Revive Our Hearts

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth acknowledges that it's not always easy to say, "Yes, Lord." Are there things about the Christian life that I find hard or challenging or distasteful at times? Of course. My flesh often goes contrary to the will of God. Well, I'll tell you what, ladies, when it comes down to it, I love my Master.

Guest (Female): This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Adorned. It's July 3rd, 2026. I'm Danna Grash.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: We've been looking at the True Woman Manifesto, and we've been saying that we declare our desire and intent to be true women of God. By His grace and in humble dependence on His power, we will. And then we're looking at 15 statements that express how we will live in accordance with what we've said we affirm. And we're talking today about the second "we will" statement: We will gladly yield control of our lives to Christ as Lord.

We will say, "Yes, Lord," to the Word and the will of God. What a contrary message to what we just heard. You don't own me. Don't tell me what to do. We're saying, "We are glad to be owned by Christ, and we will say, 'Yes, Lord,' to Him."

I was working on this, uh, program when I had some guests in my home, and the, the mom, who has a number of little children, said to her little girl, her five-year-old little girl, "Don't do that." And then she saw that her little girl wasn't paying attention, and the mom said, "Yes, Mom." Now, what she meant when she said, "Yes, Mom," was, "Tell me that you heard what I said. Acknowledge that you heard it and that you're agreeing to it and that you agree that if you don't agree, there will be consequences." That's all in, "Yes, Mom."

Well, I thought about that because I was working on this session about saying, "Yes, Lord." "Yes, Lord. We agree. We heard what You said. We're acknowledging that You said it, and we're agreeing to live by it." This "we will" statement says, "We will gladly yield control of our lives."

When we talk about submission to Christ as Lord, surrender to Him, we're not talking about something that's coerced. We're not talking about grudgingly letting Him be the Lord of our lives. We're saying it is a privilege. It is a blessing to live under His control.

For many reasons, but not the least of which is that like sheep, we are stupid. We need leadership. We need oversight. We're not wise enough to run our own lives.

Now this "we will" statement, "We will gladly yield control of our lives to Christ as Lord," flows out of the one we talked about the last time, which is love for God. We will seek to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. You cannot separate submission to God from love for God. That's why we started with love for God because when you love Him with all your heart, then it will not be a burden.

It will not be a threat to bring your life under His Lordship. There's a great picture of that in Exodus chapter 21. Beginning in verse two, and this is back in the Old Testament law. It's just a picture of what we're talking about. The passage says in verse two, "When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years. And in the seventh, he shall go out free for nothing."

Then verse five, "But if the slave plainly says, 'I love my master. I will not go out free.' Then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through with an an awl, and he shall be his slave forever." A bond slave.

Here's a servant who says, "After six years, I am free to go, but I love my master. He has provided for me. He has met my needs. He's a good master, and I want to stay in His service forever." And he became a bond slave. We are called to be bond slaves of Jesus Christ.

"Yes, Lord. What is Your pleasure? What is Your will? What do you want me to do with my life? You are in control." But we give Him that control. We yield that control to Him as Lord with hearts that realize that He has loved us. He has provided for us. He has met our needs, and our surrender to Him is a response of love. I love my Master.

Are there things about the Christian life that I find hard or challenging or distasteful at times? Of course. Are there things that God asked me to do that I'd rather not do? Of course. My flesh often goes contrary to the will of God. But I'll tell you what, ladies, when it comes down to it, I love my Master.

And I know that if He gives me direction, He knows it's for my good. It's for my best interest. I trust Him. I trust His heart, and I have said to my Master, going back to when I was a little girl, by the time I was five or six years old, there was this conscious awareness that He is Lord. He is my Lord, and I had said to Him, "I want to be Your bond slave for the rest of my life."

Now, have there been moments when I would like to have taken that back for a little bit? Of course. But God always keeps bringing me back to this point, "I love my Master, and I want to be His bond slave. I will gladly yield control to Him." The basis for this, "Yes, Lord" mindset, this surrendered way of thinking, is that we trust God. We believe that He is God, that His Word is true, that His ways are good, that His will is best. And that really is the heart of the matter when it comes to surrender to Christ as Lord. Do you trust Him?

