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About the Book
"Remember Me" is a novella that explores themes of grief, loss, and healing. The story follows Elizabeth who is struggling to come to terms with the death of her husband and the challenges of raising a teenage daughter alone. Through unexpected encounters and profound conversations with a mysterious stranger, Elizabeth begins to find hope and healing as she learns to remember her past with gratitude and embrace the future with faith.
Warren Wiersbe
Dr. Warren Wiersbe once described Heaven as ânot only a destination, but also a motivation. When you and I are truly motivated by the promise of eternity with God in heaven, it makes a difference in our lives.â
For Wiersbe, the promise of eternity became the motivation for his long ministry as a pastor, author, and radio speaker. Beloved for his biblical insight and practical teaching, he was called âone of the greatest Bible expositors of our generationâ by the late Billy Graham.
Warren W. Wiersbe died on May 2, 2019, in Lincoln, Nebraska, just a few weeks shy of his 90th birthday.
âHe was a longtime, cherished friend of Moody Bible Institute, a faithful servant of the Word, and a pastor to younger pastors like me,â said Dr. Mark Jobe, president of Moody Bible Institute. âWe are lifting up pastor Wiersbeâs family in prayer at this time and rejoicing in the blessed hope that believers share together.â
Wiersbe grew up in East Chicago, Indiana, a town known for its steel mills and hard-working blue-collar families. In his autobiography, he connected some of his earliest childhood memories to Moody Bible Institute; his home church pastor was a 1937 graduate, Dr. William H. Taylor. After volunteering to usher at a 1945 Youth for Christ rally, Wiersbe found himself listening with rapt attention to Billy Grahamâs sermon, and responded with a personal prayer of dedication.
In a precocious turn of events, the young Wiersbe was already a published author, having written a book of card tricks for the L. L. Ireland Magic Co. of Chicago. He quickly learned to liven up Sunday school lessons with magic tricks as object lessons (ânot the cards!â he would say). After his high school graduation in 1947 (he was valedictorian), he spent a year at Indiana University before transferring to Northern Baptist Seminary in Chicago, where he earned a bachelor of theology degree. His future wife, Betty, worked in the school library, and Wiersbe was a frequent visitor.
While in seminary he became pastor of Central Baptist Church in East Chicago, serving until 1957. During those years he became a popular YFC speaker, which led to a full-time position with Youth for Christ International in Wheaton. He published his first article for Moody Monthly magazine in 1956, about Bible study methods, and seemed to outline his ongoing writing philosophy. âThis is more of a personal testimony,â he said, âbecause I want to share these blessings with you, rather than write some scholarly essay, which I am sure I could not do anyway.â
At a 1957 YFC convention in Winona Lake, Indiana, Wiersbe preached a sermon that was broadcast live over WMBI, his first connection to Moody Radio. âI wish every preacher could have at least six monthsâ experience as a radio preacher,â he said later (because they would preach shorter).
While working with Youth for Christ, Wiersbe got a call from Pete Gunther at Moody Publishers, asking about possible book projects. First came Byways of Blessing (1961), an adult devotional; then two more books in 1962, A Guidebook for Teens and Teens Triumphant. He would eventually publish 14 titles with Moody, including William Culbertson: A Man of God (1974), Live Like a King (1976), The Annotated Pilgrimâs Progress (1980), and Ministering to the Mourning (2006), written with his son, David Wiersbe.
In 1961, D. B. Eastep invited Wiersbe to join the staff of Calvary Baptist Church in Covington, Kentucky. forming a succession plan that was hastened by Eastepâs sudden death in 1962. Warren and Betty Wiersbe remained at the church for 10 years, until they were surprised by a phone call from The Moody Church. The pastor, Dr. George Sweeting, had just resigned to become president of Moody Bible Institute. Would Wiersbe fill the pulpit, and pray about becoming a candidate?
