Go in Peace and Be Healed

Dannah Gresh: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth says physical health is not our ultimate need.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: You see what good is it to be physically well if your heart is sick, if you are cut off from relationships, if you are cut off from a relationship with God?

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Brokenness: The Heart God Revives, for August 6, 2025. I’m Dannah Gresh.

This week Nancy’s been in a series called “His Healing Touch,” about the woman described in Mark chapter 5. She touched the clothing of Jesus, trying to be healed.

Nancy will pick up that teaching in a few minutes. But first we want to remind you that the need for healing comes in many forms. As Nancy prepared this message, she thought of her friend Karen.

Nancy: She has a remarkable story of how she went through some very disappointing experiences in life. Enormous pain. A lot of issues with her family, with her children, with children-in-law, with parents, with many painful issues in her life.

Over a process of time, she became a deeply angry, bitter woman. She tells the story of how she got to the place where she was almost vegetative. She would just sit down on the couch and turn on the television and could hardly function because of the bitterness and the anger and the resentment toward these life circumstances.

Dannah: That sounds like someone who needs healing, just like the woman we read about in Mark 5. So, before Nancy picks up the teaching, let’s hear Karen’s story.

Karen Watts: I was twenty-three, married already, had two children and had been through some  other tragedies in our lives, so at twenty-three, I was a pretty big mess.

Our marriage was definitely a mess. I had a horrible temper. I demanded my way. I screamed at my children. I was very unkind.

I came to know the Lord at a seminar, and I came home ready to change.

Of course, immediately, you know, the moral things, the drinking, the screaming, the foul language, God just began to convict constantly and change daily.

I started memorizing scripture, Matthew 5, 6, and 7 is what God challenged me to memorize, and that was the course through that seminar to learn to be a loving, godly person.

But it wasn't long before I became a performance person. I had built a lifestyle and began to neglect my relationship with the Lord, but would parade this lifestyle of godly living, and it became a real legalistic type of lifestyle, looking down my nose at others who had not arrived at the place that I thought I was. It robbed me. It really robbed me of my relationship with the Lord.

The first big blow that we had as a family was that our oldest son went off to Bible college, as a matter of fact, and immediately got into an immoral lifestyle and made choices totally against everything he had been brought up in. By the time he came home for Christmas that first year, he was a totally different man.

We lost touch with him for the most part. He got heavy into drugs and for about six and a half years, we didn't see him much at all.

In the meantime, our younger son had married a sweet, godly young girl and we through some circumstances that we're not quite sure of even to this day, she just changed her mind and didn't want to be married anymore. And she walked out on my son. So there they were, the youth directors of our church, and he was terribly devastated, and I was devastated.

I remember the day when inside I said, "I'm done. I'm done with the Lord. He did not do what I expected Him to do. I did everything right and He didn't follow through with what I asked Him. This was not how it was supposed to be.

I had swallowed a philosophy that if you live for the Lord and dedicate your life to Him, you just won't have to face this stuff.

I never prayed, I never opened my Bible. If you talked to me about the Lord, I would tell you, "I don't know Him."

My son had come home the summer before and it was a real wakeup call for me.  He wanted out, God had gotten a hold of him and he said, "I need help, I need deliverance from drugs, I know the only place I can find it is at home."

So he came home, and we had less than twenty-four hours warning. And when he walked in that door, I thought, I have nothing to give him. I don't have the Lord anymore. I don't pray anymore, what can I do?

So, I started this new performance. And yet, it was like within a couple of nights we were going, "Did you see the latest movie" and we'd go rent a movie. We took him to church; he was delighted to be there. It was such a wakeup call for me that I had nothing to give a man, my own son, who wanted to come back to the Lord.

So the Lord had begun to plow my heart and I did go to a Bible study in Monihans, a town west of us, about thirty-five miles. I started going there because I didn't know anybody. That's where I went.

