I’m slowly adding more exercise into my weight loss efforts. Whether it’s walking a couple times a week with my wife or going swimming at our apartment’s pool, it certainly seems to boost my metabolism for a day or two and help in moving the scale in the right direction for me.

I’m not one to use artificial weight loss solutions like apidexin; I prefer to lose my weight the honest way, by smarter eating habits and exercise.

Fortunately right now, it’s summer and it’s easier to exercise. The challenge will come after the temps drop and the snow falls.

Well, I finally delivered my sermon on repentance this past Shabbat, and the response was humbling. At least a half-dozen people came forward after the message for prayer… something that does not happen regularly, so when it does, you know it’s genuine.

While many people thanked me for the message, I must say that anything that happened for people at that level did not come from me; it was clearly a move of God’s Ruach through the words God gave me.

This is no “false humility” on my part; it’s genuinely a response that I did not see coming or anticipate.

I’m not sure what people were repenting of since I’m not in a prayer-consoling position at this point; it could have been anything. Yet whether someone is struggling with substance issues that involve frequenting a bar or a smoke shop, or whether they’re merely holding on to anger or bitterness, it is certainly good to see people willing to submit to the prompting of the Spirit and cast off whatever’s defiling them, so they can be restored to unity with God and see his power made real in their lives once more.

Isn’t that what we all want?

Some people like to waste time on the Internet. Some people like to spend time doing productive things like browsing cheapestautoinsurance.net for the best deal. And some people are on the Internet for all the wrong reasons.

Here are MessianicMusings.com, I like to spend my Internet time researching and writing sermons and commentaries. It’s not a glitzy pursuit. I can’t measure it in concrete terms like a World of Warcraft gamer who can say, “Gee, I’m a level 40 orc fighter” or something.

Spiritual growth is harder to define; sometimes it even sneaks up on you without realizing it. Certainly I’ve been told my many people that I’m “ready” to take the next step and become a Messianic rabbi in my own right.

I’m not yet convinced, because I’m waiting on God for his call, his confirmation, his specific sending.

Until then, I know that the stuff I’m doing to support the call of others is exactly where God wants me. That’s something not everyone can be sure of, so I count myself blessed.

Despite having a mostly-wonderful and long-worked-for vacation, we did have one scary episode up at Webb Lake. This is not unusual, by the way; when I was about ten and we went to Webb Lake and I had a scary episode then, too. But let’s get to that later.

What happened this time was this: it was our second-to-last day at the cabin and for the first time, all three of us went out on the lake in the boat. It was a relatively small boat and it was awkward for all three of us to be fishing. So when we came back to eat, Dad almost decided to stay home. However, I offered him the idea of coming with us but not fishing, so he’d be out in the water but not frustrated by the limited casting room. Dad agreed.

My wife had an instinct it was a bad idea, but uncharacteristically was not very direct about her misgivings. We headed out and went to a crappie hole. It was a weird day, as the wind had shifted and everything that had worked for us earlier in the week wasn’t really working anymore.

Dad, who’s 87 and battling Alzheimer’s with dementia, had a hard time sitting still in the boat and continually shifted around, making the boat unstable. Coming back from the crappie hole, I had my episode of misgivings as well; I thought about suggesting Dad, who was acting tired and restless, get dropped off at the dock. But I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so I also kept silent and we went on a couple drifts across the lake, hoping to snag walleyes or northerns or something.

Andie came within a couple feet of landing a very large bass, but lost it at the last second on an unexpected flip. Finally we decided to head in early as there was very little action, despite that nice close call.

Two bad judgments nearly led to a tragedy. First, I misjudged the speed with which I was approaching the dock; I thought I had slowed sufficiently, but I ended up coming in a bit fast. Then, instead of Andie and I grabbing for the dock while Dad stayed in the middle to balance the boat, Dad leaned over with us to grab at the dock and with all three of us leaning to the left, the boat tipped, dipped and nearly capsized.

Andie got a bruised knee; I nearly got my shoulder pulled out of its socket trying to grab the dock; and Dad got a nice gulp of lake water, but was otherwise unharmed as he ended up sitting in the boat as it came to rest with a lot of water in it.

I had no other pants to wear; Andie and I both ruined relatively new pairs of shoes; and my PSP was so water-damaged, it fell victim to the accident. Fortunately, there were no serious injuries and no loss of life, so the minor property damage to our personal property was as good a result as anyone could expect.

If the boat had gone all the way over, or if I had had a close encounter with the motor after I slipped out of the boat, things could have ended a lot worse. If we hadn’t been in only knee-deep water, there could have been a loss of life.

