Revive Our Hearts

Host (Danna Grash): Hey there. Come and join me in the kitchen. I'm working on a little baking project. Mocha chocolate chip banana muffins. It's a mouthful to say and to enjoy. You see what I did there. Oh yeah.

I've already mixed in about a cup of mashed bananas. Now adding a tablespoon of instant coffee granules and finally a splash of vanilla. Perfect. Time to mix in those chocolate chips.

You know what, while I scoop these out, I was thinking, do you know what's so incredible about mocha chocolate chip banana muffins, and most cooking actually? They go into the oven looking, well, like ingredient soup. But when that timer goes off, they come out totally transformed.

I'm your host Danna Grash, you're in the Revive Our Hearts kitchen today on the weekend program. Hey, while that's in the oven, I want to talk about an even better recipe and the ingredients of a revived heart. You know, add these to your life and you will see some transformation.

First ingredient, time in the Word. Then add in as much repentance as needed and be prepared with a splash of joy. These are just a few of the ingredients God uses to make us new. Let's start with some time in the Word. Personal revival begins with an open Bible.

To tell you about that, we've got the lovely Damaris Carbaugh. Damaris is a singer, she and her husband Rod live in Brooklyn, New York. And let me tell you, this friend of mine is passionate about spending time in God's Word because she's watched it totally transform her life. She shared about that at the Revive 19 conference and, oh, I can't wait for you to hear her story.

Guest (Damaris Carbaugh): Don't you read sometimes biographies of people that had like an amazing walk with God and makes you jealous in a good way? You know who makes me jealous? Enoch. What is up with Enoch? Oh, he journaled. There wasn't even a Bible. But we've been saying the importance of the Bible.

So when I was telling this to my husband, I was saying, the Bible is the only thing that will start showing you how far you are and how near you need to be. The Bible is the only way that you'll understand how your mind is off. How your mind needs to be renewed. The Bible is what tells us that there's a Holy Spirit, that there's a Father. The Bible tells us all these things. And then I'm telling my husband, and Enoch didn't even have a Bible.

So my husband goes, "What are you trying to say?" Cause it's like, and I'm like, "What am I trying to say?" You see, of all the speakers, I'm the one abnormally bored. But let me tell you what I mean. It's the Bible that tells us about Enoch. And Enoch walked in such close fellowship with God. That God took him. God took him. Oh my goodness.

What did he do? I have no idea. I'm serious. There was no synagogue. What did he do? Well, the Bible tells us in the New Testament that he actually prophesied about the judgment that was coming. So there's a little fire in him too. He's coming to judge, and oh my word.

But there must have been something about him. There must have been something about this man that loved God in such a way that God said, "Come on." It's the Word of God that has given me a desire to know what in the world was Enoch like. It's the Word of God. Here's the verse, for the Word of God, some of you know this well, is alive and powerful.

Before I even finish, your personal devotional life totally depends on you being able to spend time with His Word. A lot. I want to say every day, but there are some Sundays, I will tell you that there are some Sundays that I get up early, I get ready for church, choir rehearsal, church happens, we read the scriptures on the PowerPoint, and we look, and we open up our Bibles in the service.

But there are times when Sunday is actually a day that I may not read in the sense of the way I normally read. But what you need more than anything else, if you want to have victory in your life, if you want to know Jesus Christ really well, if you want to please Him, you will never be able to do that unless you become a person that loves the Word of God.

Because look what the Word of God does. It's alive and powerful, it is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. Now listen carefully here, it exposes, don't miss this, it exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. Don't miss that. It exposes your thoughts and desires.

Sometimes the greatest revelation you need is to understand the condition of your heart, can you say amen? Your thoughts, your desires, He knows them. And when you're ready to let truth, Christ, the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit. When you're ready to let His truth expose your truth, and you come to Him holding nothing back, He will receive you and He will give you all that you need to be completely devoted to Him.

The Word of God healed me many years ago. I was insanely jealous. Insanely is putting it mildly. I was just married, and my husband worked for a Christian television network. And everybody that worked in that place looked like they were ready for prime time. Do you know what that means? That they all looked beautiful. All the ladies there looked beautiful to me. I was very insecure, and I got very jealous. And if you were pretty, I did not like you.

And I want to tell you something that, it got so bad. It got so bad, my mind got so crazy that I scared myself and I took myself to a Christian biblical counselor. And I sat down and I told her that I was very jealous and that my husband couldn't look at anything too long. If he looked at this microphone here, she's little, she's just hiding in there. That's, that's how I felt. I mean every, just what he, it was unbelievable.