He was already well known to the Chicago churchâand to the MBI community. He continued to write for Moody Monthly and had just started a new column, âInsights for the Pastor.â The monthly feature continued to run during the years Wiersbe served at The Moody Church. Wiersbe would become one of the magazineâs most prolific writersâ200 articles during a 40-year span. Meanwhile he also started work on the BE series of exegetical commentaries, books that soon found a place on the shelf of every evangelical pastor.
His ministry to pastors continued as he spoke at Moody Founderâs Week, Pastorsâ Conference, and numerous campus events. He also inherited George Sweetingâs role as host of the popular Songs in the Night radio broadcast, produced by Moody Radioâs Bob Neff and distributed on Moodyâs growing network of radio stations.
Later in life he would move to Lincoln, Nebraska, where he served as host of the Back to the Bible radio broadcast. He also taught courses on preaching at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary. He kept writing, eventually publishing more than 150 books and losing track of how many (âI canât remember them all, and I didnât save copies of everything,â he said.)
Throughout his ministry, Warren Wiersbe described himself as a bridge builder, a reference to his homiletical method of moving âfrom the world of the Bible to the world of today so that we could get to the other side of glory in Jesus.â As explained by his grandson, Dan Jacobson, âHis preferred tools were words, his blueprints were the Scriptures, and his workspace was a self-assembled library.â
Several of Wiersbeâs extended family are Moody alums, including a son, David Wiersbe â76; grandson Dan Jacobsen â09 and his wife, Kristin (Shirk) Jacobsen â09; and great-nephew Ryan Smith, a current student.
During his long ministry and writing career, Warren Wiersbe covered pretty much every topic, including the inevitability of death. These words from Ministering to the Mourning offer a fitting tribute to his own ministry:
We who are in Christ know that if He returns before our time comes to die, we shall be privileged to follow Him home. Godâs people are always encouraged by that blessed hope. Yet we must still live each day soberly, realizing that we are mortal and that death may come to us at any time. We pray, âTeach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdomâ (Psalm 90:12).
Fasting for Beginners
Chances are you are among the massive majority of Christians who rarely or never fast. Itâs not because we havenât read our Bibles or sat under faithful preaching or heard about the power of fasting, or even that we donât genuinely want to do it. We just never actually get around to putting down the fork. Part of it may be that we live in a society in which food is so ubiquitous that we eat not only when we donât need to, but sometimes even when we donât want to. We eat to share a meal with others, to build or grow relationships (good reasons), or just as a distraction from responsibility. And of course, there are our own cravings and aches for comfort that keep us from the discomfort of fasting. Not So Fast Fasting is voluntarily going without food â or any other regularly enjoyed, good gift from God â for the sake of some spiritual purpose. It is markedly counter-cultural in our consumerist society, like abstaining from sex until marriage. If we are to learn the lost art of fasting and enjoy its fruit, it will not come with our ear to the ground of society, but with Bibles open. Then, the concern will not be whether we fast, but when. Jesus assumes his followers will fast, and even promises it will happen. He doesnât say âif,â but âwhen you fastâ (Matthew 6:16). And he doesnât say his followers might fast, but âthey willâ (Matthew 9:15). âFasting is markedly counter-cultural in our consumerist society, like abstaining from sex until marriage.â We fast in this life because we believe in the life to come. We donât have to get it all here and now, because we have a promise that we will have it all in the coming age. We fast from what we can see and taste, because we have tasted and seen the goodness of the invisible and infinite God â and are desperately hungry for more of him. Radical, Temporary Measure Fasting is for this world, for stretching our hearts to get fresh air beyond the pain and trouble around us. And it is for the battle against the sin and weakness inside us. We express our discontent with our sinful selves and our longing for more of Christ. When Jesus returns, fasting will be done. Itâs a temporary measure, for this life and age, to enrich our joy in Jesus and prepare our hearts for the next â for seeing him face to face. When he returns, he will not call a fast, but throw a feast; then all holy abstinence will have served its glorious purpose and be seen by all for the stunning gift it was. Until then, we will fast. How to Start Fasting Fasting is hard. It sounds much easier in concept than it proves to be in practice. It can be surprising how on-edge we feel when we miss a meal. Many an idealistic new fast-er has decided to miss a meal and only found our belly drove