The Delight That Transforms You

Dannah Gresh: Here's Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: God’s Word will light your way. It will help you make right choices. It will heal your wounds. It will settle your heart. It will warn you of danger. It will cleanse you from sin.  It will lead you, it will make you wise. It is bread for your hunger. It is water for your thirst. It will counsel you. It will give you life. And why? Because it will lead you to Jesus. He is satisfying. He is sufficient. He is supreme. You will come to know Him in this Book, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of A Place of Quiet Rest, for November 4, 2025. I’m Dannah Gresh.

We’re beholding the wonder of the Word again today as we listen to the second half of a message from True Woman '25. Our theme this year was. The Word: Behold the Wonder. 

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth shared powerfully from Psalm 119. If you missed yesterday’s program and want to hear the first half of her message, you can find it at ReviveOurHearts.com, or on the Revive Our Hearts app. Here’s Nancy.

Nancy: Several years ago, an American woman who was living in another country began interacting with one of the Revive Our Hearts’ bloggers. And through the course of several weeks, God opened this woman's heart, gave her the gift of repentance and faith. She trusted God and was beautifully converted. Several weeks later, she sent an email to the blogger that she'd been corresponding with. She wrote:

I've just been reading the Bible online and printing out certain sections, but I'd really like to have a whole copy that I can actually hold in my hands. I went online to find one to purchase, and found that the selection and variety of Bibles is more overwhelming than standing in the cereal aisle of a U.S. grocery store—so many choices.

Well, our blogger immediately sent her a Bible, and this woman, a brand-new believer, was ecstatic. She wrote back: 

What a thrill it is to have a Bible. I stayed up way too late last night reading mine. It's a whole different thing when you get to hold a whole copy of it in your hands and read continuously without internet lapses, slow connections, et cetera. Thank you so much.

Now, fast forward eight months later from the time when she received her first Bible. She was asked by a group of non-believers to lead a Bible study so they could learn more about this woman's new faith. She wrote and asked us to pray for her. She said:

I'm not a public speaker. I am so not equipped for something like this. I've only read the Bible through twice, and I've never even been to a church that believes the Bible.

Here's a baby Christian who has already read the Bible through twice, the first part of that online. Eventually, this woman led her children to Christ and has led many other people to Jesus as her husband has been transferred from one country to another over the last several years. 

Young women—you decide if you're young—I wanna tell you something tonight. Teenagers, women in their twenties and thirties, I've been reading the Bible ever since I could read, which is now more than sixty-some years. I haven't always read it as faithfully as frequently or as fervently as I wish, but I could not have imagined years ago as I was reading again and again through the Scripture what incredible riches and joy and blessing it would bring to my life, many of which I'm experiencing now more than ever in this season. So let me say, don't wait till you're an old lady like me. Start now to live in the Word of God. 

And whatever your age, I want you to love God's Word. I want you to delight in it. Now, yes, it is inspired, it is inerrant, it is infallible, it is true, it is authoritative, but it is also beautiful and desirable and satisfying and sweet and precious. 

Yes, we ought to know it, we ought to study it, we ought to obey it, we ought to share it with others, but I want you also to love it. I want you to long for it. I want you to be eager to spend time with the Lord in His Book, and I want the hours that you spend in this book and the hours you spend with Christ to be the most deeply satisfying thing in your life. 

• God's Word will light your way. 
• It will help you make right choices. 
• It will heal your wounds. 
• It will settle your heart. 
• It will warn you of danger. 
• It will cleanse you from sin. 
• It will lead you. 
• It will make you wise. 
• It is bread for your hunger. 
• It is water for your thirst. 
• It will counsel you. 
• It will give you life. 

And why? Because it will lead you to Jesus. He is satisfying. He is sufficient. He is supreme. And you will come to know Him in this Book by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

So I want you to enjoy God's Word more than you enjoy good food, more than you enjoy good coffee, more than you enjoy your social media feeds or your Instagram reels, more than you enjoy watching a good movie or getting a big raise or hanging out with your friends. And I want you to enjoy it more than any sin that has a grip in your life. 

