Two Sheep Dogs

Kim: Hi, I’m Kim from Ohio, and I’m a Revive Our Hearts Monthly Partner. One reason I support the ministry is because I find that listening to the daily message via podcast, during my thirty-minute daily commute, helps me begin my workday praising the Lord. Enjoy today’s episode of Revive Our Hearts, brought to you in part by the Ministry Partner Team.

Dannah Gresh: According to Pastor Colin Smith, we as children of God don’t need to fear His anger. Here’s why.

Pastor Colin Smith: Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath so that we may drink the cup of God’s blessing!

Song: “Jesus, Thank You”

The mystery of the cross I cannot comprehend
The agonies of Calvary.
You, the perfect, Holy One, crushed Your Son
Who drank the bitter cup reserved for me.

Your blood has washed away my sin,
Jesus, thank You.
The Father’s wrath completely satisfied,
Jesus, thank You.
Once Your enemy, now seated at Your table,
Jesus, thank You.

(“Jesus, Thank You” byPat Sczebel

Dannah: We can truly say, “Jesus, thank You!” This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of A 30 Day Walk with God in the Psalms, for March 10, 2023. I’m Dannah Gresh.

In just a few weeks, we’ll be remembering Jesus’ death on the cross, His burial, and His resurrection. Are you preparing your heart for Easter even now? Well, not long ago, Colin Smith spoke at a gathering of all the Life Action Ministries and Revive Our Hearts staff. He took us verse by verse through Psalm 23. It was so encouraging!

Nancy wanted to be sure we shared at least some of what we heard with you. Colin is heard on many of the same stations as Revive Our Hearts. His program and podcast are called Open the Bible. Here to help us get to know him a little better is Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, in conversation with pastor and author Colin Smith.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: You’ve written a number of books. For those who may not be familiar with them, may not have read your books, I wanted to ask you, is there one you that you would especially think we might want to get started on? What’s your “favorite child”? That’s what we want to know.

Pastor Colin: Well, it’s got to be one that’s published by Moody Publishers, I think, Nancy.

Nancy: Of course!

Pastor Colin: Of course! I would think for this audience, I really enjoyed working on the Beatitudes and seeing that they give a pattern for how to make progress in the Christian life. So it was a joy to partner with the folks at Moody and to write Momentum, which describes the Beatitudes and tries to give a path for growth in the Christian life from a study of these wonderful words of Jesus.

Nancy: Okay, Momentum, you might want to pick that up. As you hear Pastor Colin this week, you’re going to want to hear more of just opening your Bible and going to the Word with this friend. 

Twenty years ago when we started Revive Our Hearts, for the first several years we were recording the program in Little Rock, Arkansas. Colin came to preach at the church that I was attending during those years.

I was new at what I was doing. I was shaking in my boots. I was overwhelmed. I was in desperate need of refreshing and the Lord just keeping me going. It was all so new! And at the end of the service, a lot of people lined up to see Colin to speak with him.

I waited until the end and went up and introduced myself there in the lobby of the church. I said, “My name is Nancy Leigh DeMoss”—that’s what my name used to be—“and you probably don’t know me.”

He said, “I do know you. I understand that you have begun this new program Revive Our Hearts, and I want to know, how is it going with your soul? How are you doing?”

He didn’t talk about himself. He didn’t talk about his ministry. I remember that message. He preached on Jude 24 and 25 about “The Lord Who Is Able to Keep You from Falling.”

The message so ministered to me, but what really ministered to me was a man off the platform, at the end of a long morning of ministry saying, “How’s your soul?” And that’s a pastor’s heart! He’s here to minister that heart, and we’re here to minister that heart to each other this week.

Dannah: Again, that book by Colin Smith on the Beatitudes is titled Momentum, and you’ll find more information about it in the transcript of today’s program at ReviveOurHearts.com. Now, without further adieu, let’s listen to Colin Smith as he opens the Bible to Psalm 23.

Pastor Colin: Let’s read Psalm 23 one more time together as we open the Scriptures in this session.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
   He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
   He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
   for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
   I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
   your rod and your staff,
   they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
   in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
   my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
   all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
   forever.