us to make up for it long before the next mealtime came. Fasting sounds so simple, and yet the world, our flesh, and the devil conspire to introduce all sorts of complications that keep it from happening. In view of helping you start down the slow path to good fasting, here are six simple pieces of advice. These suggestions might seem pedantic, but the hope is that such basic counsel can serve those who are new at fasting or have never seriously tried it. 1. Start small. Donât go from no fasting to attempting a weeklong. Start with one meal; maybe fast one meal a week for several weeks. Then try two meals, and work your way up to a daylong fast. Perhaps eventually try a two-day juice fast. A juice fast means abstaining from all food and beverage, except for juice and water. Allowing yourself juice provides nutrients and sugar for the body to keep you operating, while also still feeling the effects from going without solid food. Itâs not recommended that you abstain from water during a fast of any length. 2. Plan what youâll do instead of eating. Fasting isnât merely an act of self-deprivation, but a spiritual discipline for seeking more of Godâs fullness. Which means we should have a plan for what positive pursuit to undertake in the time it normally takes to eat. We spend a good portion of our day with food in front of us. One significant part of fasting is the time it creates for prayer and meditation on Godâs word or some act of love for others. Before diving headlong into a fast, craft a simple plan. Connect it to your purpose for the fast. Each fast should have a specific spiritual purpose. Identify what that is and design a focus to replace the time you would have spent eating. Without a purpose and plan, itâs not Christian fasting; itâs just going hungry. 3. Consider how it will affect others. Fasting is no license to be unloving. It would be sad to lack concern and care for others around us because of this expression of heightened focus on God. Love for God and for neighbor go together. Good fasting mingles horizontal concern with the vertical. If anything, others should even feel more loved and cared for when weâre fasting. So as you plan your fast, consider how it will affect others. If you have regular lunches with colleagues or dinners with family or roommates, assess how your abstaining will affect them, and let them know ahead of time, instead of just being a no-show, or springing it on them in the moment that you will not be eating. Also, consider this backdoor inspiration for fasting: If you make a daily or weekly practice of eating with a particular group of friends or family, and those plans are interrupted by someoneâs travel or vacation or atypical circumstances, consider that as an opportunity to fast, rather than eating alone. 4. Try different kinds of fasting. The typical form of fasting is personal, private, and partial, but we find a variety of forms in the Bible: personal and communal, private and public, congregational and national, regular and occasional, absolute and partial. In particular, consider fasting together with your family, small group, or church. Do you share together in some special need for Godâs wisdom and guidance? Is there an unusual difficulty in the church, or society, for which you need Godâs intervention? Do you want to keep the second coming of Christ in view? Plead with special earnestness for Godâs help by linking arms with other believers to fast together. 5. Fast from something other than food. Fasting from food is not necessarily for everyone. Some health conditions keep even the most devout from the traditional course. However, fasting is not limited to abstaining from food. As Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, âFasting should really be made to include abstinence from anything which is legitimate in and of itself for the sake of some special spiritual purpose.â If the better part of wisdom for you, in your health condition, is not to go without food, consider fasting from television, computer, social media, or some other regular enjoyment that would bend your heart toward greater enjoyment of Jesus. Paul even talks about married couples fasting from sex âfor a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayerâ (1 Corinthians 7:5). 6. Donât think of white elephants. âWithout a purpose and plan, itâs not Christian fasting; itâs just going hungry.â When your empty stomach starts to growl and begins sending your brain every âfeed meâ signal it can, donât be content to let your mind dwell on the fact that you havenât eaten. If you make it through with an iron will that says no to your stomach, but doesnât turn your mindâs eye elsewhere, it says more about your love for food than your love for God. Christian fasting turns its attention to Jesus or some great cause of his in the world. Christian fasting seeks to take the pains of hunger and transpose them into the key of some eternal anthem, whether itâs fighting against some sin, or pleading for someoneâs salvation, or for the cause of the unborn, or longing for a greater taste of Jesus. Article by David Mathis Executive Editor, desiringGod.org
