Don't you love getting letters? We do too. The comments of our listeners make us realize what great things God is doing. Here's Nancy to tell us more.
Leslie Basham: Sometimes it's good to slow down, take a step back and look at all the amazing things God's been doing. It's Friday, November 26. This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss.
Don't you love getting letters? We do too. The comments of our listeners make us realize what great things God is doing. Here's Nancy to tell us more.
Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Well, I hope that you had a great Thanksgiving Day yesterday and that you are getting today some time to relax with family or friends. I know my heart is so very grateful to the Lord not only this weekend, but throughout the year for His incredible mercy and grace in my life.
You just stop and think about where God found us; what we were really like, in ways that God knows better than others know; and what the Gospel and the grace of Christ has meant in our lives. It's really an incredible thing. I'm thankful today as I think about God's commitment to make us into the image of Christ, to conform us, to sanctify us, to transform us. That's really a miracle, when you stop and think about it, and I am especially thankful for that on this weekend.
Then, as I think about my blessings, how I thank the Lord for the privilege of being set apart and called for the purpose of Gospel ministry, to be involved in a ministry like Revive Our Hearts, where God is using us to touch lives in such a significant way that only eternity will reveal.
So many of you have had a part in this ministry through your partnership of praying for us, of supporting the ministry financially that I wanted to take some moments today, on this Thanksgiving weekend, just to update you a little bit on what's happening here at Revive Our Hearts. I want to share with you a little bit of the fruit of this ministry, what God is doing in people's hearts, and also give you a little glimpse of some things that are ahead. I also want to give you some ways that you can pray for us as a ministry.
We are so encouraged over many of the developments in the ministry over recent months. One of the things that's exciting to me is how God is taking the resources we have developed, things like the book Lies Women Believe and the trilogy on Revive Our Hearts, Brokenness and Surrender and Holiness.
Some of these resources now are being translated into other languages so God can use them in countries all around the world -- in the Russian language, in German and Spanish and Indonesian and Chinese and Amharic (the language they speak in Ethiopia) -- and how God is using the book on brokenness in that language to spark revival flames in people's hearts in that part of the world. So, we are very encouraged about that.
Then, as many of you may be aware, we've recently begun recording the Revive Our Hearts radio program, not just in audio but also in a video format. This is a burden God has put on our hearts to make these resources available to small groups in churches and communities across this nation as women are looking for materials and resources to help them in their spiritual walk. So, we are excited about how these resources are going to become increasingly available to small groups. We'll be sharing more about that with you in the days ahead.
And we've had the privilege in recent months of developing some new resources that we will be telling you about in the days ahead. One of those"¦I can't wait to tell you more about this in the early part of 2005 is a resource called The Princess and the Kiss. This is a book that has been available for a number of years. It's kind of a parable or fairy tale for young girls about the meaning of purity and the importance of keeping their hearts.
We've had the privilege of working with the author of The Princess and the Kiss book to develop a companion book called Life Lessons from the Princess and the Kiss. Around that book we have developed a whole set of resources: a princess purity ceremony, a special princess necklace. We'll be telling you the details about this. It's something that will be available for moms and daughters, so that you can, as moms and grandmoms, teach your children and your grandchildren the ways of God and help to mold their hearts.
You know, Revive Our Hearts is not just about resources, radio programs, conferences or books. Mostly, it is about the truth of God's Word, as it penetrates and pierces and probes and transforms people's hearts. I love getting the e-mails, the letters that tell how God is doing that in people's lives.
I think of an e-mail we got not too long ago. It said, "Thank you for your timely program today. I just made a new commitment to my marriage and to my husband of 41 ½ years." What a joy to see how God can take a 41-year-old marriage and can bring new life into it. She said, "We've had many struggles over the years, and I've discovered how many ways I have contributed to my husband's indifference and insensitivity." So God is at work, reviving this woman's heart and so many like her.
I'm thankful for the way God uses ReviveOurHearts.com, our Web site, to make this program available to people who may not be able to hear it on the radio. I appreciate the hard work of our volunteers who take each program and do a word-for-word transcript that's available on the Web site.
One listener wrote to us after she listened to the Modesty series we did not too long ago. She said, "I read today's transcript on the Internet and when you asked us to raise our hands if we would reaffirm our commitment to modesty, I raised mine." She said, "No one saw it but God, but it's nonetheless a commitment on my part to honor the Lord with my outward appearance and with my heart attitudes." And she went on to explain some of the things God was doing in her life.
Well, as you know, this ministry is primarily designed to reach women. Sometimes women write in and say, "I wish you would speak more to the men. They need to get their act together." My response to that is: God hasn't called me to preach to men. God has called me as a woman to minister to women. But it is neat to see how God often uses this program to be an encouragement and a help to some of the men who are listening.