The greatest blessing you can ever know is to be wholly owned by the Son of God! I hope you’ll take that wonderful truth away with you from this week that we have shared together, because the whole of Psalm 23, as we’ve been seeing, is really an unfolding of why we are so blessed in our Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ.

When the Lord is your Shepherd, when you are bought and born into the flock of God, then the Savior will lead you; He will restore you, and He will guard you. And today we come to a fourth blessing that is yours in Jesus Christ, and I think it’s a wonderful one for us to ponder together in this last session as we are ready to be sent out into a new year of ministry!

The fourth blessing that is yours in Christ in this psalm is that the Good Shepherd will feed you, or the Good Shepherd will sustain you.

Now, my older son Andrew is a long-distance runner, and he has competed several times in the Iron Man. That is a wonder to behold!

The Iron Man is an event in which you warm up with a two-mile swim, you then jump on a bike and cycle for 112 miles, and then you run a full twenty-six-mile marathon just as you’re kind of rounding off of the day. It is an extraordinary event!

As Karen and I have been there to cheer him and others on . . . You stand there in the crowd looking at this wonder and you say, “How in all the world do these people keep going?!” And that’s the question that’s before us today: How are you going to keep going? How are you going to sustain the pace in this year of ministry that lies ahead of you?

For some of you, it’s your first year of ministry in this wonderful ministry that you’ve come to be part of. For some of you, it’s your twenty-first year, or your forty-first year, and the same question always applies, it’s always before us. How are you going to sustain the work that God gives you to do?

I want us to focus especially on verse 5 of Psalm 23, where David tells how God sustained him. We’re going to see here how God will sustain you in the year that lies ahead of you.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. (v. 5)

Now, God often uses material things to speak to us in ways we can understand about spiritual things. And here God uses three things that we can touch, that we can see, that we can handle: a table, oil, and a cup. God uses these to communicate how He will feed us, how He will sustain us.

So what I want to do today, very simply, is to send you out into another year of ministry with the message of the table, the oil and the cup. First then, the table. “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”

Now we’re talking here of eating in style! So forget grabbing a burger in the van and eating it after you’ve come through the drive-thru. Nothing like that. You’ve got to think here of Thanksgiving dinner! We’re talking here a table spread; we’re talking here about place settings.

We’re talking about flowers on the table, candles, and all the rest of it! We’re talking about plates loaded with steaming turkey and bowls filled with all of the fixings. Someone has gone to great lengths to prepare a table!

And David says to the Lord, “You prepare a table before me.”

Try and take in this picture, imagine it: you come home after a hard day at work. You’re tired; you’re jaded, you feel pretty spent. And someone is in the kitchen and this person is cooking up a storm! And you say, “Let me help!”

And this person says, “No, no, no, you just sit down. Let me prepare this meal for you!”

So, you sit down and this person prepares a meal before you. And when it is done you come to the table, and as you eat your strength is wonderfully renewed! Now, that is the picture.

And David says, “The person who does this for me is the Lord God Almighty Himself! You [God] prepare a table before me.”

And notice that he uses the present tense. This is not something that God did a long time ago; it’s not even something that God does once in a while. It is what God always does for His people! “You prepare a table before me.”

Now, God uses this picture in Scripture to tell us what? That as your strength is renewed in your body by eating, so God Himself will sustain you and feed you and nourish you so that you are able to continue the work that He is calling you to do. He’ll feed you! 

And notice that David says something else here. He says, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” Think about the life of David: it was one long, unrelenting battle, it really was!

In his early years he was despised by his brothers. Anyone been despised by a sibling? As a young man he was a fugitive, hunted by King Saul. When he became king, he inherited a divided kingdom, and most of the tribes wouldn’t accept his leadership. In later years he endured the pain of being hated by his own son who rebelled viciously against him.

You look at the life of David and all that he endured and you ask the question, “How in the world did this man keep going?” Here’s his answer: “God prepares a table for me, and He does it even in the presence of my enemies! With all that is going on in my life, God sustains me, God feeds me, God nourishes me, He renews my strength . . . even in the presence of my enemies!”

That is what God did for David, and that, dear friends, as you launch out into another year of ministry, is what God will do for you!