We were going through the book of Luke, I was re-acquainted with the Savior from day one, going back to my salvation, back to the character and godliness and love and sweetness of Jesus Himself. So I was beginning to be softened when I got to that conference.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth [speaking at a conference]: What does it take in my heart to experience ongoing continual revival? 

Dannah: Karen had ended up at a Revive Our Hearts conference where Nancy spoke on the heart that God revives. She talked about the difference between proud people and broken people.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth [speaking at a conference]: Proud people are self-righteous. They have a critical fault-finding spirit. They look at everyone else's faults with a microscope, but their own with a telescope. And they look down on others.

Karen: That's when the Lord began to remove the heart of stone that was within me and replace it with a heart of flesh. I felt a tap on my shoulder, and I turned around and there was a little, old lady whom I had never seen before. She said, very timidly, "I feel like God wants me to tell you how much He really loves you."

And something broke in me and I just started sobbing. And Becky started sobbing, my sister-in-law, and of course my other sister that brought me was standing there, and I just started pouring out in repentance before God, apologizing for the pain I had caused.

I remember just feeling, this may sound really strange, I felt sweet again. There were so many things still up in the air in our family. When those subjects would come up, and I would begin to say the truth again, and say, "You know God is in control here. God is not going to let us down, He loves us."

And I began to encourage other people. And the Word was brand new and I was insatiably hungry for the Word. I got up early, and I still do that, but you know 5 o'clock every morning I practically ran to my kitchen and fell before the Lord.

But I told the Lord that weekend, I said, "If You can set me free, I'll take any opportunity I can to tell anybody, whether it's in a grocery store, in my kitchen, to a group, a large group, a small group, I will tell that You have the power to redeem a bitter, lost soul and to restore "the years the locust have eaten" (Joel 2:25) and to sustain sweetness and faith even when things continue to go wrong.

I still hear the voices occasionally: "See, it's happening again, things are falling apart." And I run to the Word and I say the Word to myself and to anybody who will hear it." I will not be afraid of evil tidings; my heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord" (Psalm 112:7). 

Dannah: Karen Watts found the spiritual and emotional healing that she needed. She couldn't even find help by being a good person or keeping up appearances at church, but she did find healing when she truly met Jesus. And that leads us back to Nancy's teaching series, "His Healing Touch."

Nancy: When I think about the woman that we've been studying in Mark 5, I think of Karen as a modern-day illustration of this woman. We've been talking about this woman, who for twelve years had had an issue of blood, a flow of blood from her body. She was ceremonially unclean. She had been rejected. But she got the courage and the faith to press into that crowd that was pressing in on Jesus, saying, "If I can just touch the hem of His garment, I know that I will be made well." She did reach out and touch.

We've seen that immediately she experienced the power of Jesus flowing into her body and setting her free from that incurable disease, in much the same way that the power of Christ has flowed into many of us, setting us free from years of bondage to our sin. Sin is an incurable disease. Only the power of Christ, only through faith in Him can we be set free from that sin.

Well, Jesus looked around and asked who had touched Him. We saw in the last session that Jesus made this woman come forward and identify herself and tell what it was that had happened so that she would publicly confess what it was that He had done for her. Then we see in verse 34 that Jesus said to her, after she has told Him the whole truth, He engages her in a conversation. We see that He wants a relationship with this woman.

He said to her, "Daughter." As far as we know, that's the only time that Jesus ever addressed a woman with that word. Can you imagine how this woman, who had been rejected and isolated from all fellowship for twelve years, how she must have felt when not only did His power go out to heal her, but then when He identified her? Trembling and fearful as she was, He heard her story. Then His response was "Daughter. Daughter."

What is He saying? "I want a relationship with you." I think that had to be far more important to her in meeting the deepest issues of her heart than getting rid of that physical illness. What good is it to be physically well if your heart is sick, if you're cut off from relationships, if you're cut off from a relationship with God? Jesus knew that the deepest need of her heart was to be reconciled to God from whom she had been estranged—not because of her physical issue but because of her sin.

