Revive Our Hearts

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: If I offered you a billion dollars, would you sit up and take notice? Hi, I'm Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. Before we get going on today's Revive Our Hearts, I want to take a moment to beg you to take advantage of an opportunity that is worth way more than a billion dollars. It's spending time in God's Word and in prayer on a daily basis.

In Psalm 119, the author says, "I rejoice in the way revealed by your decrees," that's the Scriptures, the Bible, "as much as in all riches." All riches. Let that sink in. So, no, I don't have a billion dollars to offer you. I have something that's worth even more: daily devotional time with the Lord.

All this year, many have joined us in reading through the Bible over the course of 2026. Here's what Denise had to say after she read Jeremiah chapters 30 and 31. She said, "God's commitment to us is awesome. He makes it known over and over in these chapters. His promises to love and renew are for us too. I love that we can live in the knowledge of His everlasting love."

Gems like that are worth more than a sack of diamonds, and you can be a part of it. In fact, today, September 29th, is the day we're starting in the New Testament. We're reading the opening chapters of the Gospel of Matthew. If you've not already done so, you can sign up to receive daily reminder emails when you go to ReviveOurHearts.com/Bible2026. Again, head to ReviveOurHearts.com/Bible2026 and discover for yourself the treasure of God's Word. Now, here's today's edition of Revive Our Hearts.

Dannah Gresh: Christian parents desire for their kids to make wise choices. According to pastor and author Jeff Keaton, it's ultimately a question of heart transformation. If our children choose a path of righteousness, it will produce a much better life. But if they don't get to Jesus, then we're just playing games.

This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast for September 29th, 2026. I'm Dannah Gresh, and our host is the author of *A Place of Quiet Rest*, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Even though I don't have biological children, my heart is burdened to see the truth of God's Word passed on to future generations. It's a huge responsibility that falls largely on the shoulders of parents. But grandparents and mentors play an important role too.

The Lord designed it this way. In Deuteronomy chapter 4, you remember how Moses told the people, "Be on your guard and diligently watch yourselves so that you don't forget the things your eyes have seen and so that they don't slip from your mind as long as you live." And here's the familiar part. He said, "Teach them to your children and your grandchildren."

He goes on, "Today recognize and keep in mind that the Lord is God in heaven above and on earth below. There is no other. Keep His statutes and commands which I'm giving you today so that you and your children after you may prosper, and so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you for all time." Of course, there are many more passages like that one where God expresses His desire that we obey His Word and teach coming generations to obey.

Obedience flows out of right thinking, and our guest today is here to help us think about our thinking. I'll let him explain. Jeff Keaton is the founder and chairman of a ministry called RenewaNation. Over the years, he's served as a pastor, a church planter, an educator, and an author.

He's passionate about seeing lost people come to know Jesus, encouraging Christians to surrender completely to Christ, and helping children develop a biblical worldview. I first heard about Jeff through a friend, and then I was reminded of his ministry at a Collingsworth Family concert where they mentioned his book, *Saving Our Children in a World Gone Crazy*. Dannah Gresh sat down with Jeff not long ago to talk about this whole idea of helping children develop a biblical worldview. We'll hear part one of their conversation now and then pick it back up on tomorrow's edition of Revive Our Hearts. Here's Dannah speaking with Jeff Keaton.

Dannah Gresh: Jeff, I am so excited about our conversation today because we have, I think, kindred hearts for the next generation. My first question I want to ask you is when you look at the children growing up in our world right now, what are your concerns?

Jeff Keaton: My primary concern is they are absolutely not being taught the truth in every sphere of our culture. I've had a big involvement in education, but far beyond education, you've got pop culture and media and the family. Even Christian families are failing to teach children the truth. So we have the chaos that we see all around us in the lives of children because they're not tethered to anything. My big concern is that we've got to regain access to the hearts and minds of children and pour God's truth into them. That gives them such a hopeful future. So that's my number one concern right now.

Dannah Gresh: That resonates with my heart. I would add to it, not only are they not being fed the truth, but they're in a constant stream of screen lies. They're on TikTok, they're on Snapchat, they're on YouTube where I heard a so-called Christian influencer the other day who literally said, "Jesus told us the way to be saved. It's to feed the poor and to take care of the widows."

