Newsletter | September 2021

Most of us remember the moment we learned that a coordinated terrorist attack had occurred on American soil. September 11, 2001, became a date seared into our collective consciousness, a devastating reminder that evil is real and darkness is deadly. In the days that followed, reporters interviewed the first responders who ran into the World Trade Center’s twin towers as they burned. each one repeated the same mantra:

“I was just doIng my job.”

Revive Our Hearts had been on the air just eight days when our nation experienced the terrorist attacks of 9/11. In God’s providence, Nancy was in the middle of teaching a series titled “Finding God in the Desert.”As the world wrestled with deep grief, anger, and fear, Revive Our Hearts broadcast a message that has been a cornerstone of Nancy’s teaching for more than twenty years—surrender. Nancy said:

You see, naturally, we don’t rely on God. Naturally, we rely on ourselves or we rely on others. and as long as we have resources to meet our needs, we won’t tend to rely on God. So God, who wants us to totally trust in Him, will sometimes strip us of the things we think we most need and lead us to where we are utterly, absolutely dependent upon Him.

September 3, 2021, marks the twentieth anniversary of Revive Our Hearts. In the past two decades our methods may have evolved from a single daily audio broadcast to podcasts, blogs, print resources, conferences, and more, but our mission has remained the same.

We still exist to call women to surrender their whole lives to Christ, knowing that’s the only way to find true freedom and to experience the fullness and fruitfulness that comes with living for Him.

As we reflect on these twenty years of ministry and celebrate the stories of lives changed, one thing is clear to the (growing) Revive Our Hearts Team—we’re just doing our job. We will continue to surrender our efforts to Him, asking Him to continue to use this ministry to revive hearts around the world.

Pressured and depressed, Mary Jane lived alone as a fresh college grad in the bustling capital city of Manila, philippines. Cost of living was exorbitant, daily traffic stressful, and she struggled to hold down a job. (Her industry included widespread corruption and required that she lie to keep her job, whIch she wasn’t comfortable doing.)

A Lifeline in Manilla

In Mary Jane’s culture, people look down on you if you’re not working after graduation. Some label you “lazy” or “slow.” The pressure she felt to secure a stable job was pressing.

During this difficult time, Mary Jane found the Revive Our Hearts website and began listening to the daily podcast. These specific truths helped her most during this desert season:

1. God is my heavenly Father, and He will not leave me or forsake me (Deut. 31:8).

2. I have everything I need for life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3).

3. He who started a good work in me will finish what He started (Phil. 1:6).

As Mary Jane took these biblical principles to heart, she found herself saying “Yes, Lord” in three specific areas.

Surrendering Her Love Story to the Lord

Mary Jane and Ronald had dated since college. She was emotionally at- tached to him, but as she listened to Revive Our Hearts, the Lord convicted her of her unwise choices. She was surrounded by ungodly influences, and the pressure to conform to the culture was so strong.

Mary Jane remembers saying, “Yes Lord,” even if that meant ending her unhealthy relationship with Ronald. She believed the truth she heard on Revive Our Hearts:

God can redeem what is lost and will turn ashes into beauty. He is the Author of the ultimate love story, and He can be trusted with mine.

Mary Jane ended their romantic relationship, although they continued as friends and still attended the same church. Despite her longing for Ronald, Mary Jane trusted God, and He comforted her during this season.

Submitting to Her God-Given Authorities

Mary Jane also said “Yes, Lord” as Nancy shared how God placed authority over us for our good. Mary Jane admittedly grew up hardheaded and with a rebellious attitude toward her father. However, she began to realize through Nancy’s teaching that:

God is my ultimate authority. He has placed lesser authorities over me like my parents, pastors, and my husband for my own good. I must submit to these authorities God has placed over me to show my submission ultimately to Him.

Now—instead of feeling annoyed when her father contacts her with questions about things he doesn’t understand—she lovingly takes each opportunity to serve him.

“With each question I try to answer and explain to him, I want to express my respect and care for him,” Mary Jane says. “The Lord changed my at- titude toward my father and other elderly people around me; He put love and respect in my heart for them.”

Forgiving Her Offenders

Mary Jane also said “Yes, Lord” in the area of forgiveness. In college, she felt a professor didn’t give her fair grades. As a result, she graduated cum laude instead of magna cum laude. However, she learned to not bear grudges after embracing this truth she heard on Revive Our Hearts:

If Jesus has forgiven my sins—and they are many—I have no reason why I can’t forgive others for their lesser sins toward me.