Sin separates us from God. Jesus was reaching out to her as she had reached out to Him in faith. He was saying, "I want to have a relationship with you." You can be reconciled to God. She didn't receive that assurance that she was now a daughter of God until she had made that public confession. I think sometimes one of the reasons that many women wrestle with doubts about their salvation—there are different reasons—but one of them is that they've never been willing to publicly confess Christ as their Lord, as this woman did.

Here is a woman who had been estranged. She had been isolated. But now she had family. Now she had somebody who was connected to her life. When you come to Jesus, it's not just because He wants to heal you from your symptoms, He wants an ongoing family relationship with you.

Jesus said to her next, "Daughter, your faith has made you well" (v. 34). The healing was complete. Your faith has made you whole. That word "well" is the same Greek word in the original text that is translated in other places to "save." Your faith has saved you. It's normally the word in the New Testament used for being saved from sin. Jesus' use of this word suggests that this woman's faith led not only to her physical healing but far more importantly to her spiritual salvation. That was her greatest need. The fountain of blood was not as significant as the fountain of sin in her life that needed to be dealt with.

The picture here is of a Messiah, a Savior who shed His blood so that she would not have to shed hers and so that we would not have to shed ours. He was willing to be defiled by this contaminated woman so that she could be clean. He is willing to risk—if I could say it that way—our defiled, contaminated lives touching Him in faith so that He can extend His wellness and His wholeness to our hearts.

Now in a sense, it was not her faith that healed her. It was the object of her faith. The healing came from Jesus. The value of faith is always in its object. It was Jesus' power that was what had healed her.

Then Jesus says to her, "Go in peace and be healed of your affliction." Why would He have said to this woman, whom He had just healed, "Be healed of your affliction"? I think this is a very important follow-up comment on Jesus' part and one that we need to hear as well. He is saying, "I've healed you of this physical ailment, but now I want you to go out and live as a healthy woman."

He is saying to her, "The healing is complete. It is permanent. Now go out and live like a well woman." The temptation for this woman might well have been to go back to her old patterns. We talked in the last session about those tapes, those old tapes, that could have kept playing in her mind, saying, "Unclean! Unclean! Unclean!" Jesus is saying, "Don't go back and keep living as an unclean woman when I've made you clean. You're healed. You're whole. Be restored. Go have relationships that you haven't been able to have all these years. Go out in joy. Enjoy what it is that I've done for you."

It would have been possible for this woman to want to hold on to her identity as a sick woman. Maybe she'd gotten some attention that way. Jesus is saying, "Don't keep living as a sick woman. Start to face life now as a well woman."

I listen to a lot of Christian women, women who claim to know Christ. My observation is that many of them who claim to have been made spiritually whole by Christ are not living as well women. They're continuing to live in an unhealthy state, to hold onto that identity that they had as a person before they knew Christ and before Christ dealt with their issues. I think Jesus is saying to us, as He said to this woman, "Go out and live in the victory that is yours through My power. Don't keep living as a victim. You're not a victim. Through My power, you're now a conqueror."

That's not to say that there won't be a process of growth in our lives. There will be. That process is continuing. It's not to say that we won't have any more problems. The fact is that you will. This woman's problems weren't over. She was going to go back to maybe some different problems than she had ever faced before. Now she had to go figure out how to get back into society. There were perhaps financial issues to deal with, finding her family who perhaps had cast her off twelve years ago. There were going to be problems, as there are in your life and mine.

But those problems may in fact be part of the healing process. They may actually become a means to greater help and healing. The starting point of that process is to turn to Christ in faith; to receive His grace; to find in Him hope, help, healing; to believe that wholeness and cleanness—the fruits of salvation—really can be ours.

Most in this room, as I've talked with you, would claim to be Christians. You've come to Christ. You've experienced forgiveness of your sin. He's done a miracle in your life. It may have been a few years ago. It may have been many years ago. It may have been just very recently.