I was like, whoa. But unless a child is in the Word, they wouldn't know that yes, feeding the poor and caring for widows is a fruit of salvation, but Jesus said you can do nothing for your own salvation. I'm the way, the truth, and the life. So I would say it's a two-headed problem where they're not getting the truth they need and they are getting constant lies. You have spoken a lot about the fact that what we need to give our children is a worldview. What is a worldview?

Jeff Keaton: Basically, a worldview is a person's core set of beliefs. I like to say every adult already has a fully developed worldview of some kind, and every child is in the process of developing their worldview or their core set of beliefs. I know that you like George Barna. Every time I hear him speak, he says he's concluded after 40 years of research that the worldview or the core set of beliefs a child has at the age of 13 is statistically the worldview or core set of beliefs they will die with.

Worldview is not anything that sounds philosophical, but it's not. It's just a person's core set of beliefs, and that core set of beliefs drives every single decision a person makes. You came into your studio today because of your beliefs that what you are doing is meaningful and that you need to do this.

I have elderly saints come up to me all across America as I'm speaking and say, "Jeff, what in the world is wrong with all these children today? They're crazy, Jeff. They've lost..." I said, "They're not crazy. They've been lied to. They have adopted a false worldview, a false core set of beliefs, and therefore they're doing all these crazy things. To them, it makes perfect sense."

I was speaking in Michigan and a high school senior came up to me and said, "Oh, there's this girl in my school, and she barks all day long. And the school will not stop her because she believes she is a dog." To us, people who I say think normally or based on truth, that's insanity. To this girl, somebody lied to her so much that she thinks barking like a dog all day is normal. So yeah, we're in a mess because of the lies that are being pumped into the hearts and minds of our children.

Dannah Gresh: You're saying that 13 is a really important age. And I would say, isn't it true that a lot of us as parents don't take our children's faith seriously before they're 13? It's like after they're 13 is when we need to start to talk to them about worldview and theology and things like that. What you just said made me think that might be too late.

Jeff Keaton: Oh, it's absolutely too late. I shared the Gospel with my oldest daughter Juliana before she could understand the Gospel. I guarantee it. I started as early as possible and assumed that they were going to pick up more than most people thought they could. When I launched a Christian school many years ago in 2002, at that time as a pastor—I was a pastor for about 20 years—people would come to me in my church and say, "If I can only afford a Christian education for my elementary students or for my child when they're in high school, which one should I pick?"

Early as a pastor, I would say, "Well, high school. Send your kid to a Christian school in high school because there are drugs and everything." But here's what happened. When I launched a Christian school and started getting kids in the eighth and ninth grade from Christian homes who attended my church, they had not received any kind of a Christian education up to eighth or ninth grade. Guess what? By the time I got them, they did not have a well-developed God consciousness.

I was shocked at how hard it was to communicate basic Christian truth to these kids. But when I got these kids in kindergarten and I had them all the way up through, their God consciousness was so huge that it was not hard to communicate God's thoughts to them. So I am 100% convinced that we must teach our children God's truth from the earliest days of their lives in every way possible.

I'm actually a fan—I'm not trying to be dogmatic or cause a fight on here—but I'm a fan of little children sitting in to hear adult preachers and speakers. Recently, I was speaking down at First Baptist Woodstock for the King's Academy. The event was held in the sanctuary there at First Baptist, and I took my seven-year-old grandson with me that day.

I had to speak three times to all the faculty and staff at King's Academy there, and then I had to speak that night to parents. My grandson, who's seven, lives on a 2,000-acre farm, who has his own gas-powered four-wheeler he already paid for it at seven years of age, he earned all the money. He's an incredible little boy. He sat and listened to me speak for three 50-minute speeches to the faculty and staff during the day and a 45-minute speech to parents that night.

We were driving out of Atlanta the next morning, and I told two stories about atheists that I talked to on planes in my speeches that day. My seven-year-old grandson says to me, "Pappaw, can you believe there's all those atheists on planes?" I didn't know the kid was even listening. He was just sitting there. They're observing. He was amazed that people wouldn't believe in God. Now this is my seven-year-old who's listening to a guy talk about worldview for four straight hours the day before. So my point is kids can learn so much more than we think they can learn and so much earlier. So yes, we should pump God's truth into them from the earliest days of their lives.

Dannah Gresh: We have a podcast here at Revive Our Hearts called *True Girl*. We did a season on false teachers and we wanted to teach 7 to 12-year-old girls how to identify when they're hearing something that is not true according to the Word of God. I listened to it with my six-year-old granddaughters because they're a little under-aged for it.