This is why the apostle Paul said (and this is why you can say) you can do all things through Christ who gives me strength—gives me strength!” We’re talking about an infusion of divine strength that is given to match the needs of a particular hour, a particular challenge, or a particular situation.

Jeremiah Burroughs, who wrote a marvelous book on contentment, has this little phrase. He says, “When God doubles your load, He can triple your strength!” I’ll take that deal! Do you know what that is, for God to double your load?

You will know that there are times in your experience when the pressures upon you become very, very great. Here’s the testimony of David that will be your testimony as you follow the Good Shepherd, that when the pressures increase, when the burdens that you carry seem to be heavy, there will be an infusion of strength that comes from the Good Shepherd. He will feed you, He will nourish you. “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength” (Phil. 4:13). He will sustain you in all that He has called you to do. Now, that’s the table.

Second, the oil. “You anoint my head with oil” (v. 5). Now, so many things have been said about the significance of the oil, but I want you to notice that what David says here—the oil was used here for anointing. “You anoint my head with oil.”

It seems to me that this is there for a reference to what happened in the Old Testament, that certain people who were commissioned for particular tasks by the Lord were recognized for these tasks by anointing with oil. They were prophets, they were priests, kings. 

They were all anointed with oil, because God had given them a particular assignment, and this was the sign of the work that God had given them to do. There’s a beautiful description in Psalm 133 of how Aaron, the first high priest, was anointed with oil as a sign that he was set apart for this particular work of being the high priest. Let me read to you from Psalm 133:

Behold, how good and pleasant it is
   when brothers dwell in unity.
It is like the precious oil on the head,
   running down on the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
   running down on the collar of his robes. (vv. 1–2)

So, you see, when this anointing with oil was done . . . I mean, it wasn’t like a little bit of oil being dropped on a person’s forehead. It was a whole flask of oil, and it was poured out over the head of the one who was being anointed—running down Aaron’s beard, dripping onto the collar, soaking into his robes. Oil was poured out, anointing him for the particular work that God had called him to do. Now, of course, David had experienced exactly the same thing. Oil had been poured out on him when he was commissioned, called, as the king.

David tells us about this in 1 Samuel 16 and verse 13, and surely this is what he was thinking of, from his own experience, when he says to the Lord, “You anoint my head with oil.” It was Samuel who “took the horn of oil and anointed him [that is, David] in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon David from that day forward.”

Now you see, that is surely the significance in the mind of David as he pens these words under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: “Yes, I am not alone in this work. I was anointed with oil, and on that day Your Spirit rushed upon me, and has never left me!” The Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward.

Now in the Old Testament, there were only a few people who were ever anointed with oil: prophets, priests, and kings. But in the New Testament, here’s very good news, all of God’s people are anointed with His Holy Spirit for the work that He calls us to do!

You are going to go out as people who are sent, and as you go in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s Spirit will rest on you. That’s the promise of Psalm 23, that’s David’s experience, and that is what we are to receive from the Word of God today.

Now, just think about that with me for a moment. I don’t think I would ever dare to stand on a platform and speak if I did not believe with all of my heart in the Holy Spirit. Because what do any of us have to offer to the needs of the world? We don’t carry it within ourselves.

If you go to London, you can still visit The Metropolitan Tabernacle which is where C. H. Spurgeon exercised such an extraordinary ministry that was so greatly blessed. The architecture of that building has been repeated in many, many churches from that period in the United Kingdom—my home church is one of them. 

You have an elevated pulpit probably about eight feet—perhaps a little more—above the level at which people are sitting. Then you have a three-sided gallery all around it. And so, they’re quite terrifying places to speak, because the folks in the front of the gallery can almost read your notes from where they are. They’re just very, very close to you.

And so Spurgeon, when he went to speak, had to climb these steps to get into the pulpit. And Spurgeon said this, “On every step I say, ‘I believe in the Holy Spirit! I believe in the Holy Spirit! I believe in the Holy Spirit!’”

I’m saying to you today that that wonderful truth, that the Spirit of God will be with you and rest upon you, that wonderful truth will be sustaining to you in your ministry. Because there will be times when you look at the needs that are before you, and there will be times when you feel utterly overwhelmed! I want you to remember when you feel utterly overwhelmed that you are not on your own! It’s not just that you’re part of a team. Now, that is a wonderful thing, but you see even all of the team together can’t meet the needs of the world.