So how do you cultivate hunger for the Word? By eating it. That's what the prophet Jeremiah said, 

Your words were found and I ate them. Your words became a delight to me and the joy of my heart. (Jer. 15:16) 

Now in the physical realm, the more you eat, the less hungry you are, right? But when it comes to God's Word, the more you eat, the more hungry you are, the more you want, the more you long for it.

So how do you find a light in God's Word? Get your nose in this Book. I beg you, I implore you, I plead with you, read it. Read it when you feel like reading it. Read it when you don't feel like reading it. Read it until you do feel like reading it. Soak in it. Marinate in it. Meditate on it. Turn to it first, not last. 

Turn to it more than you turn to your phone. And I'll just tell you, for me, my phone has been the biggest single deterrent and distraction from delighting in God's Word. Nobody can change that for us. Yeah, I see a white flag there. We need some more. 

I received a text from one of our international team members just a couple of days ago. She said: 

What's burning on my heart for this conference is that we fall in love over and over again with God's Word, and that our hearts be healed and revived through the process.

Listen, as you come to love God's Word, to delight in it, it's not only going to impact you, it's going to impact others around you as the life of Christ begins to grow and develop and as you're sanctified as you reflect. You become what we behold, right? You see that people who are married a long time start to look like each other? You're saying, “I hope not.” We become what we behold. 

 

Beholding Christ in here, we're transformed. We're transfigured from the inside out into His likeness. You think that's not going to impact your husband, your roommate, your kids, your friends, your classmates, your work colleagues? It will impact them, and not only around you now, but for generations to come. 

I read a wonderful article by Trevon Wax recently. He said: 

Flash forward forty years from now. Many of us will be in heaven by then. Will our grandkids spot our worn Bible by the recliner? Will they see us captivated by Jesus and His Word? When we're old and gray or after we're gone, will our grandchildren and great-grandchildren say with conviction, ‘Grandma loved God's Word?’ I think that's one of the biggest helps as your burden for your children and your grandchildren and those around you not to walk away from the faith, is when they see that you love God and His Word, that it delights you. This is going to create an appetite and a longing in others. 

I want to make two final observations about this psalm. First, when Jesus was here on earth, we know that He prayed and sang Old Testament psalms. I want you for a moment . . . This gives a whole new light to Psalm 119 for me. Imagine Jesus praying just some selected verses. I'm going to read to you from Psalm 119 and see how they reveal our Savior. 

How I love your instruction! 
It is my meditation all day long.” (v. 97)

I can hear Jesus praying that. 

How sweet your word is to my taste—
sweeter than honey in my mouth. (v. 103) 

I understand more than the elders 
because I obey your precepts. (v. 100) 

Can you see Jesus in the temple at age twelve talking with the elders because he knew and loved God's Word? 

I have kept my feet from every evil path
to follow your Word.” (v. 101) 

Can you see Jesus in the wilderness being tempted by the devil to sin? And that prayer in His heart, “I have kept my feet from every evil path to follow your Word.” I can hear him praying this. 

I rise before dawn and cry out for help; 
I put my hope in your Word. (v. 147) 

We know about Jesus getting up early to pray. And then this one: 

I am awake through each watch of the night
to meditate on your promise. (v. 148) 

Jesus praying through the night. He knew that psalm. And this one: 

My eyes pour out streams of tears 
because people do not follow your instruction. (v. 136)

Do you remember Jesus weeping over Jerusalem? Weeping because God's people refuse to follow His instruction. This one: 

The wicked have set a trap for me, 
but I have not wandered from your precepts. (v. 110) 

Think of the trial of Jesus being betrayed, being persecuted, falsely accused, but I have not wandered from your precepts. And then I can hear Him in my mind's ear praying this: 

[Your decrees] are the joy of my heart. 
I am resolved to obey your statutes 
to the very end. (vv. 111–112) 

You see, Jesus loved and obeyed and delighted in the Word of God that sometimes bores us and sometimes we just flat outright reject. And that, my friend, is why He is qualified to be your Savior and mine. Because He kept this law of the Word of God with all His heart. 