Do you believe that He loves you? Do you believe that He has your best interest at heart? That He would never do anything but what is best for you? And that's why it's so important that we get to know who God is. You can't trust someone that you don't know.

And if your view of God is skewed or distorted or wrong, you don't realize how wise He is, how loving He is, how trustworthy He is, then you're going to always be wondering, "Why would I trust Him enough to yield control to Him?" And let me say, by the way, to you younger women, I'm so glad to see some younger girls with us today. I can remember being at your season of life and in the journey, as I still am, of getting to know God. But there's so much more I know about Him today than I did back then.

And it took faith to say, "Lord, what I know of You, I trust, and what I know of You, I will submit myself to." But I'm so thankful I've been in a journey of getting to know Him better because the better I know Him, the more I realize He really is worthy of my trust and my wholehearted surrender. There's such a battle for control that goes on in our hearts, isn't there? We will gladly yield control of our lives. Even that wording suggests that it's not always easy, that sometimes our will conflicts with His will.

But as you read the Scripture, you see that the wind, the waves, nature, demons obey His Word. How can we resist Him? Every part, every area of my life is to be under the control of His spirit. Is there any area of your life where you haven't yielded control? Where you are reserving the right to make the final decision. Any area of your life? We will yield control to Christ as Lord.

That, by the way, is the number one cutting-edge commitment. We have 12 of them in our ministry. We call them cutting-edge commitments, and the number one cutting-edge commitment of this ministry is the Lordship of Christ and the authority of Scripture. And here's how it reads: "Our lives and ministry must be built on a non-negotiable, lifetime commitment to the Lordship of Christ and the authority of Scripture. His Word must determine our philosophy, direct our decision-making, and reign supreme over every area of our lives."

That's just a way of stating what this statement is in the True Woman Manifesto. We will gladly yield control of our lives to Christ as Lord. Now, we need to remind ourselves that He is Lord. We're not making Him Lord. He is Lord. "All authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given to Me," Jesus said in Matthew chapter 28.

And in his message on the Day of Pentecost, Peter said, "Let all Israel be assured of this. God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ." Now, if Jesus is Lord, and He is, the implication of that is that He deserves our absolute, unquestioning obedience. We have to do what He says to do.

And Jesus asked in Luke chapter six, "Why do you call Me Lord, Lord, but you don't do what I tell you?" You see, it doesn't do any good to say, "Yes, Lord," as we encourage women to say in this ministry and at our True Woman conferences. We say, "Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord." But it doesn't do any good to say those words if in your heart you're not yielding control to Him as Lord.

And, by the way, the great model of this is the obedience of Christ to the will of His Father. He gladly yielded control. He submitted to the will of His Father. Psalm chapter 40, repeated in the Book of Hebrews: "Then I said, 'Behold, I have come in the scroll of the book. It is written of me. I delight to do Your will, O my God. Your law is within my heart.'"

Jesus said, "God, I love You, and I delight to do Your will. Your law is within my heart. I have a heart for Your law." That's the example we have in Christ. And as He lives in us and fills us, He will put His law within our hearts, and He will give to us not just a grudging obedience to God's law and to God's ways, but a delight to do the will of God.

And I should point out that this heart to yield control to Christ as Lord is an evidence of true salvation. If you're not saying, "Yes, Lord," with your lips and with your life, you have no basis to have assurance that you are a child of God.

Dr. Bill Bright, who's now with the Lord, was the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ. He's a dear friend of our family for many years, and I came across this illustration in something he wrote a number of years ago. He said, "One day I was talking to a young man who was somewhat of a prodigal. I said to him, 'Do you believe in Jesus?'" "Yes." "Do you believe He died for your sins?" "Yes."

He'd grown up in the church and even gone to Christian schools, but he had turned his back on the Lord. I replied, "What is going to happen to you when you die?" He said, "I'll go to Heaven." I said, "Are you sure?" "Absolutely sure." And I said, this is Dr. Bright speaking, "Are you willing to do God's will and surrender your own will to His will?" Quite bluntly he answered, "No."