And I would have dreams that my husband was unfaithful to me. And I'd wake up from the dream and go, "Crazy. Crazy." So I went to see this counselor, and I sit down and I tell her everything, and I talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. And when I was done, she said, "Are you done?" And I said, "I think so." And you know what she very sweetly, and I always want to repeat this because she didn't say it with a mean spirit.

You know what her first words out of her mouth were? "Damaris," that's my name by the way, "Damaris." Not Demetrius, not Dionysius the Areopagite. It's Damaris, but anyway, she went, "Damaris, I rebuke you." In Spanish it sounds even. In Spanish it's, "Yo te reprendo." Oh my goodness. And, and, but she said it in such a, in such a sober and, I don't know how to tell you this, only God can hit you with love. With love.

And she said to me this, "It is obvious you are not a woman of the Word." And I wasn't. And she says, "And here's what I'm going to tell you to do. You and your husband are going to start reading the Bible together. You choose how much, how little, you choose what." She didn't even give us where to go. "You just, you two decide, sit down, start reading the Bible together, and your husband will close in prayer."

God healed my mind as I began to eat the Word of God. Amen. You want to have a wonderful personal devotional life? You need to love His Word. And you need to let His Word show you what's wrong. God's Word is still changing me and it's still changing you. And it's showing us every day to seek Him.

Host (Danna Grash): Damaris Carbaugh on the power of Scripture to revive our hearts. What a crucial ingredient for personal revival. If that story doesn't make you want to stop everything and open your Bible, I do not know what will. You can listen to this entire message from Damaris. We're linking it for you in today's transcript at reviveourhearts.com/weekend. I hope you'll take a listen. The whole thing, so powerful.

Now, let me go check on our mocha chocolate chip banana muffins. Okay, looking good so far. Transformation is happening. The ingredients are doing their thing. Now, another ingredient that does transforming work in our hearts is repentance. In fact, we can't experience personal revival without it. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is going to take us to Scripture and show us why it's so important. Let's listen.

Guest (Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth): I think about John the Baptist who comes on the scene at the beginning of the New Testament, and he's preparing the way for the coming of Christ. Now, this isn't to say that repentance isn't found in the Old Testament, it is over and over and over again. And the term you'll often see is return. Return. I'm reading right now in my quiet time, I'd just finished Isaiah, I'm into Jeremiah.

And over and over again, God says to His people, "Return, return, turn away from idols, turn to Me." That's an Old Testament concept of, and new as well, of repentance. But then we come to the New Testament, we have this prophet, John the Baptist, and he's, he's making ready the people to experience the coming of Christ here to this earth. And so Matthew 3 tells us that in those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea.

And what was his message? He said, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." And you think, well, you know, John gave that message, of course Jesus was getting ready to come, but then we can move on to some other message when Jesus comes, right? Well, the first message Jesus gave when He came here to earth is the exact same message. Matthew chapter 4, one chapter later, verse 17, "From that time, Jesus began to preach saying," this is Jesus' first earthly message, "What did he say?"

"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Now, John and Jesus were both talking about the same thing. This is a new kingdom, a whole new system, a new way of doing things, a new set of values. And he's saying that being a part of this kingdom requires that you turn away from your own kingdom. From the kingdom of this world, from the kingdom of man, the kingdom of self, the kingdom of this earth.

You've been going one direction. You've been living for one kingdom. It's your own kingdom. But there's a new kingdom coming. And when you become a part of that kingdom, you have a new heart, new desires, new lifestyle, a new agenda. And in order to repent, you have to admit that the agenda you've been living for all along is wrong.

So you have to turn around from the way you've been going and embrace the new kingdom agenda. This is what it is to become a Christian. And this is what it is to live as a Christian. We are the subjects of a new kingdom. We have a new citizenship. We have a new ruler for our lives. We have a new Lord, we have a new life because Jesus has come as we embrace Him.

We're saying we're turning from going our own way. We're turning from the idols of our hearts. We're turning from our own superficial, temporal values to embrace the kingdom of Christ. He is the reigning King. He is the ruler, He is the Lord, and we turn to Him. That's repentance. You think, well, did that message continue through the New Testament?

Yes, it did. After His resurrection, before He returned to heaven, Jesus appeared to His disciples. So here he is on one of his last times of speaking to His disciples here on earth. Luke 24 tells us, this is the last chapter of the gospel of Luke, says, "Then He opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said to them, 'Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead,'" that had just happened, "And," here's what's coming next, "that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things."