Here's a second observation: as I've been recording the Wonder of the Word series teaching through the Bible, I'm always looking for what we call in that study, “glimpses of grace.” And there are a few parts of the Bible in the Old Testament where it wasn't so easy to find those glimpses of grace, but they are there. And I see a stunning glimpse of grace in the bookends, the beginning and the end of Psalm 119. So if you've got it open there, look at the opening again. 

How happy are those whose way is blameless, 
who walk according to the Lord's instruction! 
Happy are those who keep his decrees 
and seek him with all their heart. 
They do nothing wrong,
they walk in all his ways. (vv. 1–3)

Let me ask you, who but Jesus could possibly fit that description? Only Jesus was totally blameless. Only Jesus walked to every moment of His life according to the law of God. Only Jesus sought the Father with all His heart. It could not be said of me, and it could not be said of you. They do nothing wrong. They walk in his ways. But it is true of Jesus, our happy, blameless Lord. 

That description in verses 1 through 3 is then followed in verse 4 by this, 

You have commanded that your precepts 
be diligently kept. (v. 4) 

That's the standard. But then in the next verse, verse 5, the psalmist laments: 

If only my ways were committed 
to keeping your statutes. (v. 5) 

Lord, I don't. I can't keep your law. Here's the fact, we have all failed to keep God's standard. And in the very last verse of this psalm, turn there, 176. The psalmist acknowledges: 

I wander like a lost sheep; (v. 176)

The prophet Isaiah said in a way that is familiar to most of us, “All we like sheep have gone astray” (Isa. 53:6) It's prone to wander. Lord, I feel it. Like a lost sheep, the psalmist acknowledges that he has wandered at times away from God and His Word. And so he cries out to the good shepherd Psalm 119:176: 

Seek your servant [I've wandered],
for I do not forget your commands.

How does our Savior, our Shepherd restore lost sheep that have wandered away? 

He does it through His Word. Jesus, the living Word of God, came to seek and to save the lost. And on that cross at Calvary, the precious, sinless Lamb of God took our place. He took on Himself the judgment, the wrath of God for our sin so that we might return to the Father. 

That's why now, those who placed their faith in Jesus Christ, yes, we have wandered, but yes, He has died to bring us home. Now we can join in praying with the psalmist. Let me just invite you to bow your head in prayer as I read these words from Psalm 119.

Oh Lord, your statues are the theme of my song.
I will never forget your precepts, for you have given me life through them.
Your word is completely pure and your servant loves it. Amen.

Dannah: Amen. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has been inviting us to fall in love with God’s Word all over again. We at Revive Our Hearts want to help you do that in the year ahead, and I’ll be right back to tell you how. 

But first, I’d like to hear from some of the women who heard Nancy give that message at the True Woman '25 conference last month. 

Just like Nancy, these women are also going to encourage us to delight in God’s Word.

Gretchen Saffles: Hi, I'm Gretchen Saffles. I am from Newnan in Georgia, and I have had the absolute delight of being at True Woman '25. 

Dannah: Gretchen is the author of a book called The Well-Watered Woman.

Gretchen: One of my favorite things about being here is being surrounded by other women who are hungry for God's Word. And as we have heard it taught from the podium and seen women opening the Word, my heart truly has experienced a revival, a deep, deep sense in longing that this Word is my life. And it is the bread that I eat from.

I'm walking away from this conference just ready and excited to take this Word back, not only in shared with my kids, but with those who are around me. I feel emboldened in my faith to share the gospel with others. And one thing I'm just reminded of is there's power in God's Word. It's not just about what Nancy shared from the stage. When she reads the Word, or when we've heard another speaker or women reading the Word, that is where the power comes from. It's not our words, but it's His Word.

Maria Klausen: My name is Maria Klausen, and I am from Hamburg in Germany.

I feel like what God really showed me is that He wants us to love Him, and that He has given us His Word because He loves us, and because He really wants us to know Him, to behold Him. And this is a wonder.

