In our hymnal we selected about 800 hymns from over 10,000 collected hymns. Among these selected hymns were a number of hymns written by A.B. Simpson, the founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. One of his hymns (Hymns, #255) speaks of breathing in the Lord. The first stanza and chorus of this hymn say:

O Lord, breathe Thy Spirit on me
Teach me how to breathe Thee in;
Help me pour into Thy bosom
All my life of self and sin.

I am breathing out my sorrow,
Breathing out my sin;
I am breathing, breathing, breathing,
All Thy fulness in.

After singing this hymn for the first time, one brother was offended at the thought of breathing the Lord. However, a few years later, after having had the experience of breathing Christ, he expressed his appreciation of this hymn.

The Lord's recovery is to recover all the subjective experiences of Christ. This is why in the previous chapters after I presented to you many items of Christ's Person and work, I emphasized the fact that now there is an organic union between us and Christ. This organic union is not physical. It is not material, visible, or touchable. It is something organic, something of life. No life, whether animal, vegetable, human, or divine, is visible. Life is real, but life is invisible. Electricity is a good illustration of this. Electricity is not visible, but it is real. All the tubes in a fluorescent light fixture are united to the power plant in a kind of electrical union. It is this electrical union which affords the light. This electrical union is the electrical current flowing between the power plant and the fluorescent tubes.

We may apply this illustration to understand our organic union with Christ. We are the fluorescent tubes, and Christ is the power plant. Between us and Christ there is a spiritual current. This spiritual current is an organic union. We are united to Christ and Christ is united to us in this current. In this organic union, Christ is in you, in me, and in every one of His believers. This is the organic union in which we should abide, in which we should remain. To abide in Christ is to remain in this organic union. Every day, morning and evening, we have the deep sense that in our spirit there is a kind of current flowing. This is the living Christ, this is the organic union, and this is the spiritual fellowship of the divine life. Christ lives in this organic union, and we also live in this organic union. He and we are living together in this one organic union.

This organic union is fully illustrated by Christ in John 15. There He told us that He is the vine and we are the branches of this vine. In the vine with all the branches we can see an organic union in which life is flowing and circulating. It is in this circulation that both the vine and the branches grow. The vine and the branches are growing together in this organic union. We are living together with Christ. Christ lives and we live with Him. The vine lives in all the branches, and all the branches live in the vine. They live together one with another. We all need to see this.