But I thought, I wonder if they're going to get this. They listened to the teaching and I said, "What does that say?" They said, "That some people that say they're Christians are saying things that aren't true in the Bible." And I was like, "Yes! And what do you call them?" They said, "Well, false teachers or wolves." Like, they got it. They're six and they got it.

It's just a matter of us introducing it to them. Now I want to ask, let me play the devil's advocate for just a moment before we dive into why our kids need this worldview. It seems like without context, you are saying that if we just present all the truth to our kids, they're going to live better lives, they're going to behave differently. But I don't think—I know that you don't believe that. I know that this doesn't guarantee, presenting them with a worldview that is thoroughly biblical doesn't guarantee that their behavior is going to honor the Lord or even that they'll surrender their lives to Jesus.

Jeff Keaton: 100%. I actually make that statement in my book. There is no absolute guarantee that if we give our children a biblical worldview they will all choose a path of righteousness. At least that's what I've discovered. However, if we do not give them a biblical worldview, there is a guarantee that they will go astray and break our hearts.

But the bottom line is this. My biggest concern was getting my children to Jesus Christ. They had to be regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit in order to long for Him and to want to know His Word and to be able to fully understand His Word. I don't want to get into any kind of theological debates, but I believe with all of my heart that my girls were both saved somewhere between 8 and 12.

The reason I say that is, first of all, I had a phenomenal lady in our church who had a huge influence in teaching our children in our church along with what Michelle and I were doing. But my girls, people used to say to me, "Oh, you wait until the teen years. I mean, they're going to be terrible." The teen years were not terrible, and my girls are super strong-willed. Did they tell me a couple times they thought I was being ridiculous? Yes. But the bottom line is they had a relationship with the Lord and they loved Him and they wanted to please Him more than they wanted to please their dad. So there's no amount of—I'm not a moralist. I don't want to just get our kids to behave, even though I do know that if our children choose a path of righteousness, it will produce a much better life. But if they don't get to Jesus, then we're just playing games.

Dannah Gresh: It's about that relationship. It's about an authentic relationship with Him. I like to say this as a mom and now a grandma: I like to pray as if it entirely depends on Jesus, because it does. But then I like to teach as if it does depend on me because I want to be responsible with what the Lord's entrusted me to. Let's talk about some of the reasons our kids today need a biblical worldview. What's one?

Jeff Keaton: If we don't teach them God's truth, they're going to live miserable lives. I'm just being honest with you. I'm so convinced that the biblical worldview is the only one that works out well in the real world. So for example, what does God say? One man, one woman come together for a lifetime, raise children. Look at all the research. The healthiest, happiest children on earth are children whose mom and dad stay together for a lifetime.

I've seen research that says even moms and dads who are not following God's good design and they're arguing and fussing in the home a ton, their kids come out healthier than if the parents divorce and they live in peace and quiet with just one parent. So the reason why we must give our children a biblical worldview is if we do not, they're going to have a life of continuous pain, suffering, and sorrow. To violate God's good design and to allow your children to think that's a good way to live their life is to really relegate them to a life of sadness and suffering.

Then, you and I apparently both have grandchildren now. As a parent, if we hadn't led our children to Jesus and taught them His truth, we would have been suffering immensely today as we watch them not train our six grandchildren. So Christianity is true, it's good, and it's beautiful. And their lives can be true, good, and beautiful if they will know the Lord and follow His plan.

Dannah Gresh: Where in the Scriptures could we turn to for a promise that if our children live according to God's Word, there are blessings associated with that?

Jeff Keaton: Well, obviously everybody knows the Scripture, "Train up a child in the way he should go and when they are old they will not depart from it." Some people have tried to say to me, "Well, you know, I trained my kids and look, they don't serve the Lord today and so that didn't work out for me." I don't think it's an absolute guarantee, like you said earlier, that if you train your children, but that promise is very true. If we will train our children, even if they go astray at some point, they will have the seeds of truth sown and born in their soul that will bring them back home.

Dannah Gresh: I feel like as I have watched, I have three children, all at different levels of being sold out to Jesus. I watch as the one who's struggling a little bit, when she goes through a difficulty, she returns to the truth. She returns to prayer. Like, it's planted in there. She's not where I would like her to be right now, but there's evidence that the truth is rooted. And I think that's what you're saying, that the promise is even if you don't see that result that you want right away, it's in there for when he is older he will not depart from it.

