Revive Our Hearts

Dana Gresh: Are you free to be real? We explored that question with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth last time on Revive Our Hearts, and Nancy took us to John 4, where Jesus addressed a woman sitting at a well. He wanted to give her permanent relief from the heart issues that were destroying her life. But in order to do that, in order to give her the living water, that required getting to the real issues of her heart.

It’s rare for someone to open up about her deep heart issues. It’s far more common to wear a mask and act like everything is okay. This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Lies Women Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free. For May 14th, 2026, I’m Dana Gresh.

What’s one area of your life that you don’t want somebody asking questions about? Here’s the deal. If you want the living water that Jesus wants to give you, that private part of your life is something He’s going to ask you about. Today, Nancy’s continuing to talk about being free to be real. If you missed any of yesterday’s program, you can hear it at ReviveOurHearts.com. Now, let’s join Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth as she continues in John chapter four.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: So this woman’s mask has been removed, and she’s in the process now of discovering who it is that knows all this about her. Verse 19: “The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.’” How else could he know all this? Now, I think she’s nervous at this point, so she tries for a little smoke screen. Let’s talk about something safe. How about theology?

“‘Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You Jews worship what you do not know. We Jews worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers’”—circle that word, the true worshippers—“‘not all worshippers are true worshippers. The true worshippers, the ones who really connect to God, will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.’”

You can’t worship with a mask on. The woman said to him in verse 25: “‘I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.’ He’ll figure out all these theological issues for us.” Then Jesus says to her in this amazing moment of revelation: “‘I who speak to you am he.’” Now the woman knew that term, that name, because in the original Greek here, the word is just: “I who speak to you, I AM.” Have you heard that name before? I AM. Who is the I AM in the Old Testament? Jehovah. Jesus is saying the one who is speaking to you is God. And that’s how I know.

Verse 27: “Just then his disciples came back, and they marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you seek?’ or ‘Why are you talking with her?’ So the woman left her water jar.” I love that little phrase. It’s as if she totally forgot the whole reason she had come to the well in the first place. The water jar, it didn’t even matter at all anymore because she was about to find living water. She left her water jar, she went away into the town, and said to the people, “Come, see a man.”

Now, if I could just inject a little imagination into the text at this point, the people in this town had heard this woman saying this very phrase before. Six times to be exact. But this man is different. “Come, see a man,” and look at how she describes him: “who told me all that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”

If you knew someone who knew all that you had ever done, do you think you would be comfortable introducing him to other people? Do you think you’d say to people, “Come, see this person who knows everything about me. I never met him before, but he knows everything about me.” Don’t you think you might have some fear? But when that person is Jesus, you don’t have to be afraid. You can come into His presence, you can bring others with you, and you can afford to get real. You can be free to be real because though we may be great sinners, and we are, Jesus is a greater Savior. She’s introducing them to the Savior.

Well, her story was compelling. Verse 30 tells us they went out of the town and were coming to him. Verse 39: “Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me all that I ever did.’” By the way, you may think it’s one thing to tell God everything you’ve done because He already knows it, but sometimes we’re afraid to let the walls down with others. Once you’ve taken the roof off in your relationship with God, you can afford to let the walls down.

You can be real with others once you’ve been real with God. That testimony we share with others, even as Stormie shared with us so openly and honestly out of her past about the bitterness and the anger and the hatred. She shared, she let the walls down, and weren’t our hearts touched to believe that Jesus could meet our needs as we heard her talk about how Jesus has met her needs? Her testimony, the testimony of this woman in John 4, is compelling and many believed in Him because the woman did not keep the mask on. She took it off.

Verse 40: “So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.’”

Do you want living water? Do you want the thirst in your soul quenched? You know that the things of the world are not succeeding in doing that. You want the living water? Let me remind us that we cannot receive the blessing and the life that God wants to give us until we are willing to take off the mask and get real with God and with others. To be honest about our need, about our emptiness, about our thirst, about the false wells we’ve been running to meet our needs.