So Jesus came preaching the gospel of repentance. Before He went back to heaven, He said, "Here's what you've got to keep doing after I leave. Keep proclaiming the gospel of repentance." We think of repentance as bad news. Repentance is actually incredibly good news because it places us under the care and the protection and the providence and the lordship of Jesus Christ. And as part of His kingdom, we have access to the glories and the blessings and the fruit and the mercies of that kingdom.

But we can't be a part of that kingdom without living in repentance. But Jesus didn't stop there. When He went back to heaven, we find that Jesus' last word to the church in the Scripture was not, as some people might guess, the Great Commission. He did give this, "Go into all the world, make disciples." We see that before He went to heaven, He said that to His disciples.

But Jesus' last recorded message in Scripture to His people, what was that message? It was, "Repent." And where do you find that? The last book of the Bible, Revelation, chapters 2 and 3. Remember the letters to the seven churches? In five of those seven letters, Jesus called them to repent. He didn't say to them, "Here's what I, you know, as He's doing this assessment of the churches." He didn't say, "You need to improve your preaching, or you need a stronger worship program, or you need to be more committed to missions, or you need to do more to reach out to your community, or you need to do a better job of reaching young people." He told them, "You need to repent."

Now, these churches had many positive qualities for which He commended them. But He didn't overlook the things for which they needed to repent. And He was specific, different churches in different places. There were different issues, some were doctrinal issues, some were personal purity issues. He told them, "This is what I see going on in your church, and you need to repent." Now, what does it mean to repent?

Many of you know that there's a Greek word that is associated with repentance. It's the word metanoia, meta to change, noia the mind. It's a change of thinking that results in a change of heart and life. It's a change of thinking about ourselves, about our sin, about God. It's such a change that we get to the place where we hate what God hates and we love what God loves.

Which means that in time, we come to hate things we used to love, and we come to love things that we never had much affection for before. It is a change from the inside out. It's an internal change and it's an external change. It affects every part of us. It's an about face. It's a decisive, definite change of direction. A complete reversal of attitudes and values that we once had, turning away from those and turning toward God.

For over 20 years, the people of Romania suffered under the iron-fisted Communist rule of Nicolae Ceausescu. He was one of the most repressive, corrupt dictators of the 20th century. And Christians were especially targeted by this regime and were subjected to intense intimidation and relentless harassment. Evangelical believers in particular were ridiculed, and they were referred to as repenters.

It wasn't a compliment. Oh, those repenters. All different denominations, but evangelical Bible-believing Christians, they were called "the repenters." It was a term of derision. Well, the pastor of one of the largest evangelical churches in the country had prayed for years for revival. And he was convinced that revival must begin among God's people.

And he explained to his people that unbelievers weren't the only ones who needed to repent. At one point, he got before his people in that church, Second Baptist Church of Aradia in Romania, and he said, "It's time for the repenters to repent." It's time for the repenters to repent. And he didn't just leave it there. He didn't just talk in generalities. He was straightforward and specific in calling out sins that he believed were hindering the church in that day from experiencing true revival.

If I were to name for you what some of those sins were, you might say, "Oh, seriously? Those don't seem like that big a deal to us." He said, "These are a big deal." And the repenters, under the conviction of God's Spirit, began to repent. They began to take holiness seriously. They turned from everything they knew to be displeasing to God. And when they did, when the repenters repented, God sent revival.

The revival spread throughout that surrounding area and ultimately throughout the entire country. And there are those who believe that this work of the Spirit in the hearts of God's people was one of the factors that ultimately led to the overthrow of the Ceausescu regime in 1989. I was in Romania before and I was in Romania after the overthrow, the downfall of Communism there.

And I can tell you there was a world of difference. And it was, many would say, the repentance of the repenters that paved the way for God to come and set that nation free from the shackles of Communism. Jesus said to the church of Laodicea in Revelation chapter 3, "Be zealous and repent." Be zealous and repent. Nothing halfhearted about that, is there?

Zealous to, to desire eagerly. We are to repent zealously, to be intentional, to be serious about our repentance. Now, let me tell you, the more seriously you take sin, the more seriously you deal with it in humility, honesty, and repentance, the greater will be the joy of personal revival that you experience on the resurrection side of the cross.

