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O Lord, Thou art in me as life And everything to me! Subjective and available, Thus I experience Thee. |
| O Lord, Thou art the Spirit! How dear and near to me! How I enjoy Thy marvelous Availability! |
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To all my needs both great and small Thou art the rich supply; So ready and sufficient too For me now to apply. |
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Thy sweet anointing with Thy might In weakness doth sustain; By Thy supply of energy My strength Thou dost maintain. |
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Thy law of life in heart and mind My conduct regulates; The wealth of Thy reality My being saturates. |
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O Thou art ever one with me, Unrivaled unity! One spirit with me all the time For all eternity! |
Copyright Living Stream Ministry. Used by permission.
English Hymns, #539 (Chinese Hymns, #400) has an additional stanza which is translated from Chinese:
6. O Lord, in all my being dwell;
Make home in all my heart.
From glory unto glory fill;
Transform my every part.
Christ had two becomings. As God He became flesh, and as flesh He became the life-giving Spirit. From 1933 until 1963 I had the burden to come to the United States particularly to tell the Christians here that the very Christ in whom they believe is the Spirit today. When we were compiling our hymnal in 1963, I could not find any collection of hymns in Christianity that included songs about Christ becoming the life-giving Spirit. Therefore, I decided to write some hymns on this matter. Today a number of our hymns written by Brother Nee and by me speak of the Lord being the Spirit (see Hymns, #489-493, 539). The chorus to Hymns, #539 says, "a Lord, Thou art the Spirit! / How dear and near to me! / How I admire Thy marvelous / Availability!" Another short chorus says,
Now Christ is the life-giving Spirit;
Now Christ is the Spirit today.
Now Christ is the life-giving Spirit;
So turn to your spirit and say—
O Lord, Amen,
O Lord, Amen, Hallelujah!
O Lord, Amen,
O Lord, Amen, Hallelujah!
The chorus of #539 in Hymns says: "O Lord, Thou art the Spirit!/How dear and near to me!/How I admire Thy marvelous/Availability!" The Lord today is not only approachable but also available. If food is only approachable to us, this is not sufficient. The food has to be available for us to eat so that we can become one with the food. Approachability is not so good as availability. Today in God's New Testament economy, God is not only approachable but also available to us. The Lord said, "I am the bread of life...he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me" (John 6:35, 57). To eat is to take Him, the available One, as our food. He also said that we need to drink of Him as the living water (John 4:10, 14). In the book of John, all the items concerning Christ are not just approachable. All of them are available—good for us to enjoy, that is, good for us to eat and drink.
I came to the United States with the burden to teach that Christ is the life-giving Spirit. Hymns, #539 is on this truth. I wrote it in 1963.
In today's Christian meetings, we mostly use the New Testament. But when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 14:26, there was no New Testament as we know it. What they had was mostly the Old Testament. In the ancient times, the time of the first apostles, although the Christians did not have the New Testament, they had many new psalms, hymns, and songs written according to the apostles' teaching. First Timothy 3:16 was probably a quotation of a short song that was very popular in the apostles' time. When they met together, they used these psalms, hymns, and songs very much. Some teachers would say that psalms also refer to the old psalms in the Old Testament. I do not disagree with this, but I believe they used more psalms, hymns, and songs written according to the apostles' teaching for the purpose of meeting. I am very thankful to God that we have a New Testament and a hymnal. Our hymnal is very good for speaking.
We need to learn to speak the stanzas of the hymns in our hymnal. Hymn #539, "O Lord, Thou art the Spirit," is an excellent hymn for speaking to one another. I enjoy singing this hymn, but we also must learn to speak it. The first two words of this hymn—"O Lord"—will stir up the meeting...
Piano Hymns
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Austin, Texas, United States
The Triune God is in our human spirit to be our spiritual, inner life. This is the very mark of God’s economy, and this is the method whereby the Godhead is dispensed into us. The goal of the divine economy is to dispense the Triune God in one Spirit into our human spirit.
(The Economy of God, Chapter 1, Section 3)
Irvine, CA, United States
Lord, Thank You for Your readiness and sufficiency! We apply You right now!
Auckland, North Island, New Zealand
He is life! Oh Jesus, You are just what I need! Be near to me! Let me touch Your life-giving Spirit!
Addiss Ababa, Ethiopia
So sweet.
Houston, TX, United States
Beautiful song... So ready and sufficient for me to apply...... It's my heart which doesn't want to turn and Call on the name of Our Lord. :)
Dubai, Saudi Arabia
beautiful music that I have ever seen it
Manila, Philippines
"To all my needs both GREAT and SMALL, Thou art the rich supply"
Sydney, NSW, Australia
This hymn presents to us the normal Christian life of having the reality of the Spirit fully and utterly (yet with the full expression and experience of normality in Christ) to the extent we are unceasingly ever one with Him, to the degree according to the last verse of the hymn, where we become in eternity future, the New Jerusalem. It is this normality that we desperately need each day, the gentle, yet all-encompassing flow of the Spirit in our spirit each day. It would be presumptuous to claim having the reality of this hymn in our lives prematurely. Rather this hymn urges us on to practise with a fervent heart of love, a will empowered by Christ in His resurrection power and a mind sober to the extent that there is no element of prideful excitement (according to the saturation of the mingled spirit into our mind, emotion and will) till we be fully and utterly one with Him, spirit, soul and body (1 Cor. 6:17). This is the Body of Christ, consummating in the New Jerusalem.