On Level Ground

Thursday, January 15, 2015, 8:30 a.m. – The Lord Jesus put in mind the song “My Cry for Mercy.” Speak, Lord, your words to my heart. I read Psalm 140-143 (selected NASB).

Rescue Me

Rescue me, O Lord, from evil men;
Preserve me from violent men
Who devise evil things in their hearts;
They continually stir up wars.
They sharpen their tongues as a serpent;
Poison of a viper is under their lips. Selah. ~ Ps. 140:1-3

Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth;
Keep watch over the door of my lips.
Do not incline my heart to any evil thing,
To practice deeds of wickedness
With men who do iniquity;
And do not let me eat of their delicacies. ~ Ps. 141:3-4

There are two main ways the enemy of our souls comes against us as individual followers of Jesus Christ. One is through attacking us physically, emotionally or spiritually to try to discredit, injure or to destroy us; to try to get us to be discouraged, and to hope that we will give up. The other is to deceive us, lure us and to tempt us to sin against our Lord. Yet temptation can be involved in either one, as well as deception is also involved in both.

From my own experience I can say that if Satan cannot get us to stop following Jesus with our lives, to stop sharing the gospel, and to, instead, follow him and to go back into sin, then he will pull out all the stops to lie against, mock, persecute, and bring false charges against us, in hopes that he can destroy our reputations, convince others to not listen to us, and/or to put doubts and fears into our minds and hearts. He is a master at deception and the twisting and manipulation of truth, and with using an accusing and lying tongue against us. And, he uses humans to do his dirty work, too.

So, what should our response be to his wicked schemes he uses against us? Well, first of all we must call on the Lord in prayer and ask for his help – for guidance, wisdom, discernment and the grace to respond correctly. We also need the strength of the Lord and the power of the Spirit within us so that we respond in the right way. If we try to handle this in our own wisdom and strength, we are bound to fail. We need to pray for our Lord Jesus to work miracles in our hearts and in our situations, and to move mightily to change hearts, even or most especially our own. And, we need to submit to his sovereign will over our lives. As well, we need to pray for restraint so that we don’t say more than what needs to be said.

Daily we must put on the armor of God (See: Eph. 6:10-20), with which to fight off Satan’s evil attacks against us. What this means is that when he lies to us or against us, we answer back with the truth. When he casts doubts our way, we respond back with unswerving faith. When he tries to twist the truth or to deceive us, we respond with the Word of God. When he tries to discourage us, we respond with perseverance and determination. When he tries to tempt us to sin, we respond by fleeing temptation and continuing to live and to walk in Christ’s righteousness. And, when he tries to lure us or to shame us into spiritual compromise, we respond with undivided hearts and loyalty to our ONLY God.

My Cry For Mercy / An Original Work / October 31, 2013
Based off Psalm 86

Hear my prayer, Lord, I am needy.
Guard my life, for I’m devoted to You.
Save me! I’m Your servant.
You are my God. I trust in You.

O, Lord, have mercy on me,
For I call to You.
Bring joy to me, for to You
I will lift up my soul.

You are giving and forgiving.
You abound in love to all who
Call upon You. Hear my prayer, Lord.
Listen to my cry for mercy.

In days of trouble I call to You,
Knowing that You will
Do marvelous things,
Because You are my God.

Teach me Your way; I’ll walk in it.
In Your truth, Lord, You will guide me.
A pure heart, Lord, You will give me,
So that I may glorify You.

Turn to me, Lord, and grant
Strength to Your servant.
O, Lord, You are my help,
For You love and You comfort me.

Teach me Your way; I’ll walk in it.
In Your truth, Lord, You will guide me.
A pure heart, Lord, You will give me,
So that I may glorify You.

http://originalworks.info/my-cry-for-mercy/


Teach Me

Let me hear Your lovingkindness in the morning;
For I trust in You;
Teach me the way in which I should walk;
For to You I lift up my soul.
Deliver me, O Lord, from my enemies;
I take refuge in You.
Teach me to do Your will,
For You are my God;
Let Your good Spirit lead me on level ground.
For the sake of Your name, O Lord, revive me.
In Your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble. ~ Ps. 143:8-11

Oh, how I love my Lord and his Word. I want to follow him in all my ways, not because I have to, but because I want to; because I love him. I know he loves me, and I know he is with me all the time. He never leaves my side. He is always there encouraging, giving me hope, strengthening, comforting, teaching, instructing, correcting and urging me on to live for him. I believe in him and I trust him with my life. I know that in all these trials and tribulations that he has a plan and a purpose, and that he will use it all for his purposes and for his glory. I just have to rest in him, believing that he has my best interest in mind always.

I want to know his will for my life, and I want to walk in his ways and in his truth. I don’t want to respond to Satan’s attacks against me in the flesh, but in the Spirit. So, I pray that he will teach me the way in which I should walk and how to know and to do his will. I want to be led on level ground, and for him to put a guard over my mouth so that I don’t speak things he does not want me to speak, whether good or bad. I need wisdom and discernment to know how to respond to Satan’s evil attacks against me. And, I need strength of spirit, too, so that I don’t lose heart.

In Keeping Them / An Original Work / June 3, 2014
Based off Ps. 111:10; 19:7-11

Stand in awe of your Lord.
Harken to His teachings.
Follow where He leads you.
Live for Him today.

Through Him you gain wisdom;
Knowledge; understanding.
To my Lord belongs all
Worship and my praise.

Perfect is the Word,
Refreshing souls in His love.
His commands are faithful,
Guiding us each day.

Joy comes to the heart of
Those who love His teachings;
Follow His instructions.
He will light their way.

Abide in the Lord, and
Obey His commandments.
His Word is more precious
Than all of our gold.

By His Word He warns us,
Comforts, and implores us.
When we follow His Word,
There is great reward.

http://originalworks.info/in-keeping-them/

 
I think its sweet you sing the songs yourself : o)

Pancakes,

Thank you! That was not my intention, but it was the Lord's. My voice is old and not in the best shape and I have constant sinus drainage, so it took several takes on a lot of these songs before I had a recording that was doable. My daughter did sing one of the songs (not one of these) - "Muted Trumpet." The song was a little low for her, though. I had lost my voice for several days, so she volunteered to sing for me. She is a music teacher at a local elementary school and leads worship at her church.

When the Lord first gave me these songs I had no clue how I was going to get them out to people to where they could hear them. That was a long process of learning lots of new technology and computer software, beginning with handwriting the songs and then making a copy of them, making the sheet music into a jpg so that I could share it. At first, I could only share the instrumental music, which was computer generated. I kept hoping I could get someone else to sing the songs. That didn't happen. So, although I had not done much singing in a very long time, I attempted to record the songs with my own voice, and 163 songs later, all but one ended up being recorded with my voice, though my husband did join me in 3 songs which we sang as duets. That was another challenge to try to write a tenor part. I had never done that before, but then most of this I had never done before.

We did professionally record one song. That was a miracle of God's grace. We had to go to Nashville, TN, to record, and it was all arranged, and we had worked with the song producer via email, but when it came time to go, I had no voice. We went on faith. The morning of the recording I had no voice, but we went on faith. When I had to open my mouth to sing, I did so on faith, and the voice was there, and strong for at least 7 takes plus recording the background voices, too. That song is "For Our Nation."
 
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