipping into the meetings. We must keep ourselves so living in the matter of worshipping the Lord.
In John chapter twenty we read that when the Lord Jesus met with His disciples, He breathed upon them (v. 22). Oh, how we need the Lord to breathe upon us when we meet together! I have heard the saints pray many times before they have come to the meeting: “O Lord, give us a good speaker. Lord, You know Your church today needs sound teaching.” I believe that some of you in the past have prayed in this way. But we must pray, “Lord, we need Thy breathing. This day, in the day of Your resurrection, breathe upon us.” Brothers and sisters, we do not need so much teaching, but we do need the breathing. So many teachings kill us. It is the Lord breathing upon us that makes us alive; it is the breathing that gives life and imparts Christ into us. We all have to pray, “Lord, in our meetings we need Thy breathing much more than any kind of teaching. Give us a gracious visitation, Lord, and breathe upon us; breathe upon every one who comes to the meeting.” We need to pray in this way before every meeting. Forget about the old way. Take the way the Lord set before us by meeting with His disciples after His resurrection. Perhaps in your entire Christian life you have never heard anyone speak about coming to a meeting to be breathed upon. But it is so clearly mentioned in John chapter twenty. In the first evening after His resurrection, the Lord came to His disciples, and the main thing He did was to breathe upon them. This was their basic need, and this also is our basic need. Therefore, this is a basic principle for our meeting together with the Lord Jesus. Are we willing to receive His breathing?
This matter of breathing is of two aspects: He breathes out and we breathe in; He exhales and we inhale. If we shut ourselves, though He breathes upon us, we get nothing. We must learn to open ourselves to Him and say, “Lord, we are not just opening our listening ears or our understanding minds, we are opening our receiving spirit. Our ears are open to Thee, our mind is open to Thee, and even the more, our spirit is open to Thy breathing, Lord. O Lord, breathe Thyself into us. Regardless of whether we understand or not, O Lord, breathe upon us. We would like to receive something of Thyself deeply within our spirit.” We need to prepare ourselves for the meetings in this way. A radical change is needed to rid ourselves of the old ways. Even while we are in the meeting we need to say, “O Lord, I am here open to Thee. I only want to breathe in Thyself. O Lord, Amen, Hallelujah!” This really refreshes.
We really enjoy pray-reading the Word together in the meetings. It is much better than preaching or teaching, because it includes breathing. When we pray-read the Word, we just breathe the Lord Jesus into us. We have received some letters recently from some in a distant land who recently became acquainted with pray-reading the Word. They practiced it and were much impressed, but they wrote expressing the fear that they were not practicing it correctly. However, I believe they need not be concerned. All they need is simply to open themselves to the Word and breathe it in. It is the exercising of our spirit to inhale what the Lord exhales. This is the breathing upon us of the Lord Jesus as the life-giving Spirit. When He came to His disciples after His resurrection, He came as the life-giving Spirit and breathed upon them. He is doing the same today. If we are open to Him, He is breathing out and we are breathing in. This is one of the main principles of meeting. We all need to help the new ones when we come together to give the Lord an opening to breathe something of Himself into them. We come together not to receive some teaching, but to be breathed upon by the Lord Jesus—to take in the Lord Jesus by breathing.