Revive Our Hearts

Dana Grash: It's important to affirm truth with your mind, but that's not where truth ends. Here's Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Truth always makes a difference in our lives. It's not just something to be stored in a file cabinet or stored in a notebook or stored in our heads. It's something that is to penetrate the core of who we are and to impact and change the way that we live.

Dana Grash: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Adorned: Living Out the Beauty of the Gospel Together. For July 1st, 2026, I'm Dana Grash.

Well, it's a new month. All through July here at Revive Our Hearts, we're focusing on what we call true womanhood. We've got a brand new resource that we'll announce at the end of this episode. It's truly incredible, so stick around for that.

But before we get started, I have some really exciting news. As of today, July 1st, True Woman 27 registration is open. Yep, we'll be gathering in Indianapolis September 30th through October 2nd of 2027 for a really special weekend. We're going to be soaking in Scripture and celebrating 20 years of the True Woman movement together. You can visit reviveourhearts.com right now to claim your ticket and enjoy early bird pricing.

Today Nancy is going to show us how to weave biblical truth into the very fabric of our lives as women, and she's going to use a special document to do that. It's called the True Woman Manifesto. Now, when Nancy recorded what you're about to hear, we'd spent several months talking about this important document on the podcast. So you'll hear her refer to past series where she walked us through the biblical foundations of the manifesto along with the affirmation section.

If you haven't listened to these series, don't worry, you can find them at reviveourhearts.com in our archives. We'll also link to them in the transcript of today's episode to make it super easy for you to find them. That way you can soak up all the True Woman manifesto content your heart desires.

Today we're going to jump right into the declaration section of the document, which is so foundational to our theme this month. Here's Nancy, talking about the True Woman manifesto.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Today we're picking up with another section of the manifesto. Well, let me just orient you to say that this is a document that encapsulates and summarizes some of the key aspects of the kind of women we're asking God to raise up in this country and around the world. Women that we're calling true women.

Women who will read this document, who will say, "I embrace this message," who will sign it. But more important than signing it is women who will say, "I want to live this message." And then women who say, "I want to share this message with others." I know some of you are homeschooling, you're training your daughters, some of you are leading Bible study groups, you're in discipling relationships. This is some material that you can use to disciple other women in how to be true women of God.

So go to our website if you're not familiar with this document, you can pull it up there in a PDF form, you can print it out. We have brochures available, you can get a packet of these brochures so you can share them with others in your church. And I want to just encourage you to be getting familiar with this document.

Now, this is not the Bible. These are principles that are drawn from the Bible. So it's not an inspired document, it's just a summary of the message we're trying to get into the hearts of women.

Now, I want to take just a few moments at the beginning today to review the affirmations that we've been studying over the past several months because they provide the foundation for where we're going to pick up in the manifesto today. So there are 13 of those affirmations, and let me just read them to you as a review of where we have been thus far in this document.

We started by saying that Scripture is God's authoritative means of instructing us in His ways, and it reveals His holy pattern for our womanhood, our character, our priorities, and our various roles, responsibilities, and relationships. So the foundation of God's Word. We affirmed that about Scripture.

And then we affirmed that we glorify God and experience His blessing when we accept and joyfully embrace His created design, function, and order for our lives.

And then we affirmed that as redeemed sinners, we cannot live out the beauty of biblical womanhood apart from the sanctifying work of the Gospel and the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. This is something we cannot live. We need the power of Christ to do it.

And then we saw that men and women are both created in the image of God and are equal in value and dignity, but they have distinct roles and functions in the home and in the church. And we took an entire program, at least one, or sometimes two, on each of these affirmations. Again, you can go back and review those if you haven't been with us.

The fifth affirmation was that we are called as women to affirm and encourage men as they seek to express godly masculinity, and to honor and support God-ordained male leadership in the home and in the church.

And then we saw number six, that marriage, as created by God, is a sacred, binding, lifelong covenant between one man and one woman.

The seventh affirmation was, when we respond humbly to male leadership in our homes and churches, we demonstrate a noble submission to authority that reflects Christ's submission to God His Father.

And then we looked at this whole issue of personal rights. And we said that selfish insistence on personal rights is contrary to the spirit of Christ, who humbled Himself, took on the form of a servant, and laid down His life for us.

And then we took a couple days and looked at the whole issue of human life, the sanctity of human life. We said that human life is precious to God, and it's to be valued and protected from the point of conception until rightful death.

And then we looked at this whole issue of children, and we affirmed that children are a blessing from God, and that women are uniquely designed to be bearers and nurturers of life, whether it be their own biological or adopted children, or other children in their sphere of influence.

And then affirmation number 11. God's plan for gender is wider than marriage. Sometimes I think you listen to Revive Our Hearts and if we're on topics that relate to marriage, you can think, "Well, if I'm a single woman, what does this have to do with me?" It has everything to do with all of us, married or single, because we are all to model femininity in our various relationships by exhibiting a distinctive modesty, responsiveness, and gentleness of spirit.

