Revive Our Hearts

Guest (Male): We have communed with fullness. How He resuscitates us when we are left impoverished, heals our greatest need, sometimes allowing physical suffering to link arms with us so that we might fall into the everlasting arms of Him in whom we trust.

Dannah Gresh: Recognizing the power of God to fill us on this episode of Revive Our Hearts weekend.

Guest (Male): Not knowing He has prepared everlasting food for you through His crimson cord. He is so giving. An eternal meal is here because the Bread of Life is near.

Dannah Gresh: Welcome to Revive Our Hearts weekend. I'm Dannah Gresh. Doing okay today? I wish we were in my kitchen together right now because I feel the need to cook something. I do love some good comfort food, and one of my all-time favorite recipes is slow-cooked pot roast. You know the kind that just falls apart with a fork. I usually serve it with roasted carrots, mashed potatoes—because my husband is fanatical about those—and, of course, some good gravy.

Did you know the act of preparing the meal—cutting the vegetables, adding the spices, putting the meat in the oven—actually gets your body ready to eat? There's scientific evidence. Your stomach starts to work and rumble when you do those things. Then, when you pull that perfectly roasted meat out of the oven, that smell makes your mouth water. You gather your friends or family around the table, and you eat. You eat until you're full, sometimes too full.

Then the next day, you do it all over again. But imagine with me a different kind of fullness. One that doesn't make you feel bloated, one that leaves you satisfied. The mission of Revive Our Hearts is to call women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. Last week, we unpacked freedom and looked at what it meant to be free in Christ. Today, I want to share with you what this fullness in Christ is all about.

Let's start with some Bible teaching from Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. She spent some time teaching on the book of Joshua. Today, we're going to hear Nancy zeroing in on one verse as she talks about fullness. To help really understand where she's going, I want to remind you of a few things. You remember Caleb and Joshua, two of the men who spied out the Promised Land? Well, years later, they are in the process of divvying up portions of that land between some of the people of Israel. Caleb’s daughter asks for land, too. Here’s her request from Joshua chapter 15, verse 18.

She got off her donkey, and Caleb said to her, "What do you want?" She said to him, "Give me a blessing. Since you have given me the land of the Negev, give me also springs of water." And he gave her the upper springs and the lower springs. Here’s Nancy.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: As I have meditated on this passage where she says, "Give me also springs of water," that New Testament passage has come to my mind from John chapter seven, where Jesus stood up on the last day of the feast and He cried out, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the scripture has said, 'out of his heart will flow rivers, springs of living water.'"

Jesus said, "I want you to be full." Full and overflowing. To water your heart so your heart can water other hearts. Out of his innermost being, if he believes in Me, will flow these rivers of living water. Now, this He said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive. Jesus said it's the Spirit of God that fills your cup, that causes you to overflow, that waters the dry and arid and barren land of your heart and makes you fruitful.

It's the Holy Spirit who produces love and joy and peace and patience and kindness, goodness, gentleness—produces those fruits in our lives that would be otherwise barren and hard and parched and cracked. I think you know as well as I do that that's what our lives would be apart from the ministry of the Holy Spirit. So that's why we say, "Lord, I believe. Would You give me a blessing? Would You give me springs of water to go with this land that You've given me?"

The last part of verse 19 says, "And he gave her the upper springs and the lower springs." She said, "Give me springs of water." She wasn't picky about which ones, but he gave her her heart's desire and more. What a generous dad. He had enough to spare. He gave out of his abundance. He was generous with his daughter. What a picture of our generous Heavenly Father, who says, "I have enough. You want springs? I'll give you upper and lower springs. There's not too much; it's not too much to ask that I would do this for you."

Remember that passage in Luke chapter 11 where Jesus talks about asking your Father for good gifts? He says, "I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened."

Then He says, "What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?" He says, "When your children ask to have their basic needs provided, are you going to give them something that's going to bite them, something dangerous? No."

Then He says, verse 13 of Luke 11, "If you then, who are evil"—you are less than perfect parents, as any parent would acknowledge—"if you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give what? Give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him."