I have here a letter from a dad. He's been married for 20 years and he has 4 children. He said he and his wife came from families that did not have male spiritual leadership, and they have suffered in their marriage and in their family as a result of the lack of role models. He said, "The things that you and your guests have shared about your fathers have helped to inspire and equip me to be the leader that God wants me to be."
"In the past," he said, "I've been a father that aggravated my wife by my lack of leadership. But listening to Revive Our Hearts has given me a greater understanding of my wife which has helped me to see her in a more compassionate way." He writes to thank us for this ministry.
Then I'm holding a letter from a man who is incarcerated, serving several life sentences without the possibility of parole. This man listens to Revive Our Hearts every morning from 4:00 a.m. to 4:15 a.m. He says that's a bit early to be waking up, but it's well worth the loss of sleep. "You produce excellent programs that are even helpful for men." He wrote to share with us how God had used the series "Freedom Through Forgiveness" to be a blessing in his life as he deals with the guilt of his past and learns to receive and then express God's forgiveness.
Well, there are lots more letters and e-mails and stories I could share with you, but I hope that gives you just a glimpse of some of what God is doing as a result of your investment in this ministry.
Now, I just want to share briefly with you about two things that are coming up here in the next several weeks. First, as you have heard me share recently, (when we had the special series on the Welsh revival) we are in the process of launching a several-month emphasis here on Revive Our Hearts on the subject of revival: what revival is, what it looks like, why it's not an outdated concept. We'll be launching it in January on a special 12-week series on revival called "Seeking Him."
You know, the Church today has tried many different ways to address the problems and issues in our nation, in our families and in our lives. But we've still been left with this great emptiness of soul, this great inability to solve the most crucial and pressing issues of our day. And I really believe once you have seen it all, and done it all, and tried it, that what we are left with is the one thing that will really work. And that is: when God's people turn their hearts to seek the Lord with all of their hearts.
So, over those weeks, each week will be a different theme related to revival. We'll be talking about the meaning of words like: repentance, holiness, humility, honesty before God and others; and then practical expressions of revival, as it works itself out in our human relationships through a clear conscience and forgiveness and moral purity.
And I want to encourage you, if you haven't already, to order a copy of the book called Seeking Him that's just recently become available through Moody Publishers. It won't be available in the Christian bookstores until January, but you can order it right now through our ministry.
Our series, "Seeking Him," will be following along with this book, so ask the Lord to show you a small group of friends, people in your church, your prayer group, that could go through this together. I am very excited about what God may be pleased to do in our hearts, our homes, our churches and our nation as we seek the Lord together.
Then, finally, let me just tell you about a special opportunity we have coming up starting right now. For the third year in a row, a dear friend of this ministry has made a matching challenge. Between now and December 31 every gift that comes into Revive Our Hearts will be doubled.
That means a $50 will become $100. A $100 gift will become $200. Those gifts will be doubled up to $250,000. Many ministries such as Revive Our Hearts depend on the giving that comes in during the last weeks of the year, to make up for other months of the year when the giving isn't as strong.
So, we are praying and asking the Lord as a team to give us a strong year-end here. What a blessing and help that will be as we launch new resources like "The Princess and the Kiss" and the "Seeking Him" series. The broadcast time alone for that series will cost us about $4,000 a day to air nationwide.
Your contribution between now and December 31 will make a huge difference. It will be doubled financially, but more importantly, it will be multiplied, I believe, many times over in the hearts and homes of women throughout this nation who desperately need a fresh touch of God in their lives.
Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Let me just leave with you a verse that the Lord put on my heart as I was in my quiet time earlier today. Psalm 44 [:3], the Israelites are rehearsing the works of God in their nation, as we have much reason to rehearse the great works of God in our nation. The writer says, in verse 3:
"For they did not gain possession of the land by their own sword,
nor did their own arm save them;
but it was Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your countenance,
because You favored them."
I can't express to you how great is my longing to see God's strength manifested through this ministry. It's not our own strength in this ministry or in your life or in your home or your situation that will give the victory, it's by God's mighty power and His power alone that we can succeed.
So, Lord, we look to You this day with gratitude, with thankfulness in our hearts for what You have done and what You are doing in and through our lives. And, O Lord, we pray that You would shine upon us, that You would favor us, that You would smile upon, not only this ministry but on each listener. I pray for Your grace and Your favor and Your blessing and Your strength to be revealed in and through their lives this day, for Jesus' sake I pray it. Amen.
Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.
N.B. All biblical quotations are from the NKJV.
Thank you, Pat and R.J., for preparing today's Revive Our Hearts for the Internet.