Jeff Keaton: I'm just really passionate about, first of all, we don't give up on children if at 18 they're not exactly where they should be with the Lord. I live in Virginia now. When I moved to Virginia, I took a church that had the mentality that kind of said that all of our children are going to sow their wild oats. When they get to 18, they're going to sow their wild oats. Well, I rejected that with everything in my bosom.

And here's what they kind of believed, here's what they would say: "Well, we taught them the truth. And so when they sow their wild oats in their 20s, but when they're late 20s or 30s and they have children they're going to come back to the faith." That kind of used to work when a kid had a biblical worldview but had rejected walking with the Lord. But what happened 20 or 30 years ago, not only did we lose their hearts, but we had lost their minds and so they stopped coming back to the faith. But a child who has had God's truth planted deep in their soul, the chance of them coming home to the faith is very high even if they stray for a while.

Dannah Gresh: And we do see kids straying. We see a lot of that right now, but the evidence is also suggesting that a great number of them come back after even a year. But just because there's a straying and just because there's a sowing of the wild oats, that might be normal, but that doesn't mean it's God's best. And we excuse all kinds of things as normal. Depression and anxiety may be normal, being frenemies or being bullies may be normal, having body image issues may be normal, but God's Word gives us some prescriptions to fight against those things and not just accept them as this is a rite of passage, they're going to go through this. So one reason that we want them to have a Christian biblical worldview is so that they will enjoy their life and live a better life. What are some others?

Jeff Keaton: Well, for one thing, again, we want to pass the Christian faith on to generations to come. Sometimes I tell a story about a man I met on a plane. He was 30 years of age, roughly. We sat down, and before I sat down—when I sat down, he said, "What do you do for a living?" As soon as I told him what I did, he goes, "Oh, you're a man of faith. Well, I'm a man of facts. I'm an agnostic."

That started a very intense—it was a long flight from LA to Washington—started a super intense discussion about worldview. The first thing he said to me was, "You know why I don't like you Christians?" I said, "Why?" He said, "Because you hate homosexuals." That's the first thing he said out of his mouth. I said, "Well, let me just tell you about some homosexuals I've cared for. Yes, I believe it's sin, it's not productive, it destroys people's lives, but I love every human being."

I told him stories about homosexuals I'd cared for and, long story short, about halfway into that talk he stopped me and goes, "I've got to tell you something. My grandmother on the one side is a Southern Baptist woman. And my grandmother on the other side is a Mennonite woman. And my name is Matthew Adam."

When he said that to me, it hit me. 30 years earlier, two little Christian grandmothers were called to a hospital to pick up their beautiful little grandson whose mother perhaps thought so highly of the Scripture she named him Matthew Adam. And I'm on a plane with him 30 years later. He doesn't believe one single thing his parents or grandparents believed. Not one. I mean, he was hard-core against Christianity.

So another reason why we must give them a biblical worldview is we don't want to be one generation away and, like it said about Joshua, he and all his generation served the Lord. But we get down to a generation or two below him and it says they did not know the Lord or the things that the Lord had done for Israel. That shocks me every time I read that each year as I'm reading through the Bible. How could Joshua be so—not too far down from him, they know nothing about the walls of Jericho. They don't know anything about the Lord.

So if we're not super faithful, we can have grandchildren or great-grandchildren that know nothing about the Lord. I've had that as a pastor. Many people walked into my office whose lives were a million miles from God's design and said, "Oh, my grandmother, she loved the Lord." I mean, it was her grandmother. And here I'm talking to their grandkid and they just got out of prison or whatever.

Dannah Gresh: What do you say to the grandmother who—I don't know this guy—but maybe they are still praying for him. Maybe they did plant truth in him. What do you say to the woman who's listening right now who says, "I have a grandson like that. What do I do now right now? I'm praying for him. How do I interact with him? Do I confront him? Do I wait for him to come to me?" What advice do you have for them when they do depart from the faith?

Jeff Keaton: I actually have some serious encouragement because I've thought a lot through this. First of all, I had many elderly grandparents come to me in my office as a pastor and say something like this: "Pastor Jeff, I think I'm the only one that's really praying for my lost grandchildren." Or maybe it was a child, a son or daughter. And they would say, "I'm getting ready to go to heaven. Who's going to pray for my wayward children and grandchildren when I die, pastor?"