I want to behold more. I want this to be part of my daily life, to be with Him, to live in that connection, this communion with Him, and to have this also enrich my vision for my personal time in the Bible.

Emily Jensen: I'm Emily Jensen. I'm from Central Iowa.

Dannah: Emily is co-author of a book called Gospel Mom. She left the True Woman '25 conference asking herself . . .

Emily: Am I word-centered in my conversations with other women. I just want to go back both in my regular everyday life and then also in ministry that I do to make sure that that really is central sowing out for me because it's so powerful.

Dannah: Jamie Adele Wood also went away wanting to share truth with others. She remembers praying with about 6,000 other women, asking God that they would share God’s Word.

Jamie Adele Wood: We laid hands on each one and it was like, you are to go out and to do the work of the ministry and you are to be in the Word, and then someone did that to me. You could just feel like the momentum. Then to end with "Amen," like perfect. Yes, Lord, let it be. We are in agreement. This is what we want. It was so powerful.

Oftentimes, God surprises us. We think we're going for one thing and he has something totally different in store. And I can honestly say, I'm leaving this weekend and I didn't even know I needed revival, but I needed revival. I came this weekend for myself as a Bible teacher. I already love God's Word. But I have a renewed passion for God's Word.

Dannah: At the True Woman Conference, we invited women to take a tangible step to get into God’s Word over the next year. Mandy Pallock is the author of The Question Habit, and she describes the commitment thousands of women have made.

Mandy Pallock: So Revive Our Hearts had a big banner, a series of banners up that said, "Through God's grace, I commit to read through the Bible in the next year." I just loved that the conference hadn't even kicked off before it was completely filled in. People kept finding corners and places to add their signature and add their commitment and add their affirmation to that goal.

Dannah: My friend Suzy Weibel signed that banner as well.

Suzy Weibel: I'm almost at a loss for words at what it is seeing this many women gather in one place so excited about God's Word. The wall where women have signed their names and my name is on there as well. Promising in 2026 to read through the entirety of God's Word. That is a massive undertaking. I know it's not going to be easy, but I'm so excited to know that I'm going to be doing it with all of those other women.

Dannah: Well, I have good news. Even if you couldn’t attend True Woman '25, you can still read the Bible with us in 2026! Imagine reading the same passage with thousands of women from around the world each day for a year. 

When you sign up at ReviveOurHearts.com/Bible2026, we will send you daily prompts in your inbox to cheer you on. You’ll also be able to share what you’re learning with your sisters in the Revive Our Hearts community. To sign up visit ReviveOurHearts.com/Bible2026.

But that’s just the first step. In 2027, we will all study the Bible together as Nancy teaches through the entire Bible in a series called "Wonder of the Word." Teams around the world are translating Nancy’s teaching into multiple languages, and we’re all going to listen together.

Ann Janelle McClure: My name is Ann Janelle McClure and I live in São Paulo, Brazil.

I am so excited about the Wonder of the Word project because it'll be the first time that we will be listening to the same podcast at the same time. I love to listen English, and I've made a commitment to listen every day in English And I try to keep up with the Portuguese as well. They're two different podcasts right now And so the fact that we will be listening to the same thing, everyone around the world and all these different languages and studying the Word of God together. It's incredible I'm so excited to do this part with my Brazilian woman—just to study and to listen to the podcast together as we go through the Word

Dannah: As you can imagine, it takes a big team to translate all that material. So when you support Revive Our Hearts, you’re helping to make it possible for women to hear God’s Word in countries where it’s desperately needed. We are praying that the Wonder of the Word will be translated into languages that reach 85% of the world’s people.

But we need your help. When you make a donation of any amount, we’ll say thank you by sending you the beautiful new Revive Our Hearts calendar for 2026. Visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959 to give. And be sure to request your calendar when you do! You can let us know you’re standing with us by donating at ReviveOurHearts.com/Donate. 

Are you able to describe the overarching story of the Bible? Tomorrow, we’re hearing more from True Woman '25. We’ll listen as Pastor Kevin DeYoung explains the bigger picture of Scripture. It’s a wonderful message you won’t want to miss. 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 CSB.

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