And then we looked at an affirmation in relation to suffering. Not something that we all want to go find a book on, you know, "Tell me all about suffering," but the fact is, it's a broken world. And we saw that suffering is an inevitable reality in a fallen world. And that at times we will be called to suffer for doing what is good, looking to heavenly reward rather than earthly comfort, for the sake of the Gospel and the advancement of Christ's kingdom.

And then the final affirmation. We saw that mature Christian women have a responsibility to leave a legacy of faith by discipling younger women in the Word and in the ways of God and modeling for the next generation lives of fruitful femininity.

So those are the affirmations. I just read them in two or three minutes, but we've spent months looking at these affirmations, fleshing them out, explaining what they mean from a biblical standpoint.

Now, in light of what we have affirmed to be true, in light of all these things that we've said we believe, the question is, so what? So we believe those things. What difference does it make?

Well, the next statement in the manifesto is a bridge between these 13 affirmations and the final section of the manifesto, which is a section called "We Will." We affirm that these things are true, therefore, we will. And it's a making of a commitment to God that this is our intent to live in a certain way based on what we have said, we believe to be true.

So we have this bridge statement. I want to read it to you and then I want to unpack it for our session today. "Believing the above," the manifesto says, believing all these affirmations, "we declare our desire and intent to be true women of God. We consecrate ourselves to fulfill His calling and purposes for our lives. By His grace and in humble dependence on His power, we will..." And then there follow 15 statements that express the implications of all these things we've just affirmed.

Now, in the next program, we'll start looking at those 15 statements, these "we will" statements. But first, I want to take time just to focus on this transition statement. "Believing the above, we declare our desire and intent to be true women of God. We consecrate ourselves to fulfill His calling and purposes for our lives by His grace and in humble dependence on His power, we will."

Let's just take that apart because I think just even as a transition statement it has some insights for what it means for us to be part of this True Woman movement that we're believing God for in our generation. The statement starts by saying, "Believing the above," all these affirmations, all those things I just read.

Now, I read through them pretty quickly, but the question for our hearts is, do you believe what we just affirmed? These things we've been talking about all these months, do you really believe these things? See, this is not just supposed to be a written document. This is supposed to be a document of truths that we really believe, and therefore we will live them out in our lives.

And I find that I need to be reminded often of these basic, fundamental truths. Some of them are like, you know, Christianity 101, biblical womanhood 101. And if you've been walking with the Lord for an extended period of time, you may say, "This is so basic." But don't you find, as I do, that it's easy to slip away from the basics? And we need to be reminded.

This is God's Word. It is foundational for my life. It is fundamental for all of life, the Word of God. What it means to be a woman of God. It's helpful to go back and review these basic affirmations, which is why we've tried to collect them, to combine them in this one simple, short document. It's a creed. It's not a replacement for God's Word. It's just a summary of some key points in God's Word, basic principles, first things, that we need to go back and say, "Yes, I do believe that this is true."

Now, the problem for many of us is that there's such a disconnect between what we say we believe and the way we live. But the truth is that belief always affects action. The way we live reveals what we really believe. We can say we believe these things, but if the way we're living is contrary to what we say we believe, then we've given away what we really believe. What we really believe is seen in the way that we live.

And if we really believe all those things, those affirmations we just listed, then that will affect the way that we live. Truth always makes a difference in our lives. It's not just something to be stored in a file cabinet or stored in a notebook or stored in our heads. It's something that is to penetrate the core of who we are and to impact and change the way that we live.

So, believing the above, and there again, I'd ask the question, "Do you?" Go back and say, "Do I really believe these things?" And if you're not sure, if some of these things you say, "I don't know if I believe that," then let me encourage you to go back to the archives of Revive Our Hearts, pull up the sessions on these different points, and listen to the teaching from God's Word and evaluate it through the grid of God's Word. Don't say you believe it just because it's written on this document. Believe it because it's something that is drawn out of the Word of God, and it reflects His heart and His truth.

"Believing the above," the manifesto says, "we declare." Now let me just stop there. We. It's a neat thing to know as you're pursuing true womanhood that you're not alone.

Now, I think sometimes we can start to feel like we're alone because you look around and the world does not embrace true womanhood. It is not the going thing. It is not If you're going to go with the flow, you're not going to be a true woman. And if you're going to be a true woman, you're going to be going counter to the flow. You're going to be swimming upstream most of the time. And that can get exhausting.

I mean, even within the church, do you sometimes find that so many women really don't care or know about what it means to be a true woman of God? And so it's encouraging to know that you're not alone. Look, 60 some women in this room, you're here today listening to these programs because and have come from many different states, Indiana, Illinois, Texas, New York, different places, because you want to be a true woman of God.