Considering all factors, the boat should have capsized and come down on us; I had to believe there was a touch of divine intervention in that moment that the worst did not happen. Lake water may not be good for removing wrinkles, but that gulp did convince Dad that his boat-faring days are behind him.

It’s not the first time God has intervened on our behalf at Webb Lake. When I was around ten, I got a fish-hook stuck in my eyelid while trying to fasten a hook to too-low an eyelet on my fishing pole; it was a matter of millimeters that spared me from that fishhook blinding me in that eye for life. Only the L-RD’s mercy explains how both of these episodes didn’t end worse than they did.

Let me set the scene here for you, because while this is not a sermon or a commentary, nor is it a sly mention of the best acne treatments, you may need a little context to understand this post.

Although I am Messianic, I have many friends who are mainstream Christians. I know some of them on chat boards, others I’ve known a long time and still know, in person. I was on a chat board recently when one posting member there vented his spleen on the topic, “Are Christian writers selling God’s Word?”

His post was almost unrelated to the topic, but when I asked for clarification, his basic response was along the lines that Christian writers ought not sell books for money or be paid for their work, but should give it away and “trust God” for their provision.

Sounds convenient and super-spiritual. It also echos something an in-person friend recently said to me about Christian and Messianic music artists… that they should “go play wherever they feel called without charging for it, and trust God for their provision.”

In combination, these comments annoyed me because I know that neither of these people perform their jobs for free. So I wrote a rather long-winded (what’s new, right) response on the chat board and thought I’d share it here for the benefit of my blog audience. I’ll take out the name of the person I’m responding to, to protect his privacy.

Also, keep in mind that for recording artists, the financial aspects are even more dismal. Think about that the next time you bypass iTunes’ $0.99 fee for most songs via illegal downloads, people!

Dear ________,

What’s clear to me from your response is, nothing’s clear. I don’t intend cruelty when I say this, but you really seem to be speaking from a position of being ill-informed on a number of issues.

Writers write for a living, just as those who assemble cars work in car plants for a living, or U.S. Senators tax and spend for a living, or insurance agents sell insurance for a living.

I don’t know what you do for a living, but let’s assume for a moment you… I don’t know… do tax accounting for a living.

How would you feel if someone (like your boss) said you you, “I’m glad you feel called by God to help people with their taxes. Trust God for how to pay your rent, your health care, your utility bills and such, because clearly you’re a man of faith and God will provide. However, don’t ask us for a salary or benefits… God is your provider, not us.”

Ridiculous, right?

Just as ridiculous as saying that writers ought never make a living from writing.

Also, truly uninformed about how most writers… especially writers in the area of faith… build their careers. Almost all writers become writers by jumping at any and every opportunity they can find to write.

Early on, and usually throughout their careers, this means writing things with little or no form of payment in exchange, or writing for pay, but usually not writing something they WANT to write, but instead writing something that someone IS willing to pay them for.

Eventually, very fortunate writers will sometimes get the opportunity to both write WHAT they want to write about AND get paid for it. This usually comes after years, if not decades, of paying dues by writing a lot of stuff for free, or writing a lot of stuff they weren’t interested in, just to get experience.

So once a writer actually gets, say, a book deal, with either a Christian or secular publisher, anything they get paid is, in my book, the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award.

It should also be noted that even the topic-title here is misleading… Christian writers don’t write the Bible… and that’s the only God’s word I know about. Inspirational books, devotionals, biographies, books on prophecy and other biblical themes may be inspired by the Bible, but they are NOT God’s word. Their works are not the equivalent of the Bible in any way, shape or form and any writer who claims so isn’t being forthright or honest with themselves.

Authors of Christian or other faith-based fiction are even less of a fit for this charge; they are crafting made-up stories, and while their fiction may be inspired by the Bible, or the themes may be a reflection of Biblical principals, novels are NOT God’s word in any way, shape or form. And I know of NO writers in the fiction category who claim that!

Next point: authors don’t decide when or where their books are offered for sale. It just don’t happen that way. That is up to the publisher, book distribution channels, book retailers and, in some churches, the church’s resource center.

FICTIONAL ILLUSTRATION: Let’s say Frank Peretti writes a new book. We’ll call it THE DARKNESS RETURNS. Tyndale offers him an advance of $25,000 against royalties for it, let’s say. The royalty rate is set as 10 percent of the cover price. And the book retails for $24.99, let’s say, hardcover.

That means that until THE DARKNESS RETURNS sells 10,000 copies, Frank’s not going to see even one more penny.