You want more of God in your life? Now, I know that theologically there's a sense in which you can't get more of God in your life than you already have. If you're a child of God, you already have the Holy Spirit in you. But Jesus talks about asking for the flow and the fullness of the Holy Spirit in our lives. I wonder how many of us are living as spiritual beggars when we might be living as spiritual princes and princesses and kings.

We might be living in abundance if we would just ask. I'm ashamed when I think back of how many times in my Christian life I have been scrimping and scraping and just barely holding it together, just surviving. "How you doing?" "Oh, not bad under the circumstances." Well, what are you doing there? What am I doing there? And why aren't we asking God for fullness?

Now, I'm not saying that when you have the fullness of the Spirit flowing through your life that your life will be easy, that it will be problem-free. You may have more problems than you did before. But there ought to be a fullness. Out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. Psalm 23, "my cup overflows." I don't find very many Christian women today, myself included many times, who are pictures of overflowing abundance. We're just kind of trying to hang on to the Rapture, you know? Exhausted, frazzled, frenzied, frustrated, fearful.

Ladies, our lives ought to exemplify the fullness that there is through life in Christ and in His Spirit. So how do I get it? Ask your Father. Ask Him. Say, "Lord, I thank You for what You have given me, for the land that You've given me. But would You give me springs to water it?" I pray as I come into these sessions, I want to teach the Word, I want to teach it faithfully. I've done the study, and I pray for clarity and to be able to deliver these messages.

But I'll tell you one thing I pray probably more than anything else, and that's, "Lord, would You anoint me with the power of Your Holy Spirit? May it come with fullness. May it flow forth. May it not be just words on a page, but may it give life and health and strength and grace to those who hear. May it be anointed with the power of Your Spirit." You say, "Well, I'm not a speaker." Are you a mom? Are you a wife? Are you a grandmom? Are you a single woman in the workplace? Are you a student? Maybe a high school student sitting back there on the back row? What is your season of life?

Ask God for the fullness of His Holy Spirit. Pray for it. Ask Him to fill you and to overflow through you to give blessing and life to others.

Dannah Gresh: Why aren't we asking God for fullness? That's what Nancy just challenged us with. Let's just sit with that a bit. Now, let's get down to the brass tacks of how this all works—how God fills ordinary women like you, like me. Let's find out why we might not be asking.

I want to share the story of Stacey Salsbery and how she experienced fullness in Christ. God's Word was part of her life, but not her focus. She looked to other things to satisfy her. God wasn't enough for her. She was looking for the next thing, always the next thing. In high school, it was comparison and body image; then in college, it was diets, weight, beauty; then in marriage; then kids. She kept asking, "Why does this not satisfy me like I thought it would?" Stacey talked with Nancy and me, and she shared what was the tipping point for her to begin to experience fullness in Christ.

Stacey Salsbery: I had kind of had enough. I was tired of being discontented. I had so many wonderful things, so many blessings that God had given me, and yet I still wanted more. Even with kids, it became, "Well, now I need my alone time," "Well, now I need date night," "Well, now I need a vacation," "Oh wait, now we need a bigger house." I didn't like what was coming out of me. I knew the discontentment wasn't right.

By the grace of God, He woke me up, and He did that through Scripture. I was reading in my Bible one day, and I will never forget this moment. I was studying the book of Genesis. So I had been in the Word, I had been reading, but I would say it was just a part of my life. It wasn't where I was seeking for satisfaction. But I opened up my Bible, I had been studying in Genesis 15, and in Genesis 15:1, God says to Abraham, "Abraham, I am your very great reward." I thought, "Wow, is God my reward?" He had been maybe a part of the blessing in my life, but He was not my reward. It struck me how much I wanted God to be my reward.

Dannah Gresh: Wow. The picture I'm getting in my head is sweet middle school, high school, college, young mom Stacey, really loves Jesus, but she's waiting for the next award or reward He's going to give her for following Him. Suddenly now you're realizing, "I don't want something in His hands. I want it to just be Him, His presence that is the reward."

Stacey Salsbery: Yes, yes. It was a switch in thought for me. It wasn't the blessings of God that I was seeking—well, it was, but it didn't need to be. It needed to be Him. He needed to be the one thing above all else that I was seeking.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: And practically, what changed at that moment? What did you do differently? Were you just thinking differently? How did that change the trajectory for you?