And as we went around and introduced ourselves a little while ago, did you find that your heart resonated with some of the other women who shared? Aren't you glad there's a "we" involved in pursuing Christ in this True Woman movement? That you are not alone in this pursuit. You may feel at times as if you're alone, but you really aren't. And that's why I love getting the emails and the letters from women all across this country and in other parts of the world who say, "I want to be a part of this True Woman movement. I do believe these things, and I want to declare them."

There are others who affirm these things along with you, and there's an impact that comes in our culture as together, corporately, we reflect the Gospel and the beauty of Christ as women. That's what is going to be impacting about this movement is one person here and another person here and another person here. One woman in your family, one woman in your church, one woman in your community. But as we come together and collectively say, "Yes, we declare these things to be true, and we so believe these things that we are going to live them out by God's grace." That is how true women are going to have an impact in homes, in churches, in communities all across this country and around the world.

So the manifesto says, "Believing the above, we declare." Now, I think that word "declare" is important. It's important that we publicly declare what we believe. That we not just affirm it in our heads, but we say, "You know what? I'm going on record. I'm drawing a line in the sand. This is what I believe, even if the whole rest of the world believes something different. I'm going to take my stand on what God's Word says is the truth."

And when we declare these affirmations, we're really expressing faith. And we're saying, "I'm committing myself to this way of thinking and living." And by the way, when you do that, you're going to find you're a little more accountable. I find that because of so many of the things I have said publicly about what it means to be a true woman of God, when I'm acting like a shrew, there are people around me who will love me enough to get in my face, get in my life and say, "I don't know if you realize how harsh you're being, how unkind with your tongue, how dogmatic, opinionated, you're not living like a true woman of God."

See, I don't want somebody telling me that. Well, I don't either, but I need it. And you need it. We need it. And that's why it helps to declare, "This is what we believe," so that we can be held accountable for that. One way of declaring that is to go online at reviveourhearts.com, pull up the True Woman Manifesto, and be one of thousands of women from around the world, 90 some countries now, who have signed this document and said, "I want to be a part of this movement."

But you need to do more than sign the document, because after all, it is just a document. What is even more important is that you declare these truths to others. That you share them within your sphere of influence and multiply the impact of this message.

Now, "Believing the above, we declare our desire and our intent to be true women of God." We desire to be true women of God. Is that what you desire? I think you do. I think that's why you're here. Now, we don't always fulfill that, but that is our heart's desire.

And an evidence of true salvation is a desire to live out your true womanhood, or manhood, if there are any men listening. It's to live out who God made us to be, who He fashioned and created us to be. And yet, do you sometimes find that you're lacking in desire?

Some days, you know, if the truth were known, some days you want to just say, "Being a true woman is really hard. I'm not even sure I want to do that right now." You know, this is I don't want to hold my tongue. I want to just speak my mind. That's why we need to cultivate desire and to ask God to keep giving us fresh desire to be true women of God.

We declare our desire to be true women of God, but we also declare our intent to be true women of God. It's not enough to desire it and to want it. We have to be intentional, or it's not going to happen. Becoming a true woman of God does not happen by osmosis. You know, don't you wish you could just put this manifesto or your Bible under your pillow at night and you wake up in the morning and voilà, you are a spiritually mature, godly woman, right? It does not happen that way. You have to be intentional.

And as we say that, we're recognizing we're not there. I'm not there. You're not there. But we have set our eyes on the goal, and by God's grace, by the time we see Jesus, we will be there. We're saying, "I have arrived," and I've heard women say or heard of women saying, "I could never sign this manifesto. I couldn't sign this document. You have to be perfect to sign this." No, this document is not for perfect people because there is no such thing. This document is for failures. It's for people like me who say, "I'm not a true woman, but by God's grace, I want to be." That's my intent, that's my desire. I want to be a true woman of God.

Now, let me just remind us that true women are not some special, elite, superior, exclusive class of women. Every Christian woman should aspire to be a true woman of God. What's a true woman? True. It's authentic, genuine, the real thing. It's the kind of woman that what we say we believe lines up with our practice. That there's no gap between what we claim to believe and the way we actually live.

A true woman is one whose life is in accord with the unchanging truth of God's Word. Her life is based on Christ who is the truth. A true woman is a woman whose life is not driven by changing whims and norms of culture. Her choices are not determined based on what is popular or will gain acceptance from friends or others. She's a woman who has staked her life on the Word of God, the truth of God's Word. That's a true woman.

So believing the above, we declare our desire and our intent to be true women of God. And we consecrate ourselves to fulfill His calling and His purposes in our lives. A word "consecrate." It's a word you don't hear so often today, but it's a great word. It means to set apart or to dedicate to the service of God or to the service of some overarching purpose, to set apart our lives.