I heard that over and over again, and I told them this and it encourages me to think about it. I said, "Listen to me. Every prayer you've ever prayed for a lost or wayward child or grandchild has been deposited eternally in the heart of a God who never dies." So I would say to them long after you're gone, God will still be answering these prayers.

So you love them, you pray for them, don't tell them you're going to cut them out of their will if they don't behave and come to church with you. Don't try to manipulate them to Christ. You can't do it. It won't work. You love them, you pray for them until your dying breath.

And the other thing I used to tell them was speak words to them when you're dying if you can. Because the reason I said that, I was on the other side of this coin many times. I would have somebody in my office or I was in their home or business and I would be leading them to Christ. And as soon as they trusted in Christ to save them, they often would have tears running down their cheeks and they'd say something like this to me, "Oh pastor, I wish my grandmother could be here. The last thing she said to me before she died was, 'Son, please trust Christ for salvation and meet me in heaven someday.'"

I had that experience with 50, 60, 70-year-old people. So what was happening, their mother or father or grandfather, whoever had prayed for them, was gone for 30 years. I got the privilege of harvesting those prayers that God brought those people to salvation many years later. So if you're listening and you have a wayward child or a wayward grandchild, first of all, don't ever be harsh to them.

I have grandparents come up to me and tell me their kids are transgender. I go to church with a man who's got a granddaughter who has taken so many hormones that she has a long red beard now. He just told me this not long ago. I saw the man last night at church. And he says to me, "Jeff..." He's just heartbroken and he struggles not to be mean to this girl.

So I tell them you've got to love her. Jesus is the only one who can save her. You can't save her through manipulation, etc. So if you're out there and you're listening and you've got somebody like this, first of all, just shower them with love and kindness. Don't preach at them every time they come into your world. Just love them with all your heart. And when God allows you to share truth with them, do it. But I don't think harshness and meanness and telling them they're weirdos and you've betrayed your family, I don't think that's going to get them anywhere. Pray, stand on truth. I don't believe you should compromise truth, but pray for them until your dying breath and expect Jesus to move in their life.

Dannah Gresh: My husband and I adopted a girl when she was 14 years old from China. And when she was 16, she made a profession of faith that was very hard prayed for, especially from my other daughter. And many years down the road, that daughter from China said, "I had a grandma that everyone thought was weird because she was a Christian and went to church and she would tell me about Jesus and pray." And she remembered the prayers of that grandma. She died when Autumn was pretty young, but she still remembered those prayers when she was 20 years old. She believed that her salvation at 16 was the fruit of that deposit. I have no doubt.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Such encouraging words for anyone who might be praying for a young person who's wandered far from the Lord. Don't give up. Keep praying. And then parents, grandparents, really anyone who interacts with kids, how can you be more intentional in helping the young ones in your life develop a biblical worldview?

We've been listening to the first part of a helpful conversation my co-host Dannah Gresh had with Jeff Keaton. Jeff wrote a book called *Saving Our Children in a World Gone Crazy*. The subtitle is *Why We Must Give Our Children a Biblical Worldview*. Amen, amen, amen. That's my amen to that title. We must do that. We're including a link to Jeff's book in the transcript of today's program at ReviveOurHearts.com, along with a link to the organization that Jeff leads called RenewaNation. I hope you'll check those out.

Again, you'll find those links embedded within today's transcript at ReviveOurHearts.com. And don't forget our month-long gift-of-any-amount resource. As our thanks to you for your any-size donation to Revive Our Hearts, we'll send you your own copy of the study *Devoted*. When you work your way through this workbook, you'll study the lives of Abraham's wife Sarah; the Shunammite woman who lived during the prophet Elisha's time; Mary, the mother of Jesus; Hannah, the mother of Samuel; Anna, the prophetess in the temple who met baby Jesus; and the woman at the well who had a shameful past but was transformed by her encounter with the Savior. It's a six-week study, so you can do it on your own or with a friend.

To make a donation and request the Bible study featuring those six women, contact us at ReviveOurHearts.com or call us at 1-800-569-5959. Tomorrow we'll hear more from Jeff Keaton. He'll continue talking about the importance of your example in the lives of the children you invest in. I hope you'll join us for that tomorrow on 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.