So you say, "This feels so heavy, this seems so narrow, this seems so hard." I know it seems hard. It is hard because sin makes our lives hard. But it's not the repentance that's making your life hard, it's the sin you're holding on to. So the deeper you go into humility, honesty, and repentance, the deeper and the richer and the sweeter will be your experience and your joy of personal revival.

Host (Danna Grash): Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth encouraging you to make repentance a main ingredient in your life. Let me ask you, are you a repenter? Is your heart attitude toward God one of humility? Are you teachable and eager to become more like Christ? Now, even as I'm saying that, I have a hunch the Holy Spirit is working in your heart because He's working in mine. What He's dealing with me about will probably be different than what He's dealing with you about.

Listen to the Holy Spirit. Open the Word. As you do, ask God to show you where change is needed, where you need an extra dose or two of repentance in your heart. He'll be faithful to transform you as you run to Him. Okay. One last ingredient for today. It's a sweet one. Kind of like vanilla or powdered sugar, that delightful finishing touch. Of course, I'm talking about joy. I think you'll find that a revived heart contains a generous amount.

That's what my sweet friend Colleen Chao would tell you. She's been navigating terminal cancer for several years now, and it has not stolen her joy. Colleen is wife to Eddie, mom to Jeremy, and author of *On Our Way Home: Reflections on Heaven in the Face of Death*. I had the privilege of talking with her about the kind of joy that circumstances just can't shake. Let's listen to part of that conversation.

Guest (Colleen Chao): You have some of the most infectious laughter of anyone I've ever known. You have a gorgeous smile and it's not different from the first day I met you a few years ago when you were already in the battle. And here you are still smiling. What would you say to someone who's in a place of suffering and they've lost their smile, they've lost their joy? What, where do they go? What's their first step?

Colleen Chao: Well, actually I write about that in *Fiercely Tender* because there was a season in my life where I, I didn't even notice it, but I'd stopped laughing. I want to say this is about nine, 10 years ago. And life was so heavy. This was even before cancer, but it, it doesn't have to be cancer, right? We all face stuff that can just wear us to the end of ourselves. And at that point, it was just chronic illness for myself, for my son, financial upheaval, loss of job, all the things, a flooded apartment, all these things.

And I had just lost my joy. And so I get it, and I'm not always joyful now. There's lots of grumpiness and ugliness that comes out of me, even last night. And I had to apologize to my husband this morning. I'm like, "Thank you for being patient with me."

Host (Danna Grash): I, I had the same conversation with my husband this morning. And when I sat down for my time with the Lord this morning, I said, "Hello Jesus, it's me, your grumpy daughter."

Colleen Chao: Well, we're good, we're good company this morning. Yes, yes, it's real.

Host (Danna Grash): Okay, so back to your story.

Colleen Chao: Yes. But what I started praying for many years ago was that God would give me joy. And I remember even an older woman who was just so sweet in my life, she said, "How do you want me to pray for you?" And I said, "Pray for joy." This was probably 16 years ago. It was just something the Spirit had put on my heart, right? To pray for, to want, knowing what was going to come.

And I would say to that person who is feeling like a lack of joy, to ask God for what you don't have. He is so happy and willing to give us the things that we don't have. That's where He loves to meet us. And I have this little habit during the night, I pray through ABC scriptures. And the first one is ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be open to you.

And I just, that's not a name it and claim it. That's not health and wealth. That's a, God, this, you say your will is, and fill in the blank with what scripture says, right? That we would trust Him, that we would love Him, that we would love others. The things that He says clearly in His Word that He wants us to live. He says, "Ask for it." And so I've boldly asked for those things.

And then I think of Psalm, I want to say it's 34. I'm going to look it up as I say it, but those who look to Him are radiant. Their faces will never be covered in shame. And I think just that constant looking at Christ, going to Him again and again and again, no matter our condition, no matter where we're at. Yeah, it's Psalm 34:5, "Those who look to Him are radiant with joy. Their faces will never be ashamed."

And that looking is what, we look at God and He is the epitome of joy. He's the most, I want to say it's Psalm 45 that says, "Jesus is the most radiant of all of His companions."

Host (Danna Grash): I'm mindful of how much of what you're talking about is an invitation to honesty.

Colleen Chao: Yes.

Host (Danna Grash): To not fake it through joy, to not say the right words or smile when you don't feel like it.

Colleen Chao: Yep.

Host (Danna Grash): But to go honestly before God and admit, "This is where I am."

Colleen Chao: Yes.