And when we consecrate ourselves, we're saying, "In light of all that we have affirmed and that we believe to be true, we have set ourselves apart for God." And for His kingdom purposes, for His agenda. It's not about us. It's not about our purposes. It's all about Him. So we ask ourselves, "Why was I created?" By God's grace, whatever the answer is to that question, that's the purpose I want to fulfill.

And then we come to the last part of this transition sentence. "By God's grace and in humble dependence on His power, we will." And in the next session, we'll start looking at those "we will" statements. But I want to just remind us that you cannot do this on your own. You cannot be a true woman on your own. I cannot be a true woman on my own.

If you try apart from the grace of God and dependence on His power, you will either fail miserably and live in constant guilt, or maybe worse, you will succeed outwardly and become proud and self-righteous inwardly. And either way, we're going to do a lot of damage to the people around us. Do a lot of damage to our own souls. All of this, living out true womanhood, is by the grace of God.

He's the one who gives the desire and the power to obey Him. As Philippians 2 tells us, "For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." He gives the desire and the ability to please Him.

And so we live out this, these commitments, in humble dependence on the power of God. We naturally resist being dependent. We don't want to be weak or needy. We innately value being independent, strong, self-sufficient. But God uses our failure, our brokenness, our neediness, our weakness to teach us greater dependence on Him. It's the humble heart that God revives. It's humility that causes God to pour His grace into our lives.

And so, "By His grace and in humble dependence on His power, we will." And those are two important words. In my church several weeks ago, we had a a special baby dedication. And the parents were asked to affirm several statements that the pastor read by saying, "We will. We will teach our children the ways of God. We will bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."

And in that same service, there was a welcoming of new members into the church. And those new members were asked to say, "We will" to certain statements. "We will contribute our gifts and be involved in the life of this church." These "we will" statements were a public declaration of the intent that God had put in the hearts of those parents and those new members.

And so as we say, "we will" in this document to these statements in the manifesto, we're saying, "It's not enough to have the desire and the intent to be a true woman of God. We need to say, 'We will, by God's grace, live this out.'"

Isaiah chapter 1 tells us, "If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land. But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken." We want to be women who say, "We will," and then go out and do it. Go out and live what we have said we believe.

Let me just read to you a statement that a woman sent to us. She said, "I've been a pastor's wife for 31 years. For over 14 years, I have been living the life of a hypocrite." What she was saying she affirmed wasn't matching up to the way she actually was living. She said, "I have completely shut down spiritually. I've been angry and bitter with God. I don't pray, read my Bible, or share Christ with others. I lift my hands and sing songs of worship in church, but with a cold, dry heart."

Now that's where God found her when she came to the True Woman conference in Chattanooga. But here's what God did in her heart. She said, "Truly, truly, I repent. I repent. I'm not going to keep living that way. By God's grace and in dependence on the power of His Spirit, I will begin to live in accord with what I say I believe." She said, "Thank God for forgiveness and grace."

And don't you agree with that? Thank God for forgiveness and grace. And Lord, I do thank you for mercy, for grace to repent. And I pray that you'd give us hearts of repenters. That we would be not only affirming these truths, but by Your grace saying, "I declare my desire and intent to live out this True Woman lifestyle. And by Your grace, in dependence on the power of Your Holy Spirit, I will be Your true woman."

Thank you, Lord, for Your grace that will enable to live out to be true in our lives. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Dana Grash: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has been inviting you to not only know the truth, but to live the truth. And everything she shared today is based on the True Woman Manifesto. You can find that document and sign it at reviveourhearts.com. We'll link to it in the transcript of this program.

And speaking of True Woman, don't forget that registration for next year's True Woman conference is now open. Go ahead and sign up and save the dates on your calendar. You know, we are just so passionate about the true womanhood message because it's something our world has largely lost sight of. In fact, many people go silent if someone asks them, "What is a woman?" They're afraid to answer.

But you know what? God is not afraid. His Word is clear about what true womanhood is. And here at Revive Our Hearts, we've made it our mission to pass that message on to you. And that is why I'm so excited about our newest resource, "What Is a Woman?", the question our world is afraid to answer. It's authored by our dear friend Mary Kassian.

Now, Mary has been an advocate for the True Woman movement from its beginnings in 2008. And I can't imagine anyone better to equip us to live it out. Along with the book, she's recorded teaching for us to walk through together, and we'll listen to that this month as well. You can get a copy of "What Is a Woman?" when you make a donation of any amount in July. To give and request yours, visit reviveourhearts.com or call us at 1-800-569-5959. I can't wait to answer this life-changing question together.

Tomorrow we'll continue to explore the True Woman Manifesto with Nancy. She's going to share about the foundation of the True Woman movement. A little hint, it has to do with a four-letter word that begins with L. If you guess love, you might be onto something. 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.