Remember When

Jim Cymbala: Congratulations, Nancy, from Pastor Jim and Carol Cymbala and the whole entire Brooklyn Tabernacle Congregation on five years of distinguished radio making and ministry for Revive Our Hearts. We feel you’re one of God’s choicest servants in the entire country and world, and we thank God for His faithfulness in your life. Keep up the great work! We love you. God bless you, Nancy.

Leslie Basham: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss for Friday, September 1st. Have you ever caught yourself saying I remember when? Well, that’s what we’re going to do today. Five years ago on Labor Day, 2001, the first Revive Our Hearts program ever was broadcast.

Today we look back on some of our favorite moments. We’ll hear from listeners and ladies here in the studio.

And don’t forget, you’ll find links at www.ReviveOurHearts.com to any of the programs you hear mentioned this week as we celebrate five years of revived hearts.

(phone call)

Woman: I’ve listened to Revive Our Hearts since it began. I have to say that this has been an answer to a deep need I didn’t know I had until these truths began transforming my thinking in my life.

Between the book Lies Women Believe, topics such as brokenness, revival, and submission; my life in an unequally yoked marriage has been set free, well most of the time, from blaming, resentment, hopelessness, and self-righteousness. But I want to mention one program in particular The Blessing of the Thorns.

(clip from The Blessing of theThorns radio series)

First Customer: Oh these are great. There are perfect.

Customer: Aren’t you missing something? There aren’t any flowers, it’s just stems.

First Customer: Yes. I guess that’s what makes the special so special. Thanks, Happy Thanksgiving!

Customer: She just left without any flowers.

Florist: That’s because I’ve got them all. I call it the Thanksgiving Thorns Bouquet.

Customer: Someone would really pay for that?

Florist: Yes, someone who really wants to be thankful.

Phone caller continued: There are always things in my life that appear as thorns, things that cause pain and won’t go away. I realized, however, while listening to the program that the person who had been my biggest thorn, my husband, had by God’s grace become a blessing. I could no longer thank the Lord for him as a thorn.

Through the teaching of Revive Our Hearts, God showed me how giving thanks for all things, especially the hard circumstances, transforms and matures my heart. All glory goes to the Lord who blesses richly when we trust and obey His life-changing Word. Thank you so much.

Florist: They’re kind of growing on me. Now here’s the card that goes with the bouquet. Maybe you’d like to read it.

Customer: Dear God, I’ve thanked you a thousand times for my roses, but never once for my thorns. Teach me the value of my thorns. Teach me the glory of the cross I bear. Show me that I have climbed closer to you along the path of pain and show me that through my tears, the colors of your rainbow look much more brilliant.

(phone ringing)

Customer’s husband: Hello.

Customer: Hey, I’m on my way.

Husband: Okay. I’m so sorry about forgetting this.

Customer: No, I’m sorry for everything. And I’d love to celebrate Thanksgiving with you.

Husband: That’s a relief. We’ll talk about it when you get home.

Customer: Okay. I’ve got to tell you about this weird flower shop.

(comment from studio audience)

Woman: My favorite [lesson] was “The Woman at the Well.” Nancy talked about when Jesus had that conversation with the woman at the well, that he wanted to show her that it wasn’t her woundedness, but it was her sinfulness. She was trying to fill her life with other things, with other idols. Jesus wanted her to know that He was the provision for her, that He was what she needed for that thirst.

I think in America today, we’re like that woman. We’d like to think we’re victims about everything. If we’re a victim, then we’re not responsible. I think the Lord was trying to help her to see, “No, you need to repent and then come to Me.” We do the same thing. We have idols—whether it is the approval of people or money or popularity or control or whatever it is. But Jesus is the only provision that we need.

(clip from Satisfying Our Thirst radio series)

Nancy: We’re all thirsty; we’re all hungry, but we’ve tried to satisfy our thirst in all the wrong places. Our thirst really is for God. He’s the one we’re longing for. That’s why the Psalmist says, “My soul is thirsty for you O God” (Psalm 63:1).

The problem is we try to satisfy our thirst in things and places and people and circumstances other than God Himself.