The Scripture says: “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.” Ladies, God’s grace, God’s amazing grace will cover everything we are willing to uncover. So keep the cover on if you want, but remember it’s all coming out in the judgment. Why not bring it out into the light now while there’s grace to cover all that you are willing to uncover? To get real, to transparent honesty. No longer pretending, posturing, protecting our image, wearing a mask, but roof off before God, walls down before others. Honest about who we are, what we’ve done, how we’re really doing. About our pain, our struggles, our issues, our idols, which is a biblical word for addictions. About our past, about our true spiritual condition.

When we’re willing to get real about our sin and our failure, then the grace of God comes flooding into our lives to give us forgiveness. I remember talking with a woman who came to me, the wife of a Christian leader, who came to me one day and said, “I’ve got to get real. I’ve got to get honest. Years ago, early in our marriage, I was unfaithful to my husband. I’ve never come clean with him about that. I’ve deceived him over all these years, and our relationship has stayed stuck because I was afraid to come out into the light.” She said, “God has shown me that I’ve got to take off the mask and get real with my husband.”

Now, that’s some painful stuff. If God is convicting you of something similar, get with a godly or mature woman and say, “Would you help pray me through this? Help walk me through this?” But I want to say, whatever the issue is, whatever the sin, whatever the failure, when you bring it into the light, you’re going to find a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins that will wash white every sin and all the guilt of your past, no matter what. Praise God.

We need to get real not only about our sins and our failures and our past, but get real about our weaknesses, our need. We’re so accustomed to having to prove to everyone else that we’re super moms, super women, super everything. I got a group of close friends together and said, “I need to be real with you. There are areas where I’m struggling, areas where I’m weak, where I’m needy.” The public has no way of knowing this, not because I’m trying to cover up, but they don’t live with me. They don’t live my life. I got with some friends who will help minister grace, the grace of God, help me think through a strategy to walk in the light, to get real, to receive the grace and the strength that God wants to give me. There’s strength in acknowledging our weakness, getting real.

And then this final observation: we can afford to take off the mask and get real in the presence of Christ. Because His grace is what we need. This woman says, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did.” Can you believe that was her selling point to the gospel? “He knows everything about me. I’m free to be real.” That is a great selling point in a world that is hiding and covering and pretending.

The gospel is that Jesus knows it all, but He died for our sin, He died for our failure, He died for our corruption, He died for our immorality, He died for our weakness, He died to set us free so that we would not have to hide, so that we can be in right relationship with Him and with others.

So in just a few moments, I’m going to extend an invitation to take off the mask, to get real, to step into the light, to come just as you are. You may need to get real about a specific area in your life where you desperately need God’s grace, and you need to acknowledge to God or to someone in this room: “I can’t handle this on my own.” Maybe it’s that child for whom no textbook was ever written, and you say, “I cannot mother this child. I need God’s grace.” You don’t have to keep pretending that you’re some great mom. Who’s a great mom? There’s no such thing as a super mom, okay? So let’s just get real with God and with each other. You may need to get real about your true spiritual condition. Not what others have thought about you, but where you really are.

You may need to get real about sin that you have covered. The bitterness, the unforgiveness, the immorality, the abortion. Something seems big, seems small, whatever it is that’s standing between you and the freedom to be real. I’m going to invite you to come into the light. It may be a sinful bondage that you need to confess. Perhaps your need today is to step into the light about the fact that you are not a Christian. You’ve been playing church, pretending, but you need to strip off the mask, get real. You think, “Everybody in my church thinks I’m a Christian. What would they all think if I got real?” They’d think that the grace of God is active and alive in your life when they finally saw you strip off the mask and say, “I need Jesus!”

Some of you profess something that you do not possess when it comes to Christianity. You’re struggling and striving and trying so hard to be a good Christian. It will kill you. You cannot be a good Christian if you don’t have Jesus in you living His life through you. Some of you need to strip off the mask and in just a few moments, come forward to one of our encouragers who will be waiting here and say, “I need a relationship with Jesus. Get real.”