I had to be totally honest with him and replied, "Then you are not a Christian." He said, "That's your opinion against mine." I said, "No, that's what God's Word says." I explained to him that if anyone is not willing to do God's will, he had better take inventory because the Scripture clearly teaches," and here he quoted First John chapter two, verses three and four, "By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. Whoever says, 'I know Him,' but does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him."

So often today we have people in our churches who are living in willful, known, unrepented of sin, yet claiming to be Christians. Some of you have children who are prodigals, and they're living in willful sin. Perhaps a an immoral lifestyle, living in overt, known rebellion. But you're saying, "Oh, they made a decision for Christ when they were three years old. I know my child's a Christian. I'm just praying he'll come back to God." Your child may not be a Christian at all.

Don't assume that your child is a Christian, or your mate, or yourself if there's no evidence that you have a heart to say, "Yes, Lord," to obey God. What you may need to be praying for your mate or your child is, "Lord, bring them to recognize that they are not a Christian, that they need to be born again, that they are lost. Don't let them be resting on a false assurance, professing something that there is no evidence that they possess."

You see, when we say that a person can make a decision for Christ and then live any way they want to live, we're implying that salvation is a profession at a point in time that doesn't necessarily change the way you live, that doesn't require surrendering your life to Christ as Lord. And sadly, this has been characteristic of so much evangelism that's been done in the last century.

And as a result, there are millions and millions of people in this country, people in your church and mine, who think that they are Christians, but who really are not. There's no heart to obey God. Now, some of you are saying, "Oh, but I've disobeyed God. Are you saying I'm not a Christian?" First of all, I can't tell you whether you're a Christian or not.

I can also tell you that if you are a Christian, there will be times when you disobey God. But what I'm saying is if you don't have any bent, any inclination in your heart to obey His Word, then you have no basis for assurance that you are a child of God. Here's how we know that we know Him. If we have a heart to keep His commandments.

Now, to say yes to Christ as Lord, to say, "Yes, Lord," it requires faith. Because on the front end, when you're facing a decision or an issue in your life, all you can see is the downside, the pain, the cost, the negatives, the fears, the loss, the hard place. If I say, "Yes, Lord," I'm looking at some single women in this room, "Maybe He'll never let me get married."

Or maybe He won't let me marry the person I want to marry. Or if I say, "Yes, Lord, my life is Yours. My body is Yours." Maybe He won't let me have children. Or maybe He'll give me a lot of children. Or maybe He'll send me to, and you name whatever it is, it's the worst place you can think of on Earth that you don't want to go. Maybe God will make me do this or won't let me do this, or I won't have any fun, or I will be miserable. There are fears.

We have to face those fears with faith, and faith helps us to see that on the other side of obedience, there is always joy. There are treasures. There are pleasures. There are riches. There is a place of abundance. Now, I didn't say there's an easy life, because there's no easy life this side of Heaven. But there is joy that comes after we step into the pathway of obedience and say, "Yes, Lord," regardless of what we feel, what we think, what we want, and we let Him be Lord.

And remember that this is not a one-time choice, not a one-time decision to say, "Yes, Lord." Saying, "Yes, Lord," is a way of life. Saying it many times daily. It's an ongoing thing in life as God brings new things into our lives, in new seasons of life, saying, "Yes, Lord." Continuing to say, "Yes, Lord." Saying yes to the Word of God, to the ways of God, and to the will of God.

I got a letter from a woman who had heard me talk about waving the white flag of surrender to God, and she shared that when she got home, she borrowed one of her husband's white hankies, and every day as she began her quiet time, before she turned to read the open Bible on her lap, she literally waved that hanky before the Lord. The white flag of surrender, symbolizing her commitment to surrender whatever God revealed to be His will through His Word.

"Lord, before I even read anything in here, I'm saying, 'Yes, Lord.' Whatever You say, I will obey." Surrendering to the ways of God, which sometimes may involve tragedy and loss and pain and mysteries that we can't explain. Saying yes to the will of God, that might be motherhood. It might be saying yes to singleness. It might be saying yes to infertility. It might be saying yes to stay in a difficult marriage. It might be saying yes to vocational ministry. But it's knowing that God is good. He is God. His ways are best.

