The Joy of Belonging to Jesus

Dannah Gresh: In her singleness, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth testified . . .

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: God has been so good to me. Even through the tears and the heartaches, God has been so faithful. His will is good! I guess if I had any regret, it's only that I haven't trusted Him more.

Dannah: By God’s grace, you can learn to say the same.

This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Lies Women Believe: And the Truth That Sets Them Free, for August 7, 2026. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Today we’re wrapping up our series, “Embracing Singleness.” Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth recorded this content back in 2002, years before she married her late husband, Robert. But the truths she shared have proven timeless. 

Later today, you’ll also hear from Dr. Helen Roseveare, a single missionary to the Congo. I think her words are going to encourage and inspire you whether you’re a single listener or not. I’m excited for all that lies ahead for us today, so let’s dive in. Here’s Nancy. 

Nancy: The past week we've been looking at 1 Corinthians 7 and talking about this whole matter of the gift of singleness—realizing that both marriage and singleness are a gift. If you are single, then you have the gift of singleness. If you are married, then you have the gift of marriage. We've been seeing that we are to embrace whatever calling God has given us, take it as a calling from the Lord, receive it with thanksgiving, and then give it back to Him and make out of that gift something that is of eternal value.

We've kind of walked through the chapter of 1 Corinthians 7. But as we bring this series to a close, I want to back up to the paragraph that precedes 1 Corinthians 7, the last paragraph of chapter 6. I want to read what I think is really the bottom-line, foundational principle behind everything we've been talking about as it relates to singleness or marriage.

The last two verses of 1 Corinthians 6, Paul says, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?" Now to put this in context, I'm jumping in in the middle of another section where he's been talking about the whole matter of immorality and calling God's people to live lives that are morally pure, that their bodies belong to God. And he says in that context: 

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor [or some translations say glorify] God with your body. (vv. 19–20)

Now we've been talking as Paul does in chapter 7 about marriage and singleness, about serving the Lord, about moral purity, about some of these issues that touch us as married and single women. And I believe that this last paragraph of chapter 6 is the launching pad for all of chapter 7.

This is where we have to start, and this is where it all comes back, to realize several things. 

First of all, that God lives in me. If you are a child of God, what an incredible thought that your body is a house for God, a temple for God. Now whether you're married or single, that gives your life incredible significance. 

It means: 

• Where you go is important. 
• What you look at is important. 
• What you do with your hands . . . 
• Where you go with your feet . . . 
• What you do with that mind . . . 
• How you love with that heart . . . 
• What you give that heart to is really important because your body is just a temple, a holy place for a Holy Spirit. God lives in me.

"God has bought me at a great price," Paul says, which has incredible implications that mean I don't belong to myself. I am not my own. My life is not my own. It's not up to me to decide what to do with my life. It’s not up to me to decide whether I will be single or whether I will be married, whether I will have children or whether I will not have children, where I will serve, where I will go, what I will do. Those decisions are not mine to make, because you see, I don't belong to myself. I'm under new management. I have a boss; His name is Jesus.

And I will just tell you after nearly forty years now of walking with the Lord and serving Him, there is no more wonderful Master and Lord that you could possibly have. His service is sweet. It is precious. His yoke is easy and His burden is light. That doesn't mean there aren't any hard parts about it. But there's joy, there really is, in serving Christ.

But part of the implication of that means that I'm not my own. I don’t belong to myself. I don’t make decisions for myself. He owns me. I belong to Him. So every decision of my life I need to be consulting with my Owner, consulting with my Master. He has the right to do with my life whatever He pleases. 

If He wants me to stay here and minister, if He wants me to go to another country, if He wants me to change vocations, if He wants me to be married, if He wants me to be single, if He wants me to grow old, if He wants me to die young, if He wants me to have health, if He wants me to be sick; whatever God chooses for my life, He has the right to choose. I don’t have the right to make those choices for my own life.

When I came to Him and trusted Him as my Savior and He received me into His family, I gave up those rights to Him. 

Now, there's no more wonderful way to live. It's scary on the front end when you're looking that direction. But once you've stepped over that line and trusted Christ as the Lord of your life, then you realize He really can be trusted to do what is right with your life.