Woman: Do you remember when Nancy went through Ruth? The book of Ruth. The danger of growing up in a Christian home like I did and reading Bible stories as you’re growing up, as rich as a heritage as that is, it kind of becomes meaningless later on a little bit, “Ruth? Oh, Ruth. I know Ruth.”

So, here Nancy’s going through Ruth. I came [to the studio] because I always want to come to hear what Nancy has to say. But I didn’t think I’d get that much out of it. But this is just indicative of her teaching. Moab—that’s a place where they fled to in the beginning of the story because of a famine or something. By the end of that, do your remember she was challenging us saying, “What is your Moab? What are you running from?”

Then I’ll never forget, she played a song by Steve Green called “I Repent.” After all that teaching and then we listened to that song. From that point on, it was paradigm shift with one of our children in the way I thought about her, the way I loved her. She’s our child with disabilities, but it changed my life—powerful.

Another woman: God’s presence was there so strongly that day. I’ll never forget that.

Steve Green (song):

And I repent,
   Making no excuses.
I repent,
   No one else to blame.
And I return
   To fall in love with Jesus.
I bow down on my knees,
   And I repent.

Steve Green: Hi, Nancy. This is Steve Green wishing you and Revive Our Hearts a Happy 5th Anniversary, and thanking the Lord for your ministry and your life. God Bless.

Nancy: In those early days, there was that very unusual sense of God’s presence. Not only in that particular session, but I remember an early series we did on revival. I did a session on the presence of God as an earmark characteristic of revival.

I just remember after that session finished (we typically would have moved on to the next session because we record a lot of different programs in one day), there was just this strong sense that we couldn’t move on because God’s presence that we were talking about in revivals of the past was so manifest and present in that room.

Some of you were there. And Bob, I remember you got up and read some Scripture, and we said, “We can’t just move on past this – we need a Selah – we need to stop and respond to this awesome presence of God.” I still remember as many women got on their knees and began to pray, to cry out to God for revival, to recognize His presence in that place.

I was listening and watching and trying to sense what God was doing. I remember having just this strong sense that this is what Revive Our Hearts is for. This is what this is about.

What was happening in that little room, with the cinder block walls and the hard floor, with women crying out to God, were women experiencing the presence of God and pleading with Him to revive their hearts and homes and churches.

I thought, “This is a little picture of what one day I believe God will be doing in homes and vans and workplaces and churches and communities as women whose hearts have been revived come together, not only to experience God’s presence, but to cry out to Him for revival on the behalf of others.”

It just gave me a vision of (in a little microcosm there) what one day I was believing that God would do in a widespread way. And now over these last several years, it’s been a privilege to meet and talk with many women whose hearts have been revived. They have been transformed in the way they view God and their marriage and their children. Their whole world view has changed.

They love Christ. They’re committed to serving Him and growing spiritually, and we’ve seen that multiplied. But I still live for the day, as we’ve talked about it on the program, for when the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters covers the sea. At that moment, sitting in that room at Summit Church was just a little glimpse, a glimpse of His glory, a glimpse of what we’re still believing God to do in a much broader sense.

Leslie: It is good and appropriate to pause, look back, and thank God for his goodness in specific situations. We’d love to hear your story too.

How has the Lord used the ministry of Nancy Leigh DeMoss and Revive Our Hearts in your life? Contact us at www.ReviveOurHearts.com.

That’s the same website you can visit for information about how this station might be affected by our transition to a longer program starting on Monday.

We’ve been updating www.ReviveOurHearts.com as much as possible. Don’t forget, you can always listen online at your convenience or sign up for our podcast.

If God has used Revive Our Hearts in your life over the past five years, would you consider a gift to help us help others? We’re a listener-supported program, so we depend on your financial gifts and your prayers.

Today’s the last day you can get the Revive Our Hearts anniversary set. These are five of Nancy’s books available for a gift of $50 or more. You can find out more at our website. But if you’d rather call, that number is 1-800-569-5959.

Well, on Monday, not only will our program be about twice as long, but Nancy will dive into a series called The Power of Words. You won’t want to miss it. Thanks so much for listening. We don’t take you for granted.

May God bless your weekend, and we hope to see you next time for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.

Steve Green. "I Repent." The Faithful. Jillybird Music, 1998. ASCAP.

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