Stacey Salsbery: You know, first I confessed my sin. I realized that I had been chasing all of these other things—and not that they were bad things—but just spending years of begging God for this or that. But what if we beg God for Him? And so I started doing that. "Lord, I don't know how to do this well, but give me more of You. That's what I need in my life. I want You to be my reward." So I prayed and I asked Him to fill me with that longing for Him. And what a prayer to pray, right? He is faithful to do that. And He did.

Dannah Gresh: Did it change overnight? You read that Bible verse, you prayed that prayer, and suddenly your mind was in alignment with that truth? Or did you still find yourself slipping into the desire for things or other rewards?

Stacey Salsbery: Definitely still found myself slipping back into it. You know, my eyes had been awakened to the truth, but it is still a constant fight for God to be my reward and not this or that, or success in this area, or even for certain successes with my children. So it's a constant fight and reminder. I have to be in God's Word daily if I'm going to be able to fight against that.

But there was also a joy that had been missing. That was a gift. You know, I don't think that contentment is something that we can conjure up. I can't tell myself, "Okay, Stacey, now you need to be content with this. You can do this, you can do this." Contentment was really a gift I found God gave me as I spent time with Him. It was a blessing that I received from Him.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Well, you come to realize what a great treasure He is and that He's the all-surpassing treasure, that there is no one more beautiful, more lovely, more wonderful, more desirable than Christ. All these other things, good as they might be, lose their allure, their shininess.

I'm thinking of that verse at the end of 1 John chapter 5. The last verse of the epistle of 1 John says, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." That suggests to me that this isn't a one-time happening for us, like "I realized I've been looking to things and people other than Jesus to satisfy me, so I say no to them, I say yes to Jesus, and now I'm just worshipping Him with all my heart for the rest of my life."

There was a great theologian of the past who said our hearts are idol factories. We're always manufacturing; we're coming up with new replacements and substitutes and things and people and experiences that we think will satisfy us. So the Apostle John says you've got to be doing heart work all the time to make sure that you're not falling back into longing for and clinging to and loving anything less than Jesus, right?

Stacey Salsbery: Yes, you have to take every thought captive. Every thought. And yet, Psalm 16:11—and here's one of the rewards that we can look forward to when it's the Lord we're seeking first and foremost—says, "You make known to me the path of life; in Your presence there is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore." I love that verse.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: And the fullness He's offering us. In the verse you just quoted, it talks about at His right hand are pleasures forevermore. That reminds me of another passage in Psalm 73 that says, "I am continually with You; You hold my right hand." So at His right hand are pleasures. He's holding our right hand. "You guide me with Your counsel, afterward You will receive me to glory."

Then this, I just think it's such a piercing question: "Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You." Doesn't mean there aren't good things on earth, good gifts God gives us, but he's saying compared to the joy, the priceless pleasures and treasure of knowing You and having You, those other things look like baubles. They're not necessary. They may be cute and pretty, but they're not essential. So he says, "There's nothing on earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart may fail," and all the things that my flesh and my heart gravitate to, "but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."

Dannah Gresh: Thank You, God, that You long to give good gifts to Your children, and You long to fill us with You, to satisfy us with You. One of the gifts He gives us is food. Remember I shared about making a meal at the beginning of our time together? Well, I think a bunch of us love our food. If you've read the Bible for any length of time, you probably know that there is a link between denying yourself food and wanting more of God. It's called fasting. Here's Asheritah Ciuciu with Nancy and me, explaining the purpose of fasting.

Asheritah Ciuciu: I would say fasting is an object lesson taught by the Spirit of God that helps us learn that we were created to find satisfaction in God alone. Fasting is not unique to Christian or Jewish culture. Fasting was actually common in ancient cultures, and we find it in Buddhism and different religions around the world. But in the Christian experience, in our walk with Jesus, fasting is a way to open our hearts to Him and say, "Lord, reveal what has taken root in my heart that is threatening the growth of Your Word in my life." Fasting is purposefully setting aside a good gift to say, "I want something better." Right? Food is a good gift.

Dannah Gresh: And for a time, for a season.