So Paul says "Because all these things are true, because God lives in me, because He bought me, because He owns me, because I belong to Him, therefore, I am to glorify God." That's my purpose in life. That's why I live. I don't live to be happy. I don't live to be comfortable. I don't live to have an easy life. I don't live to take home a paycheck. I don't live to please myself.

Revelation 4:11 tells us we were created for His pleasure to bring Him joy. So the question of life isn't what will bring me joy? What will make me happy? Now, I'll tell you what will bring you joy is trust and obedience, surrender to Jesus as Lord. But that's not why I trust and obey. The goal isn't how can I be happy? The goal is how can I bring pleasure to Him? How can I glorify God? How can my life become a walking, living advertisement for Jesus? How can my life give the world a right opinion about God? Glorify Him with your body and with your spirit which belong to God.

So you and I, whether single or married, are called to live lives that are centered in God and centered in others, not centered in ourselves. We are called to live lives for His glory. We're called to make a non-negotiable, lifetime surrender of all that we are to Jesus as Lord. 

Now I want to tell you that I think one of the things that has most helped me really enjoy my years, even as a single woman, has been that when I was a young girl, a little girl, I came to the point where I made a conscious lifetime surrender to Jesus as Lord—non-negotiable. 

I just recognized that He was my Master, and I surrendered myself to that, and it's as if I handed the Lord a blank sheet of paper and signed my name on the bottom and said, "Now, Lord, you fill in the blanks. Here's a contract. I'm signing it. I don't know what You want with my life. I don't know what it will mean. I don't know where I will go, where You will send me, what You will have me to do. But I trust You, and I surrender to You as the Lord of my life.” 

Is that scary? Yes. But I'll tell you, it's foolish to try to run it myself, because I really can't. We know how little control we really have over our own lives.

Some of you would very much like to be married and you're not single by choice. Some of you would like the gift of marriage, and you realize you really don't have a lot of control over that matter. And so the key to joy I have found in my life is to surrender to Jesus as Lord and to say, "Lord, it's all Yours."

There's another passage in the New Testament that touches on this matter of a wholehearted surrender to Jesus as Lord, and it's in Romans chapter 12, beginning in verse 1.

Now, I want to encourage you sometime to go back to read the few verses at the end of chapter 11 because that's the context here. Paul is talking about the wisdom and the sovereignty and the greatness of God. And in that context he says, 

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.

In light of what He has done for you, how could you think of living any other way? Put yourself on the altar and say, "God, here I am. All of me. Have me. Use me. Control me. Fill me. Do whatever You want to with my life."

Paul goes on to say in the second verse of Romans 12, 

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (v. 2)

Now you see, we want it the other way around. We want to test the will of God first, find out what it is, have God write out the contract, and then we want to take a look at it and decide whether or not we want to sign it. We want to take a look at that will and say if we think it's good and pleasing. 

And God says, “No, that's not the way it works. First of all, you consecrate yourself to Me, give yourself to Me as a living sacrifice, and then you'll be able to find out for yourself how good and sweet and pleasing and wonderful, My will really is.”

I can tell you, ladies, that I really do love the will of God. Now, I don't always immediately love every point of the will of God. I've had my share of kicking and screaming and resenting and resisting the will of God. But I look back at what God has shown me of His will, and I say, "It is good!" God has been so good to me. Even through the tears and the heartaches, God has been so faithful. His will is good! I guess if I had any regret, it's only that I haven't trusted Him more, that I haven't been quicker to surrender wholeheartedly to that will.

One of my heroes in the faith is a woman named Dr. Helen Roseveare who was for many years a missionary surgeon in what was then Belgian Congo. She's written a wonderful book. I think it's out of print now. It's called Living Sacrifice. Let me read to you a portion of what she writes in that book about what it means to live life as a living sacrifice.

We have no rights but to love and obey God, to be submissive to His will and utterly loyal to His leadership. To be a living sacrifice will involve all my time. God wants me to live every minute for Him in accordance with His will and purpose, sixty minutes of every hour, twenty-four hours of every day being available to Him. No time can be considered as my own or as off duty or free. I cannot barter with God about how much time I can give to serve Him. Whatever I am doing, be it a routine salary job or housework at home, be it vacation time and free, or after work Christian activities, all should be undertaken for Him to reveal His indwelling presence to those around me.