Here’s the wonderful truth that’s going to be sustaining to you: it is that the Holy Spirit rests upon you and that God works by His Holy Spirit through His Word. Therefore, with confidence and humility you can give yourself to that ministry. You are not alone. As you go in the name of Jesus, the Spirit of God will rest upon you! 

That’s the table, that’s the oil, and then the cup. David says, verse 5: “My cup overflows.” Now, some of you have probably experienced or tasted a downbeat version of Christianity—that of course is not real Christianity at all. It goes something like this: In this world you’re going to be surrounded by all these dreadful enemies. Somehow you’ve just got to grit your teeth and get through it. You have to endure and stick it out, put up with it. But if you do, it’s really good, because you will be blessed in the end when your life in this world is over and you get to heaven. Then, at last, you’ll be truly happy!

But notice that is not what David is saying here. Here is a man who does know overwhelming pressure in his life, and yet he says, “My cup overflows! Even now while my enemies are still present, even in the dark valley, my cup overflows.”

Just a few years ago I had the opportunity of helping my aunt in Scotland (who is now with the Lord) move from the home in which she was living to a care home where she spent her last few years. What that meant was, sorting through stuff that she had gathered over her very long life.

I made some fascinating discoveries in sorting through her stuff in order to prepare her home to be sold. One of the things I found was a little ration book from the Second World War, a little book that was distributed to everyone in Britain during the Second World War, because at that time food was rationed.

And in this little book you had a page to tear out for each week. You had to present that little page that would authorize you then to buy a small amount of meat, a small number of eggs (and so forth) each week—a ration.

Let me just say this to you: God’s blessings are never rationed! “From the fullness of His grace,” John says, “we have all received one blessing after another.” His grace just keeps coming! And David says, “When I think about HIs blessings towards me, my cup overflows!”

 

When Isaiah describes God’s forgiveness, it is not enough for him to say that God pardons. In Isaiah chapter 55:7 he says that God, “will abundantly pardon.” When the psalmist speaks about how God brings new hope where things have gone disastrously wrong, it is not enough for him to say that with God there is redemption.

What he says in Psalm 130:7 is with God there is “plentiful redemption.” When Paul speaks about the riches of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is not enough for him to describe the Lord Jesus as wonderfully rich. He speaks about the “unsearchable riches of Christ” (Eph. 3:8).

And, you see, this is what David has experienced: abundant pardon, plentiful redemption, unsearchable riches! He says, “My cup overflows.” The table, the oil, and the cup, all of these blessings are ours in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. We are blessed, we are told, “with every spiritual blessing” in Christ (Eph. 1:3).

So, let me just ask this question that will take us a step further: what did the table, the oil, and the cup mean for our Lord Jesus Christ? 

Remember, as we said yesterday, the Lord Jesus knew and used the psalms. He quoted them so many times! I want you to picture Jesus early in the morning, out on a hill, and He’s meditating on the twenty-third psalm. And to the Father He says, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; [and] my cup overflows.” What did the table and the oil and the cup mean for Jesus? “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”

Later this morning we’re going to share communion, where we remember that on the night that Jesus was betrayed, He met with His disciples to celebrate the Passover. And Matthew tells us, “When it was evening, he reclined at table with the twelve,” and Judas Iscariot was at the table with Jesus (see Matt. 26:20).

Jesus sat at the table in the presence of His enemies, and He took the bread, and He broke it—as He had broken the bread when He fed the five thousand people in the wilderness. But this time He said something very different. He said to his disciples, “Take, [and] eat; this is my body” (Matt. 26:26). Now do you see the significance? 

Jesus does more than prepare the meal, Jesus is the meal. Jesus will give you strength. Jesus will sustain you by the giving of Himself! “I am the Bread of Life, whoever feeds on Me will live because of Me” (see John 6:35, 56). As you feed on Christ by believing in Him, looking to Him, trusting Him, you will draw strength from Him. He Himself will nourish your soul, and He will sustain you.