Host (Danna Grash): I, I feel like sometimes as Christian women we don't think we have that permission. We do feel like we have to say when someone says, "How are you?" "Oh, I'm okay," or "I'm fine." We're not fine. We're suffering.

Colleen Chao: Yes, yes. I'm glad you bring that up because I think that's, it's easy to see the fruit of a lot of years of asking God for something and seeing Him give it in abundance, but the raw and real moments. Like, I get joy being around people, so sometimes I communicate an energy that I, that my body really doesn't have because people bring me joy. But if I get with those people and they ask good questions, I can get raw and real and say, "This last week I was, um, I mean a couple weeks ago, I was hiding behind my recliner."

Host (Danna Grash): Oh.

Colleen Chao: "From my husband and son because I was done."

Host (Danna Grash): Oh.

Colleen Chao: "And I had, it was like the most ridiculous thing, I had hurt my finger."

Host (Danna Grash): Your finger?

Colleen Chao: "My finger. And I was just like, it's one more pain, it's one more physical pain, and it just was the straw, right, that broke the camel's back. And I was like, I don't want to hurt in one more way, and I hid behind my recliner like a small, sad child."

Host (Danna Grash): Oh my goodness.

Colleen Chao: "And I wept, and I got angry at God. And so those moments highlight the fact that God can return us to joy."

Host (Danna Grash): Oh.

Colleen Chao: "And it makes the joy more significant and meaningful that we walk through the yucky, awful, ugly moments and we're reminded of what we are apart from Christ."

Host (Danna Grash): Yeah.

Colleen Chao: "You know, without Him, I'm a total train wreck. If I am not in the Word for two days, no one wants to be around me."

Host (Danna Grash): Yeah, same. Okay, yes.

Colleen Chao: "I got it."

Host (Danna Grash): And, and I think too in the suffering and in the stretching, He's trying to get us to be honest with ourselves. Not just with Him. Like, honest with ourselves. This morning I was in Genesis where Jacob wrestles with God, and you know, the man asked, the man who is God or representation of God, the man asks, "What's your name?" Now, He knows.

Colleen Chao: Yep. What is his name?

Host (Danna Grash): And the name Jacob, of course, we understand when we study the scriptures means deceiver. I'm the deceiver. And so He says, "Deceiver." And then the man said, "Your name will no longer be deceiver. But Israel because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome." And so I think God was just trying to say, "Hey Jacob, can we be honest? Like you don't really need to be honest with me, it's yourself you need to be honest with."

Colleen Chao: You're right. Yep.

Host (Danna Grash): "And in my suffering, so many times, I have played the picture-perfect Christian woman."

Colleen Chao: You're right. Yep.

Host (Danna Grash): "And not being picture-perfect doesn't mean that I throw tantrums or I'm unkind or I hurt people. But there are appropriate places where you say to the people closest to you and to the Lord, 'I don't like where I am. Here's how I'm struggling with it. I'm grumpy today. I'm deceptive today. I'm angry today.'"

Colleen Chao: Yep.

Host (Danna Grash): "And in that place, that's where God can say, 'Ah, okay. I just needed you to see the truth.'"

Colleen Chao: Yep.

Host (Danna Grash): "And now I can start to set your heart free. You got to be honest, right?"

Colleen Chao: Yes. You got to be honest. We really do.

Host (Danna Grash): Colleen Chao on navigating painful circumstances with joy. I just loved that conversation with her. I mean, talk about a woman with a revived heart. To hear more from Colleen, visit reviveourhearts.com/weekend and click on today's program. We'd love for you to hear more from her. Now, oh, I do think I smell something delicious. Yeah. I think maybe it's our mocha chocolate chip banana muffins. Ooh, turned out just perfect. Can't wait to dig in.

I think while I'm enjoying these mocha chocolate chip banana muffins, I'll take some time to do an ingredient inventory on my heart. Maybe you need to grab a sweet treat, sit down with your Bible, and do the same. To help you do that, we've created the Refreshed 30 Days of Personal Revival Journaling Set. It contains 30 days of scripture meditation cards and a journal to go along with those, allowing you to slow down, reflect, and do that ingredient inventory with the Lord.

We'll send you the Refreshed Journaling Set when you make a donation of any amount to support Revive Our Hearts. To give and request yours, visit reviveourhearts.com/donate. Next weekend, we're talking some more about transformation. More specifically, we're going to get super practical about how God renews our minds. I hope you'll be back for that. Thanks for listening today. I'm Danna Grash, we'll see you next time for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

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