To be a living sacrifice will involve all my possessions. Everything I have is in trust, be it financial or material. All should be available to God for the furtherance of His kingdom. My money is His if I am to live sacrificially. I must look to Him for guidance in its use, with no sense that a certain percentage is my own by right of labor. I relinquish that right to Him. He has the right to direct the spending of each penny, my home or my car, my typewriter [that'll show you-it was a few years ago when she served, put computer in there] or my clothes. Anything I own is to be considered God's, to be used as He instructs, and even loaned to another should He desire. 

To be a living sacrifice will involve all of myself, my will, and my emotions, my health, my thinking, my activities, all are to be available to God to be employed as He chooses, to reveal Himself to others, glorifying God. Should He see that someone would be helped to know Him through my being ill, I accept ill health and weakness. I have no right to demand what we call good health. I've no right even to demand a sound mind, except insofar as this glorifies God. I am to be wholly His. All rights are His to direct my living so that He can most clearly reveal Himself through me. God has the right then to choose my job and where I work to choose my companions and my friends,

To be a living sacrifice will involve all my love. My emotions and desires are to be actively dedicated to the Lord with one burning desire, to worship Him more worthily and to serve Him more wholeheartedly. I relinquish the right to choose whom I will love and how, giving the Lord the right to choose for me. I accept His law in His Word as my standard in this, as in all other departments of my life. Whether I have a life partner or not is wholly His to decide, and I accept gladly His best will for my life. I must bring all the areas of my affections to the Lord for His control. For here above all else, I need to sacrifice my right to choose for myself. I dare not trust myself in this area. God knows that which is in my own best interest, and which will make me more wholly available to Himself for the fulfilling of His perfect law of liberty. I need to be so utterly God's, that He can use me or hide me as He chooses. As an arrow in His hand or in His quiver, I will ask no questions. I relinquish all my rights to Him who desires my supreme good. He knows best.

That's what it means to be a living sacrifice. And Paul says that's your reasonable act of worship in light of who God is and what He has done for us, anything less is foolishness.

Oh Father, how I pray that each one of us would make our lives that living sacrifice. Some of us have done that in the past, but we've kind of climbed off the altar. So I pray that even in this moment, we would make of ourselves a living sacrifice to You—wholly surrendering ourselves, our time, our possessions, our rights, our future, our relationship, our possessions, everything we are, everything we have, our affections, our love life, our relationships—everything to you.

Thank You, Lord, that as we do, we will discover that Your will is good and pleasing and to be desired above all other things in heaven and on earth. Accept, I pray, the sacrifice that we make of ourselves to You. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Dannah: That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth praying for each of us, that God would give us the grace to offer ourselves wholly to Him. It’s not just our relationship status that we’re invited to surrender. God wants all of us. 

I love that Nancy closed our series with a word on Helen Roseveare. What a beautiful example we have in her! Helen viewed her life as a living sacrifice she could gladly offer to God—even in the face of intense suffering. 

Toward the end of her life, she joined our friends at the book company 10ofThose to reflect on her time as a single missionary. Jonathan Carswell, Founder and President at 10ofThose, is the one interviewing her.

Jonathan Carswell: Thank you for joining us today. 

You went through many traumatic experiences in the 1960s when you were in the Congo. How, if ever, did you come to terms with those experiences? 

Helen Roseveare: I don't think we really thought about “coming to terms” with them. It’s difficult to explain. Before we ever went to mission field, I really said to God that I was willing for anything within His will. 

I think the prayer that Jesus prayed in the Garden, “not My will but Yours be done,” I wanted that to be true for me. Whatever the Lord allowed to happen, I think I accepted it as being His will, even though sometimes it's hard to understand how it could be His will. 

Then another verse He kept giving us in various different situations, He kept giving us the verse, “My grace is sufficient.” Even when things were really difficult—there was a beat up or something really harsh—there's the certainly, “My grace is sufficient.” It was! His grace was always sufficient in each individual day, in each circumstance. 

Then later looking back more, the Lord gave a particular attitude perhaps of looking at what had occurred. He said, “Can you thank Me?” 

Initially I said, “No way.” 

