Keep Them from the Evil

By Terry Marr

Keep them from the Evil will awaken your senses to why we have to go through the test and trials of life and are expected not only to endure but to thrive. If you are like me, I thought after learning the Lord’s Prayer in the Bible, I had received a free pass to fun in the sun and rides on the celestial clouds. As I have grown in the things of God, I know when Jesus declared he would “keep them from evil,” he was telling us to get ready for some of the most extreme times in our lives. We are not to look for a free pass from all the conflict in the world, or even from the raging storms within our very souls, but we are to look to the “hills from where our help comes from.” Father God has equipped us with everything we need to overcome the world as the mighty sons of God he has intended. To accomplish this, we must prepare ourselves inside and out to withstand the struggles that befall us and having done all to “stand.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662455049

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Keep Them from the Evil

Terry Marr

Copyright © 2021 Terry Marr

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2021

ISBN 978-1-6624-5503-2 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-5504-9 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

A Love Story

We Serve a God of Purpose

Lord, Teach Us How to Pray

Jesus’s Prayer for Us

Keep Us, Preserve Us, Guard Us, Protect Us, Save Us

Holy Spirit: Keeper of Spirit, Soul, and Body

Jesus, God’s Greatest Gift

Practical Application of God’s Keeping Power

Fortifying the Weakened Areas in Your Life

Preface

While lying across my bed, I had a moment of reflection regarding a wonderful childhood memory. First, I must mention how I am the youngest girl of a family of twelve children, all of us having the same mother and father. I don’t know how my parents managed it, but we were born in such a way where the first set of six were stairsteps, leaving a six-year gap in the sequence, followed by the second set of six. I was in the second set. Even with the age differences, we were close, although we were never all at home at the same time. By the time the second set of us were of age, the first set were grown with families of their own. Our parents reared us in a Christian environment where every Sunday we got up early, ate breakfast, and off to church we went. Church services back then lasted all day on Sunday and several times throughout the week, not to mention revivals and all-night prayer vigils. Church was a big part of our lives, and when we were not at the church, my siblings and I would play church in the backyard of our home. The layout was always the same, with my brothers playing the roles of pastor and deacon, my sister was the mother’s board, my little brother was the drummer, while I was the choir. Wow, those were the days.

It was one of these memories that made me smile that morning as I lay across the bed. The imagery of that moment was such that I could envision the lawn chairs set up in the backyard, along with the wash tub pulpit my brother had assembled for his sermon. I remember standing up with a small wooden tree branch I used as a mike to sing my choir selection and then turn the service over to my brother to preach. As always, my brother would mimic the message we had heard at church the Sunday before about God being a keeper. I found myself smiling as I envisioned him running up and down the wooden plank we had set up as a makeshift platform. He would preach and make faces as he told us about the Jesus who loved us so much he died and rose again on the third day. I was only about five or six years old during these times, but I remember the lump that would rise in my throat just thinking about the Jesus I loved so much. As a child, I often heard the older adults talking about how God would keep you. I would listen as they would get up and testify (in the real church) of how God had kept them all week. One of the songs they would often sing went Keep me Jesus, keep me Jesus, keep me all the way. Even now, I can see myself with my tree branch microphone bellowing the lyrics, Lord, keep my mind, keep my heart, keep me all the way. Keep the devil off my track and keep me all the way. Although I had no idea what they meant by these words, I would sing this song with all the passion I could muster. My God was a keeper!

As I lay there thinking about those days, I had no idea one day I too would be leading people to the cross of Christ, not as one playing church, but as an actually pastor and prophet standing alongside my husband. Those messages and songs of my youth did not make much sense to me then, but now their meaning and potency sustains me daily. Over the years, I have found the meaning of the lyrics of that song, Keep Me All the Way. I have met the keeper, and through this book, I want to introduce him to you. In many of my other books, I have discussed the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Truth, and that he is. But he is so much more. In this offering, I want to discuss how Holy Spirit was sent to the earth by our Father and Jesus to keep us, as well as instruct, guide, and empower us. You may ask, Keep us from what?

My answer to you is, From more than you will ever know.

Let’s get started.

Chapter 1

A Love Story

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in

Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

—John 3:16 NKJV

I view the Holy Bible as the greatest love story ever told. It tells of our holy, sovereign God who, in his omniscience and transcendence, devises a plan to create a people who will love him of their own free will and live and reign with him for all eternity. This love story is between the great Creator, who lives in eternity, and his great love, the church who lives on the earth. It captures the intimacy of their relationship as he monitors with anticipation the dwelling place he has designed for his beloved in order for her to come of age and maturity under the training and tutor ledge of her teacher (Holy Spirit) and bride groom (Jesus the Christ). This omnipotent and omnipresent Father God places everything upon this earth that his young church will need to become the future bride of his intentions and then stands