Then . . . and Now

Today Mary Jane’s life looks a lot different than when she was living alone in Manila. She moved back to her hometown and accepted a couple jobs outside her field of study. God brought Mary Jane and Ronald back together, and they married in 2019, three years after college graduation. She then gave birth to a beautiful boy in 2020. She writes,

Before listening to Revive Our Hearts, I was just a Christian living like the rest of the world. But now, by God’s grace, I am striving to please God and to live counter-culturally. There is a lot of freedom knowing I shouldn’t look like “normal” women. I am God’s woman, and that means living by a higher standard: the standard of God’s Word.

Ever since discovering Revive Our Hearts as a college grad, Mary Jane longed to donate to the ministry:

The desire kept burning in me; I asked the Lord for years to enable me to donate as I really believe in the ministry. Just recently, the Lord blessed me with two jobs that pay online, and I was finally able to donate via PayPal.

When asked why she believes so strongly in the ministry of Revive Our Hearts, Mary Jane wrote,

I believe more and more women will be set free by God’s Word when they listen to Revive Our Hearts, just like I did.

May it be so, Lord. May it be so. —P.M.

By the time Jesus walked the earth, Pando was already ancient. Pando, aka “The Trembling Giant,” is an enormous grove of quaking aspen trees. Arborists say the forest is ancient and is composed of at least 47,000 trees conjoined through an elaborate root system covering more than 100 acres.

This deeply established forest is a picture of what we are asking God to do through Revive ’21: Grounded. As women from around the world join the conference virtually to learn how to stand firm in a shaking world, our hope is that He would connect them like an elaborate root system, grounded in His truth.

Get Your All-Access Pass

October 8–9, 2021

Your Revive ’21 Livestream All-Access Pass includes:

• Livestreaming during the conference

• Access to the virtual post-event with hosts from the Grounded videocast

• On demand access to all sessions through December 31, 2021

There’s Still Time to Join us in Indy

Interested in attending Revive ’21 in person? It’s not too late to join us in Indianapolis. Visit Revive21.com to learn more.

Pop Quiz Time!

• Revive Our Hearts is the successor to which ministry?

• True or false: Revive Our Hearts was founded in 2001.

If you answered the first question with Elisabeth Elliot’s ministry, Gateway To Joy, and the second question with “true,” you’re correct! At its inception, the team at Revive Our Hearts said “yes” to following God’s lead; twenty years later, we’re still saying “Yes, Lord.”

Whether you’ve been walking with Jesus for decades or you are just beginning to seek Him, Revive Our Hearts is here for you. We all need to know—to get grounded in—God’s truth and to remind ourselves of His Word.

Will You Go Back to School with Us?

True Woman 101 and True Woman 201 are Revive Our Hearts classics that contain core messages about biblical womanhood. These studies highlight the foundational truth of who God is and how He designed you. We’re committed to providing you with biblical encouragement and practical tools to help you embrace God’s design for your heart and life through resources like True Woman 101, 201, and more!

Sharpen your pencils and unzip your Bible cover—let’s dig into the truth of God’s Word, together.

When you give to the ministry of Revive Our Hearts, you’re helping women learn the truth about Jesus and their identity in Him. For your gift of any amount this month, you’ll receive the True Woman 101: Divine Design study.

If you want to go deeper into what God’s Word says about biblical womanhood, you can get the companion study, True Woman 201: Interior Design, at a discount this month.

At Revive Our Hearts, we’ve seen the Lord move in monumental ways and in the smallest details, whether we’ve been on staff for twenty years or twenty months.

We prayed early on in the beginning of Revive Our Hearts
that we would not be a personality-based ministry but a content-based ministry. Today, many of the inquiries we receive from internationals are not for Nancy to come and speak (though it would be a dream come true for many of them), but they are more so asking for permission to get the content into their own language to share with other women. Praise the Lord! That’s an answered prayer! —Monica Vaught

As a member of the production team, I have had the privilege of sitting in on many Revive Our Hearts recording sessions over the years. It’s exciting to sense the light dawning on studio audience members as God’s Spirit uses His Word to expose sin, stretch our faith, and show us the beauty of Christ and the gos- pel. Recently, Nancy’s series on Psalm 136 ministered to many, including me, as we meditated on the many ways we see that "His Love Is Forever.” —Phil Krause

God’s faithfulness really is steadfast—His promises are true; He knows our needs; He cares; "all we have needed, His hand has provided." He will continue to be faithful and provide all that we need in the days ahead. —Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, Founder and President

God’s faithfulness, the generosity of friends like you, and this ministry’s decision to say “Yes, Lord,” has led to women experiencing restored relationships, wholehearted surrender, and the hope of Christ. Women still need to hear the truth, which is why we continue to pursue the mission of helping them thrive in Jesus. We look ahead with gratitude and expectancy because the cry of our heart is still the same as it was twenty years ago: Yes, Lord.