Let’s say THE DARKNESS RETURNS flops… It sells about 15,000 copies, but against an initial print run of 50,000 copies, because it’s a sequel to his best-selling pair of books ever and the publisher over-estimated the public’s appetite for a new DARKNESS book 20 years after the last one was published.

So the remaining 35,000 copies get marked down to $9.99 and then $5.00, but only 5,000 more copies sell and the rest get remaindered/recycled.

So that means this, in terms of what Peretti gets paid:

Of the 15,000 copies that sold at full price, Peretti would be due $37,350… but wait… He was already paid a $25,000 advance, so it’s only an additional $12,350 that he gets from that.

Of the extra 5,000 copies, let’s say 3,000 sold at $9.99 and 2,000 at $5.00. Peretti gets 10 percent on those prices, adding another $3,970 to the pot

So, in all, Peretti would receive $25,000 up front, and an additional $16,320 over the shelf-life of the hardcover. That’s $41,320 in total compensation for THE DARKNESS RETURNS.

Because the book tanked, the trade paper rights only add another $10,000, no one picks up the movie or eBook rights and the trade paper never sells well enough to reimburse him beyond the initial $10,000 advance.

So that’s $51,320 total. Sounds like good money, right?

Hold on, though: Peretti takes an average of three years to write a new novel. Sometimes more, but we’ll go with three years for this illustration.

Plus, it’s an average wait-time of 18 months from acceptance of a manuscript to the book hitting store shelves.

The shelf-life of a hardcover is approximately a year, and many publishers delay payment for accounting purposes… sometimes up to a year after the actual sales are made.

So we’re talking about six and a half years from the start of writing a book to the end of its revenue-generating life, in this case.

Now, divide that $51,320 by six-and-a-half years and you get an annual average salary of $7,695. Plus, realize that he’s working for free the first three years while he’s writing it, and only gets about half of his eventual total compensation up-front.

He’ll use that $25,000 to live on while he’s taking another three years to write his next book that hopefully does better, and in the meantime, the other part of his compensation comes in smaller amounts over time… much of it not until 2.5 years later, except maybe the trade paper sum, which might come a year after publication.

To add insult to injury, the poor sales of THE DARKNESS RETURNS probably means his publisher won’t be willing to pay him $25,000 on his next book. (The average book advance in the US is $5,000… there are very few Stephen Kings and Tom Clancys earning seven-figure advances, and virtually none in the Christian market.)

Can you live on an average of $7,695/year? Not many people can, these days. That’s poverty-level.

Now, granted, if you have a successful book, the money can get a whole lot better… but few books sell really well. Most are, at best “mid-list” books that sell 10,000 copies or less.

So to suggest that Christian writers are rolling in money, sullying the Temple of the L-RD by selling God’s word, is just CLEARLY off the mark in just about every way possible.

Most writers, even successful ones, need day-jobs. Some are pastors; some are teachers or college faculty. Or whatever else they can make a living at. Very rare is the full-time writer. And most writers, even successful ones, donate a lot of free writing to various friends, causes, etc.

So the whole thrust of your post just demonstrates a lack of understanding of the reality of a writer’s life.

If you have an issue with books being sold in your church’s resource center, that’s an issue to take to your church; but it’s hardly the writer’s fault. Instead of telling the writer he should work for free, perhaps talk to your church about purchasing these books as resources and giving them away for free; then see how long it takes before your church becomes financially insolvent.

Also, it should be noted that in my illustration above, at least Peretti didn’t have to share in Tyndale’s loss; they overprinted THE DARKNESS RETURNS by 30,000 copies… far more than the 20,000 they sold. For them, even publishing THE DARKNESS RETURNS was probably a net loss… Paper and ink and binding and shipping and marketing all have costs associated with them, remember… They’re even worse off than the writer, and you would pooh-pooh them for selling copies to anyone who orders them, even churches?

As near as I can discern from your post, your real issue is with churches that have a resource center… that’s a church issue, not a writer or even a publisher issue.

Too often, believers today take grace cheaply, using it as an excuse to act just as they did before they knew the yeshua of our God. They’ll attempt to disqualify the reliability of the Bible, the reliability of translations, the accuracy of interpretation or simply ignoring the passages that convict them of their sin – and therefore, their need for Yeshua – simply so they can keep doing what they’ve been doing without ever repenting.

Whether it’s former Christian recording artist Jennifer Knapp trying to call herself a legitimate believer and a lesbian at the same time, or bloggers who talk about God forgiving their sins whether they’ve repented of them or not, a lot of folks apparently believe that the judgments of God don’t apply to them.