Asheritah Ciuciu: Yes, yeah. Food is a good gift from a good Father meant to turn our hearts to Him in worship. When we fast, we set aside that gift—whether it's food, whether, you know, Scripture talks about abstaining from sex when you're fasting in certain situations, that's a good gift as well. It could be "I'm not going to read books for a season; I just want to read Scripture." It could be giving up a TV show, it could be giving up social media.

Dannah Gresh: Do you think—I want to ask a question here because it's a question I wrestle with a lot, and I'm not sure I have the answer—but do we have a biblical model of it being anything other than food, fasting? Can we really call it fasting when it's social media or TV? Is that really biblical?

Asheritah Ciuciu: Well, I'm glad you brought it up because we don't have a model in Scripture for abstaining from anything but food in a fast. But I would use the same word because of the principle. In ancient days, they didn't have TV, they didn't have all these other things. There's so much competing for our attention and affection in our world today that I think the principle still holds true: turning from something good to say, "God, I want something better, I want You."

So in my own life, five years ago, I went on my first sugar fast. I felt the Lord bring me to Psalm 73, where the psalmist says, "Whom have I in heaven but You? And earth has nothing I desire besides You. My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." Easy to say, not so easy to live. "There's nothing I desire on earth besides You."

So the Lord drew me into a special time of fasting from sugar. I'll just say as an aside, if you are pregnant, if you're nursing, if you have medical conditions, be wise about this. So for me in that season, I couldn't go on a complete fast from food, but I noticed sugar had that stronghold in my life. So I stepped away from sugar for a season. I got all the sugar out of my house, all the desserts. I told my husband, "You don't have to do this, but I'm not going to be making desserts anymore, just so you know."

Those first few days, the withdrawal symptoms were real. Headaches, tiredness, grumpiness. Someone brought cookies to work. It was like, "What are you doing to me?" Not a very Christianly moment. But I went through that withdrawal for a little bit. What I found I was doing that very first fast is I had given up sugar, but I would snack on crackers and potato chips. Like, I would get the craving for something sweet, and I went to something else instead. Substitutes. Trading idols. I didn't even realize what I was doing until again the Lord convicted me, "Why are you going to what doesn't satisfy? Come to Me." That, I believe, is one of the keys to Christian fasting. It's not just not eating something; it's replacing that with feasting on God's Word, with prayer, with worship, with meditation. It is learning to delight.

Dannah Gresh: Feasting on God's Word, delighting in Him. How often do you truly delight in Him? To marvel at His majesty, to wonder at His mercy and grace? This is your invitation: delight in Him. I pray our time today convicted your heart to sit before Him and ask Him to fill you full to overflowing with Him and all that He is. Not sure what to say? Well, here's a prayer that Nancy shared when she was talking about the rivers of living water. Simply say, "Lord, I thank You for what You've given me, for the land You've given me, but would You give me springs to water it?"

Friend, I'm so excited to see what God will do in your life. Getting into God's Word and getting God's Word into you, that's what we're about at Revive Our Hearts. As we close the books on one ministry year here in about a week and look forward to the next, we're asking God to provide big time. As you may know, we're walking through the Bible with Nancy in 2027 and 2028, and we want women around the world to be able to hear those podcast episodes in their own language—as many as possible.

We're navigating a significant financial deficit at this time, but with your giving, the impact of the Wonder of the Word initiative can expand. Our goal this month is $1.4 million, and you're a huge part of that. These initiatives are both for you and made possible by you. If you've been enjoying Revive Our Hearts and listening for free, would you prayerfully consider making a donation in this season? It's a pivotal moment for us with so many doors we want to take advantage of, and your partnership would make it possible. When you give a gift of any amount, we'll send you "Called to Thrive," a booklet based on Nancy's teaching. It's all about freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ—the heartbeat of this ministry. To donate and request your copy, visit reviveourhearts.com/donate. We can't wait to get that into your hands.

Next week, we're going to talk about being fruitful in Christ. What does it mean? What does it look like? Jesus said, "You will know them by their fruit." Do you have fruit in your life? And I'm not talking about apples. We'll talk about it next week on Revive Our Hearts weekend. Thanks for listening today. I'm Dannah Gresh. We'll see you next week for Revive Our Hearts weekend.

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