So I’m going to encourage you to take off the mask and then come see a man. Get to Jesus. Beholding Him with unveiled faces, we are transformed into His likeness, into His image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. I read at the beginning of this session those words from that song, “Stained Glass Masquerade.” It said, “Are we happy plastic people under shiny plastic steeples, with walls around our weakness and smiles to hide our pain?” Many of us would have to say, “That’s me. That’s me.”

The song goes on to say, “Would it set me free if I dared to let you see the truth behind the person that you imagine me to be?” Well, if the invitation’s open to every heart that has been broken, maybe then we close the curtain on our stained glass masquerade. Ladies, it’s time to stop playing church and get real. Time to close the curtain on our stained glass masquerade. Let me say, you can’t imagine what the impact will be on a lost, unbelieving world when we stop pretending. When we stop hiding our pain, when we stop defending ourselves and our sins and our pride and our addictions and our broken relationships and our affairs and our divorces and our self-righteous spirits, when we stop defending all that and we come out into the light and receive the grace of God to transform our lives. That’s when the world will stop and notice and believe that there really is a Savior who can transform their lives.

So in just a moment, I’m going to pray and right here in this arena, we’re going to take some time to respond to the Lord. I want to encourage you, whether you’re in Texas or New Hampshire or here in Roanoke or anywhere in between, that you would not run from this session. That you would not run from the all-seeing, all-knowing eyes of the Lord, and that you would not let these moments pass without taking the opportunity to take off the mask and get real. So I’m going to ask you to stay with us. This is a holy time, and what a shame it would be to abort the process of what God is doing as He’s been speaking to many of our hearts as we’ve prayed that He would in this time. So would you join me in prayer? Let’s bow our hearts before the Lord.

Oh Lord, I thank You that You are the one who has eyes like a flame of fire. You see. You know. You see into my heart. You know things about me that no one else in this room knows. Oh Lord, I thank You for the freedom that I have found and am finding as I am willing to take off the mask and be real before You and before others. Lord, I believe there are many, many, many women in this place and in sites around us and around the country today who have been playing that stained glass masquerade. Today, they need to step into the light, take off the mask, and get real before You and perhaps before others as well. I thank You, Lord, that we don’t need to fear coming into Your presence unless we’re still trying to hide. So I pray that in these next few moments, You would make this a sanctuary, make it a holy place. Have Your way, O Lord, in every heart. I pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

First time I shared this message years ago, after the session on Friday night where I shared about the woman at the well, a woman came to me on Saturday morning. I’m going to ask if you all can stop for just a moment because I want to play something for us here. A woman came up the next morning and she said, “I wrote a song last night after you spoke.” And I had the nerve, never having heard this woman, never having met her before, to ask her in that Saturday morning session if she would come up on the platform and sing the song she had written about this woman at the well. As God is speaking to our hearts and preparing us for this moment of invitation, I want us to take a couple minutes just to listen to June sing her response to the story we’ve just read.

June Murphy: (Singing)

For most of my life, I felt like a woman, a woman of ill repute.

For the things that I’ve done and what was done to me, I felt I was of no use.

Like the woman at the well who spoke to Jesus alone looking for a drink,

I’d been looking for love in all the wrong places, helpless, needy, and weak.

But now that I know Jesus, to the world I will proclaim

These words of invitation. I will forever lift up His name.

And I will sing,

Come see a man who knows all about me, who knows what I’ve done and the love that I need.

Come see a man who won’t leave or forsake me, who died on a cross to set me free.

I know a man who knows all about me, who knows what I’ve done and the love that I need.

I know a man who won’t leave or forsake me, who died on a cross to set me free.

I know a man who gives life eternal, who’s the bread of life, living water for your thirst.

I know a man who gives new beginnings, who gives second chances, who gives new birth.

His name is Jesus. His name is Jesus.

Then we can sing it together, together as a body of one.