And then, think about the oil. What did the oil mean for Jesus? “You anoint my head with oil.” What task, what calling, was Jesus anointed for? What work had the Father prepared for Him to do?

Well, you remember the picture of Aaron and the flask of oil over the head, dripping down the collar, soaking in the robes. Well, you’ll remember that something remarkably like that happened to Jesus.

Jesus had gone for dinner with a group of friends, and among them was Mary the sister of Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. She was so moved with gratitude that she wanted to do something to express her overwhelming love for the Lord Jesus Christ.

She had this jar of very expensive perfume, and Mark tells us that she broke the flask and she poured it over the head of Jesus (see Mark 14:3). The whole lot! It ran down His beard, dripped onto His collar, soaked into His robes. And you remember, the disciples—Judas particularly—thought it was a waste. But Jesus said, “She has done a beautiful thing . . . she has anointed my body beforehand for burial” (Mark 14:6, 8). David was anointed to be the King. Jesus was anointed for burial.

This is the work that the Father has given you to do. Your task, Your mission, is to give Your life. It will be to be crucified, to be dead, and to be buried. It is to lay down Your life for the sheep. Jesus was anointed for death and for burial. He was anointed for death and for burial so that we might be anointed for everlasting life. He died so that we might live! And He anoints His own with the presence and the power of His own Holy Spirit so that we may be empowered for all the work that He calls us to do.

And then, what about the cup? What did the cup mean for our Lord Jesus Christ?

Well, we thought about this a great deal yesterday. But as we’ll shortly have communion, let’s think about it again for a moment today. Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, said, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not what I will, but Your will be done” (see Matt. 26:39).

We looked yesterday at what the cup meant for Jesus. In Revelation chapter 14 and verse 10, there’s an awesome—or awful—description of it. Listen to this: “The wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger.” Isn’t that an extraordinary statement? The wine of God’s wrath poured full strength into the cup of His anger.

Friends, that is the cup (as we saw yesterday) that was given to Jesus. The perfect, holy Son of God drank the cup of the wine of God’s wrath. He did it because, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned [every one] to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6).

Try and take this in and never let go of it, that Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath so that we may drink the cup of God’s blessing!

There was a Scottish pastor, now with the Lord, by the name of Douglas MacMillan, who painted this very beautiful picture. I want you to try and picture this in your mind, and if you can do that, it will stay with you.

I want you to picture God holding a cup in his hand. The cup is full, and it has your name written on it. And God hands this cup down to you, and as you see this cup with your name written on it, you shrink back in horror because you know what is in the cup. And what is in the cup is the wine of God’s wrath poured full strength into the cup of His anger.

But before it reaches you, the Good Shepherd steps in and takes the cup and takes it into His own hand. He knows what is in the cup. And so, as He holds it, He says, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me.” But then He says, “Nevertheless, not My will but Yours be done.”

Then the Good Shepherd drinks that cup, the cup of God’s wrath poured full strength into the cup of His anger. He drinks all of it, He drinks it until it is absolutely empty. And then He takes the empty cup with your name on it, and He fills it until it’s running over. What’s in the cup now? Love, grace, mercy, peace, everlasting life! And now, He reaches out to give this cup to you!

Follow the Good Shepherd, and as you do, the Son of God will feed you, the Spirit of God will empower you, and the blessing of God will follow you! And that is why David ends this psalm by saying, “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life” (v. 6).

One of the joys of farming life where I come from are the dogs that chase after the sheep. Picture a shepherd walking in front of his sheep, and then behind the flock there are dogs, sheepdogs who chase after the stragglers. The dogs keep the sheep moving in the direction that the shepherd is leading.

A shepherd’s dogs . . . (You should check this out on YouTube if you haven’t seen it; it’s absolutely beautiful to see sheepdogs!) . . . they’re brilliant, intelligent, gorgeous creatures! A shepherd is never without his dogs. When he gathers sheep from the hills, they’re scattered all over the hills, and the dogs will run wide arcs. They’ll run miles in a day! They are gradually moving the sheep in the direction that the shepherd is leading them. It’s a marvelous thing to behold!