But then when you looked at it I thought, I'm not thanking Him for the evil. I’m only thanking God for the good things He gives. He said, “Can you thank Me for trusting you?” That was quite a revolutionary thought to me. I'd always thought of me trusting Him, but not of Him trusting me. 

He said, “Can you thank Me for trusting you with this experience even if I never tell you why?” That brought its own peace as soon as one said thank You. “I don't know what You are doing Lord and why you're allowing this, but it was part of Your purposes. Thank You for trusting me.” Immediately, He poured in His peace and there was an acceptance that wasn't difficult

Jonathan: As a woman, what did you bring to the ministry that you were involved in? 

Helen: I never thought about it like that. In fact, out there in Africa where I was ministering, fortunately the Africans didn't even think of me as a woman. I was a doctor. It's very simple. I wore a white coat and a stethoscope around my neck. I was a doctor. But God had a specific job. God chose whom He wanted for that particular job. Things like sending Jonah to Nineveh. 

He sent me to that bit of Congo because I suppose as a woman I wasn't threatening to the national men. I was single, so I had time. I didn't have to think about family as well. The job I was asked to do was very, very time-consuming. We did work almost around the clock, and that would be very difficult if I'd had my own family and home to care for.

I enjoyed serving right from the time I was first a Christian. I found that in serving others, I had a way of expressing my love for the Lord. I just was happy in that. It fitted the job God asked me to do, so I never really thought about being a woman. I was the person with the job. We used to have a saying in our mission: the woman's a man to do the job. There were more women there than there were men doing the job out there.

Jonathan: Helen, there are hundreds of women here today. As you have the opportunity to share with the next generation, as it were, of women, what would you be most keen to say? 

Helen: Have you fallen in love with Jesus? I know you know He died to save you. I know you know you ought to love Him. But do you love the Lord Jesus? Not just as Savior and friend, but as Lord and Master? Is He the all in all for you? Really hand your rights over—your right to choose whether you're married or single, whether you work here or somewhere else, what job you do. Are you allowing God to be totally in control of everything because of your love for Him? I think that's the secret to really finding the niche that God has for you in his total overall plan. Doing it because you love Him.

Jonathan: Doctor, thank you all so much for your time. 

Dannah: You heard it from Dr. Helen Roseveare. The secret to embracing your singleness is to spend these years loving Jesus, and serving Him out of that love. 

During her years as a missionary, Helen helped build hospitals, she trained nurses, and she treated thousands of patients. But more than this, she saw a need for deeper healing in the Congo—healing that could only come through Jesus Christ. She spent her days opening her Bible among these people and telling them about the salvation available to them in Jesus. Talk about a joyful, purposeful life! It wasn’t without its challenges, but no Christian’s life ever is.

And you know what? This secret to joy in singleness is really the secret to joy in marriage . . . and motherhood . . . and widowhood. It’s the secret to the Christian life. We burst at the seams with purpose when we realize we’re not our own, but that we belong, body and soul, to Jesus. That was Helen Roseveare’s life message. I hope we’ll make it ours as well. 

We just listened to an interview produced by 10ofThose. Now, if you’re not familiar, 10ofThose is a book ministry that helps everyone access the best Christian books from a variety of publishers. Each resource is carefully chosen to ensure it points to Jesus. If you enjoyed the resource center at True Woman ’25, then you’ve been blessed by 10ofThose! They brought in all those wonderful books for us. 

Our friends at 10ofThose want you to know they’ve got three books by or about Helen Roseveare. Two of those, Count It All Joy and Enough! by Helen, are short, very accessible, and designed to be given away. To shop these resources, visit the link in today’s transcript. You can find that at ReviveOurHearts.com. (And the third: Helen Roseveare: A Life in Her Own Words.)

If this series on embracing singleness has been a blessing to you, would you consider making a donation? We rely on listener support to continue sharing this kind of encouragement on Revive Our Hearts. 

And this month when you give a gift of any amount, we’ll send you the Finding Beauty in Every Season photo book. It’s a beautiful new resource featuring thirty days of wisdom from Nancy and scenic photos from our staff. To donate and request yours, visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959. 

Next week, we’re talking about another season of a woman’s life—motherhood. More specifically, we’ll be encouraging all you young moms to press on in the Lord. The work you’re doing in your home is so meaningful. I’m excited to spend a week exploring this truth together. 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 NIV84.

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