We can tell the world about Jesus, Jesus Christ, God’s arisen Son.

And we all can sing,

Come see a man who won’t leave or forsake me, who died on a cross to set me free.

Come see a man who gives life eternal, who’s the bread of life, living water for your thirst.

Come see a man who gives new beginnings, who gives second chances, who gives new birth.

His name is Jesus. His name is Jesus.

His name is Jesus. His name is Jesus.

Dana Gresh: That’s June Murphy. She wrote that song after hearing Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth teach on John chapter four, the story of the woman at the well. I love those lines: “Come see a man who gives new beginnings, who gives second chances, who gives new birth. His name is Jesus.” So hopeful. More than anything, women need to know there’s hope for them in Jesus, no matter their circumstances and no matter their age. You’re actually going to love this story Nancy shared during one of our recent recording sessions. She was able to encourage a mom walking through a painful season all because her 10-year-old daughter made a donation to Revive Our Hearts. Listen to this.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Her 10-year-old read our letter we sent out offering the book about praying for prodigals. She opened that letter, read it, and without consulting with her mom, sent us a letter which went to our correspondence department and then went to Helen Jones for prayer, saying, “I would like to have that book. We’re praying for a prodigal, my mother and three younger siblings and I, and it’s our dad.”

She enclosed 25 dollars. She said, “I don’t have a check. I think that’s how you’re supposed to pay for these things.” But 25 dollars because she wanted this book. Robert and I got on the phone and, I mean, it was a precious letter, but we got on the phone and called and talked to the mom and her daughter. Her mom was crying because she had been for 10 hours that day in a mediation meeting trying to get custody of the children as the husband is divorcing her.

Just fighting with lawyers and the whole thing. I mean, it had just been a very traumatic day for her. She did not know her daughter had sent us this letter or the money, but her daughter has such a sweet heart. But to see this mom living in the dark, troubled waters of a man who has forsaken the Lord, and to see God extending grace to her. She has been listening to Revive Our Hearts for years and told me, she said, “You don’t know how many times, again and again, I’ve been brought to tears hearing on Revive Our Hearts exactly what I needed to hear at that moment.”

It’s been a hard number of years for her. Dana and I have been putting our heads together, finding some ways to minister to this family. They’re moving to live with her parents in Kansas in the next week or two, and she’ll have waiting for her when she gets there a True Girl box. God’s got plans for this little girl’s life that are not going to be undone by what Satan intended for evil. That’s what we pray and hope for.

Dana Gresh: Amen. What a privilege to love on that sweet family. We exist for the hurting mom fighting a custody battle she never imagined. The little girl needing hope for her family’s future. The woman pleading with the Lord for a restored marriage. The message of freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ is for her, but we can’t reach her without you.

During the month of May, we close the books on one ministry year and prepare for another. At this time, we’re navigating a financial shortfall. In order to reach more women hungry for hope, we’re asking God to provide 1.4 million dollars by the end of the month. This is the biggest amount we’ve ever prayed for, but we know it’s possible with the Lord.

If you regularly enjoy Revive Our Hearts but you’ve never given before, now is the time. Maybe like this sweet little girl, you’d like to send 25 dollars, or maybe God’s laying a different amount on your heart. Whatever the case, we’re so grateful and every dollar matters. To express our thanks for your gift, we’d love to send you Called to Thrive, a new booklet by Nancy that displays the heart of this ministry. You’ll enjoy nine short devos complete with reflection questions and space to process through journaling.

To give and request Called to Thrive, visit ReviveOurHearts.com or call us at 1-800-569-5959. Now, if you’re in the US or Canada, we’ll send you a physical copy, and if you’re not, don’t worry, we’ve got a digital download just for you. We’re so excited to see what the Lord will do with these donations this month, and every dollar goes toward helping another woman learn she is called to thrive in Christ. Do you ever feel like we’re living in the time of the Judges, like everyone is doing what’s right in their own eyes? Tomorrow, Nancy will help give us some perspective. 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.