William Borden was the heir to the Borden Dairy estate, and I he made a journal entry when he was a college student at Yale. He said, "Say no to self and yes to Jesus every time." "In every man's heart," he said, "there is a throne and a cross. If Jesus is on the throne, self is on the cross. And if self, even a little bit, is on the throne, Jesus is on the cross in that man's heart."

For William Borden, saying, "Yes, Lord," meant giving up his family fortune and heading to China as a missionary. While he was in Egypt, en route to China, he contracted spinal meningitis and died less than a month later at the age of 25. So, was it worth it?

Well, if we could ask William Borden, "Would you do it again?" What would he say? I think he would respond with three phrases that were discovered written in the back of his Bible after his death. Three phrases that summarize this short, surrendered, sacrificial life. Here are the three phrases: No reserves. No retreats. No regrets.

No reserves. No retreats. And no regrets. And so the heart of the true woman is the heart of Mary of Nazareth who said, "I am the Lord's handmaiden. I am the Lord's bondservant. May it be to me as You have said." Luke chapter one, verse 38. "Yes, Lord."

And the call every day as true women is to bow the knee. I try to do that, by the way, once a day. I've for many years. Many times, most of the time it's just very quickly, but just to bow the knee before the Lord, usually it's the last thing before I go to bed at night, to bow literally physically before Him, just as a way physically of saying what I want to be true of my heart. "Yes, Lord. I surrender. I gladly yield control of my life to You as Lord. I wave the white flag of surrender. I want to acknowledge Your Lordship in my life."

The song of the redeemed heart is seen perhaps in the words of Frances Havergal, written in 1874. "Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee. Take my hands, and let them move at the impulse of Thy love. Take my lips, and let them be filled with messages from Thee. Take my silver and my gold. Not a mite would I withhold. Take my will and make it Thine. It shall be no longer mine. Take my heart. It is Thine own. It shall be Thy royal throne. Take my love, my Lord. I pour at Thy feet its treasure store. Take myself, and I will be ever only all for Thee."

Guest (Female): Hmm. Nancy just gave us a powerful 20-minute description of a life surrendered to God. A true woman doesn't hold tightly to control. She offers herself up gladly to the Lord who's always at work for her good. If you want to dive deeper into the topic of surrender, we've got so much content about that over at ReviveOurHearts.com.

In fact, go to the website ReviveOurHearts.com, go to the podcast page, and find today's episode. We'll put a link to all of our content on the topic of surrender right there in today's transcript. The true womanhood conversation is so important. I mean, especially in a day when our world has largely lost sight of what God made women to be. This is what compelled Mary Kassian to write, "What Is a Woman? The question our world is afraid to answer."

Mary approaches this question from a biblical perspective, and we find that God doesn't shy away from defining womanhood, not one bit. His design for us is both clear and beautiful. Mary helps us see it. All through the month of July, we're offering "What Is a Woman?" as our thanks for your gift of any amount. To make a donation, visit ReviveOurHearts.com or call us at 1-800-569-5959 and be sure to request your copy when you do.

Next week we'll continue to talk about true womanhood together. On Monday, you'll hear from me and Mary Kassian about the heart of this movement and how we need the true woman message now more than ever. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts. Now, here's Nancy to pray.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Let's bow our hearts for just a moment of prayer. And in this quiet moment, I wonder if you just need to say, "Yes, Lord." To wave that white flag of surrender in your heart. And say, "Lord, I I I don't understand all that You're asking of me. I don't know where all of it will lead. And by faith, I want to surrender my life this season, myself, every part of me. Gladly yield control of my life to You as Lord.

Take our lives, Lord, and let them be set apart, consecrated for You. Take our time, our bodies, our appetites, our affections, our free time, our jobs, our finances, our sexual lives, relationships, everything, Lord. Take it all. Take our hearts and let them be wholly devoted to You." I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Guest (Female): This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.