There was once an old Scottish shepherd who preached on Psalm 23, and when he got to this verse, “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life . . .” He said, “The Good Shepherd has two sheepdogs who come chasing after us, and these sheepdogs have names. One of them is called, “Goodness,” and the other is called, “Mercy.” I love that picture! Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. The Good Shepherd will keep me close to Him through His own goodness and through His own mercy that just always keep chasing after me. 

And remember, David has already told us that the Good Shepherd is leading the sheep: “He leads me beside still waters . . . He leads me in paths of righteousness . . .” (v. 3). So the shepherd is out in front of the sheep, but now he tells us that the Shepherd’s goodness and mercy are following behind the sheep, so when you belong to the Good Shepherd, you are encircled in His love. 

As if that was not enough, David says, “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (v. 6). Oh, what will that be like? Well, that would be a whole other session, of course. But let me just say this: your experience in heaven will be very different from your experience of life in this world!

Obviously, faith will be turned to sight; all battles will be over, all wounds will be healed. God will wipe away all tears from your eyes. Your experience in heaven will be very different from your experience of life in this world, but your relationship with Jesus will be exactly the same.

I say that for this reason. In Revelation chapter 7 and verse 17, we read these words,

For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,
   and he will guide them to springs of living water.

The Lord Jesus Christ, brothers and sisters, is your Shepherd now; He’ll be your Shepherd then. The relationship you have with the Lord Jesus Christ now will continue forever in eternity. The greatest blessing you can ever know is to be wholly owned by the Son of God! Because when the Lord is your Shepherd, you will be able to say, “He leads me, and He restores me, and He guards me, and He feeds me!”

When the Lord is your Shepherd, you really will be able to say, whatever you are facing, “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Let’s pray together. Father, may Your servants here discover with great delight in this year that lies ahead of them what David proved and what all Your faithful servants through the centuries have known: that Your Son will feed them, that Your Spirit will empower them, and that Your blessing will follow them! These things we ask in Jesus’ wonderful name, amen.

Nancy: Amen! Don’t you just love that image of the two sheepdogs—Goodness and Mercy? They are steering us sheep right where we need to go. That’s Pastor Colin Smith with such an encouraging message from Psalm 23.

And what a wonderful way for us to begin preparing our hearts for the commemoration of Jesus’ death on Good Friday, just four weeks from today. Another way you can do that is by reading a book by Pastor Colin Smith titled Heaven, How I Got Here: The Story of the Thief on the Cross. 

Pastor Colin uses sanctified imagination to flesh out the details of the life and thoughts of the man who spent the last hours of his life just feet away from Jesus. It’s a riveting story told from the perspective of the thief on the cross.

Right now we’ll send you a copy of Colin’s book as our thank you for your donation of any amount in support of Revive Our Hearts. We're dependent on the support of friends like you, and we’re so thankful for whatever the Lord may lay on your heart to give.

And I want to thank a special group of supporters, our Revive Partners. You’ve committed to give at least thirty dollars each month to Revive Our Hearts, and I know that may be a sacrifice for you. Not long ago we heard from a Revive Partner named Michelle. She said:

One reason I support Revive Our Hearts is because you taught me as a young wife and mother how to biblically love and serve my family. Now twenty years later and almost an empty nester, you remind me that my identity is in Christ alone, and you continue to point me to God’s truth for my life. I want other women to know freedom in Christ, whatever their path in life!

Thanks, Michelle, it’s so good to hear from you! And you know, this is a two-way street. The Revive Partners help out this ministry, but also each month it’s our joy to share helpful resources with our Revive Partners, resources to encourage you in your walk with the Lord and that you can share with others.

If you’d like to find out more about becoming a Revive Partner—or to make a one-time donation—just head over to ReviveOurHearts.com, or you can call us at 1-800-569-5959. When you do, remember to ask about Colin Smith’s book about the thief on the cross. Thank you so much for your support!

Dannah: Well, as we heard today from Colin Smith, we Christians have more to look forward to than just this life. On Monday, Nancy will open up Psalm 90 to help us find pointers for living, as she puts it, “in light of eternity.” You might pull out your Bible and start meditating on Psalm 90 this weekend. Please be back Monday for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is showing you the complete freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness you have in Christ.

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