It’s time for believers to abandon the self-deception, put on their big-boy and big-girl boots, and realize that the same Yeshua who said, “I tell you the truth, today you shall be with me in Paradise,” also said, “Go and sin no more.” And far more than even that.

Theology is an exciting topic, but one can sometimes overdo it. When invited by someone’s question about the peculiarities of one’s faith, many believers go beyond a simple answer and offer up instead a complex, 30-minute sermon before taking another breath.

While that can be fun, it’s usually not what most people with a simple question are looking for, and if done to the wrong person at the wrong moment, it can quickly drive people away from a new church they are checking out. And if that happens, they won’t return.

So, for example, if someone asks about Sabbath versus Sunday worship, a good response would be one that takes no more than a couple minutes. A poor response would be one that starts off with an explanation of the Council of Nicea, anti-Semitism in the early church, and even credit repair services before finally getting around to saying, “But basically, the point is that we know the Sabbath is on Saturday because the Jewish people worship then and have never changed their day of worship, whereas we can trace the point at which Christianity abandoned the Biblical Sabbath for Sunday worship… and Sunday worship isn’t supported or endorsed by a single Bible verse.”

Better to just use the last couple sentences, I think, and save the listener a lot of pointless showing off of how much one has learned. Give those new to the faith a chance to grow into it, just like you were given.

I haven’t been using any weight loss products in my effort to drop 80 pounds, and I’m proud of that; all I’m doing is calorie-counting, and so far I’ve lost about 20 pounds, meaning I’m 25 percent of the way toward my goal.

However, it’s a bit tough to watch the scale waver on my week to week. I’ve stalled in dropping weight the past several days and have even gained a couple pounds back.

I wish it were a clearer path toward getting back down to about 170-175, but it wasn’t a quick, clear path reaching 252, so why should dropping it be any different, right? Hard work ahead; glad I have Yeshua as, among other things, my weight loss counselor!

Can you believe what some people surf the Web to find? I mean, there’s a site out there with eczema pictures! C’mon, discussing Messianic theology just HAS to be a bit more pleasant, right?

Anyway, in the end I wrote five sermons on the parables of Yeshua; that’s a pretty good basis for a series on the parables. Trouble is, I’m not sure when I’ll get a chance to complete it, unless I just do them without delivering them.

But the truth is, it’s more important for me to pray and seek the L-RD and his direction on my life, right now. Ministry is hard enough when the L-RD is with you and leading you; it’s just about impossible any other way, at least if you want to do it in the right, appropriate and God-pleasing way.

Not all churches or pastoral/rabbinical careers are handled that way… but I want mine to be one that is.

Toward the end of December, I’ll have the privilege of preaching a full-length sermon… Not once, not even twice, but three times. Well, one of the messages will be preached twice … once each in two different locations … but it’s the most responsibility I’ve been given thus far and I’m certainly looking forward to it.

Of course, I have three commentaries to write before that, but I’m almost done with one and well-studied up on another, so it’s not going to be long before I can zero in on the sermons.

I’m contemplating doing a two-part message and then doing a condensed version of it at the second location. But I’m not sure yet. Several ideas have already occurred to me, including Making It Real, a study of Jonah and a couple other ideas. None of those ideas involve Anilox cleaning, but hey, you can’t have everything, right?

But seriously… I’m leaning right now toward Making It Real… a very ripe topic when it comes to living out one’s faith, rather than just professing it.

Tonight, my wife threw me a nice, quiet, somewhat belated birthday celebration. It was just a few close friends, no RV insurance sales people or anything like that.

We went to the excellent kosher deli in Saint Paul, Cecil’s, and I enjoyed their brand-new pastrami and schmeer (cream cheese) sandwich along with some raspberry lemonade. I had hoped to try their pineapple lemonade, but they were out. Oh well, maybe next time.

At any rate, it was mostly men from my Torah study and their wives. It made for a lovely evening and a very thoughtful event planned by my beautiful and talented wife.

I have some Messianic friends who don’t believe in celebrating birthdays because they’re not commanded by the L-RD. But I have a different view.

The feasts of the L-RD are commanded by the L-RD, and they are His special times to spend with us. If God’s relationship to us is to be our model for a healthy marriage, than we need special times between a husband and wife as well. God doesn’t command any of those specifically, but what better time for a husband and wife to celebrate as a marital “appointed time” than celebrating with each other on the day we reach another “new year” of life?

Makes sense to me.