Now my question is, "Are you living like the well woman that He has made you to be? Are you experiencing by faith the fruits of that salvation in your life or have you gone back to living like a woman who has an incurable disease?" Jesus says, "Go in peace. Be healed of your affliction. Walk in truth. Walk in faith. Walk in peace. Walk in joy." That doesn't mean you won't have problems. You will. But even those problems are stepping stones to a greater measure of freedom and healing and grace.

I'm looking into the eyes of women who have experienced some deep, painful hurts and wounds in life. My heart goes out to you. There are more stories in this room than any of us could know about all of us. But the fact is that we have a Savior who says, "If you'll reach out and touch by faith, there is power to redeem you, to restore you, to make you a well woman. Go in peace. Be healed of that affliction."

Dannah: Today we heard about a couple of women who didn’t think they had any hope. They tried everything and life just didn’t seem to make sense . . . but they got to Jesus.

If you can relate, I hope you’ll listen to this entire series by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. It’s called “His Healing Touch.” The series is powerful simply because Nancy will point you to Jesus. You can hear the previous episodes by visiting ReviveOurHearts.com, or by pulling up the Revive Our Hearts app on your device.

Maybe you can relate to Karen’s story. You’ve been listening to this series and you know you’re in need of spiritual healing. We’d love to point you to a devotional book Nancy endorsed. It’s called A Small Book for the Hurting Heart by pastor Paul Tautges. Nancy says this book “comes alongside the person in pain with short, encouraging, grace-filled reflections from God’s Word. These meditations will lift up weary hearts and tear-stained faces and help them find compassion and hope in the face of Christ.”

You know, I think we all need that. And right now, when you make a donation of any amount to support Revive Our Hearts, we’ll send you a copy to say thank you. Visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959 to donate and request your book. 

Now, what do we do when we pray for healing but God doesn’t answer in the way we hoped?

Nancy: What if God really released me from every pain and problem and depressive thought, and I didn't have to endure any of that? You say, "Wouldn't that be wonderful?"

Well, for a moment. But then we would forfeit the beauty, the fragrance, the glory that He wants to bring out of those circumstances. I want the outcome of glorifying God with my life and His purposes being fulfilled more than I want relief from my pain. Now there are moments when I want relief from my pain really badly, when I want that more than I think I want anything else. But that's when I have to step back and get perspective and say, "Look, my life is not my own. My life belongs to the Lord. I am here to fulfill His purposes. If in the process of doing so I die, or whatever worse thing you can think of, that's okay, because my life isn't my own. I don't live to please me, and I have to get my values adjusted, my purpose adjusted."

I think there are some practical ways—things I have found helpful to refocus, to get my thinking adjusted to God's way of thinking. Singing to the Lord is one of those. I often ask women who are depressed or discouraged, "Are you singing to the Lord, and are you memorizing Scripture?" Those two things in my life have been a very powerful means of release and healing.

Sometimes I have to sing through the tears, hardly able to get the words out of my mouth. I mean, sometimes the sobbing, heaving tears, where nobody would recognize the song. I have learned at times to keep singing until the cloud lifts.

The matter of Scripture memory . . . When you don't have words of your own or don't know what to pray or feel at a total loss for words or don't want to pray—as there are times in my own experience—then to have the words of Scripture right there in my heart or on a card to help me remember or just a little Bible with me. I have some cards that have Scripture written out on them. Sometimes when I'm out walking, I've taken those cards with me and repeating them out loud the Word of the Lord, speaking to my own heart what I know is true.

That's really the way I counsel my own heart. I'm saying, "Heart, this is what God says. What God says may be totally opposed to what it seems like and what your circumstances look like; but I'm not going to believe what my emotions tell me, what my circumstances tell me. I'm going to choose instead to believe that what God has said is true."

Dannah: That’s our topic for tomorrow. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the NKJV.

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.