My Last Book

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:19-21)

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    I got the last royalties check for my last book on February 1, 2014: $3.89.

    Covering the sales of ten books between 9/1/13-12/31/13, that won't even buy a half quart of synthetic oil for my steel pony.

    Here's why it's my last royalties check: "This letter serves as your notice of contract termination...The company may still exist in a legal sense..."

    In other words, my publisher just went outta business; and because my royalties won't even buy a..., I don't even have the reserves to buy out what's left of my last book in my publisher's inventory.

    Whoa.

    Another publisher can pick it up.

    Why?

    You can now get it on www.amazon.com for the price of my last royalties check.

    Uh, I guess that also means my publisher won't be publishing Scratching the Surface with the Occasionally Curious, Just Converted, and Recently Revived.

    Duh.

    Sooooooo I guess my last book will be my last book because He'll have to inspire another publisher to pick up my last book without me hawking it to 'em because my last book may be my last book and sometimes ya just gotta deal with your last book maybe being your last book.

    Or something like that.

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    Or maybe it's His way of telling me that my last book is my last book and it's time to stop thinking about my last book.

    Or maybe it's His way of reinforcing what I learned while being born again again with Eugene and friends back in October 2011: stop wasting time on books about the book and spend more time in the book itself as the best way to know and love Him in gratitude for what He's made available to us in time and after time as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

    I mean it's right there in the back of the book (KJV back then) that I got from Mrs. Peers during youth fellowship on 5/18/64 in an article on "How to Study the Bible" by Moody: "Here let me say that the key to the whole Bible is Jesus Christ."

    More from Moody: "George Muller wrote that he had read the Bible through a hundred times in order, and every time with increasing joy.  Whenever he started afresh it seemed like a new book to him."

    I guess I'm not the only one who has ever felt like she's/he's just scratching the surface of my relationship with Him by diving into the book instead of getting more and more and more confused by books about the book.

    More from Moody: "Joseph Parker recently said that he had preached twenty-five volumes of sermons upon the Bible, and that when he had written the very last word, his feeling was that he had not begun it yet!"

    I guess I'm not the only one who has ever felt like she's/he's just scratching the surface of my relationship with Him by diving into the book instead of getting more and more and more confused by books about the book.

    More from Moody: "I thank God there is in it a height I have never been able to reach, a depth I have never been able to fathom, a length and breadth I know nothing about.  It makes the book all the more fascinating and proves it divine."

    I guess I'm not the only one who has ever felt like...

    I've always known that.

    The hyper-Calvinists who are more Calvinistic than Calvin if ya know what I mean may appreciate me saying I've always known that even if I've not been able to articulate/incarnate it.

    Maybe that's why I've always liked the Gideons so much.

    They don't confuse people by handing out books about the book.

    They just give 'em the book; and let Him let 'em come to terms with Him by the book.

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    My friend Gavin, one of the most tenderhearted pastors that I've ever met who really loves Jesus and tries to love Jesus by loving like Jesus, was in a worship service that I was kinda leading not too long ago.

    Actually, it wasn't that long after I'd been born again again.

    Anyway, as I was giving the message and going on and on and on about rediscovering joy through Jesus by the book, I saw Gavin and exclaimed, "How did we miss that, brother?"

    I was talking about Jesus' disdain for professional clergy and fenced tables and stupid traditions elevated to the commandments of God and ideology masquerading as theology and people who hate each other in a Christian kinda way and people who think they're going to heaven without even...who miss the point about it/this/whatever being all about a personal relationship with Jesus than a religion about Jesus poisoned by the preceding and plethora of idolatries common to pewsitters, pulpiteers, and everybody else as punctuated by texts like Matthew 15, 23, and...along with those Revelationary churches in John's Apocalypse.

    How did I miss that?

    How did I miss our Lord's simple declarations of love for us and simple instructions on how to love Him back and...?

    How?

    That's easy.

    I was reading too many books about the book than the book itself and books about the book tend to rationalize away or tone/water down or...what He is trying to tell us for our, uh, existential and eternal salvation by the book.

    Notice I said I.

    I'm having a hard enough time trying to figure this out for myself without trying to figure it out for you; but, uh, I think we need to figure it out before...

    One more word before the last word of this edition.

    I'm not suggesting our Lord hasn't/won't blessed/bless us through other books.

    I'm just saying that spending more time in books about the book than the book is stupid; uh, I mean, uh, bad stewadship.

    The book is inspired.

    Look up the Greek.

    I know books about the book can be inspired.

    They can also be indigested.

    Knowing the book is inspired and knowing I'm still just scratching the surface of my relationship with Him through it, it just makes more sense to me to be more into the book than, uh, again, redundantly for emphasis that I didn't get and sometimes still don't, books about the book.

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    With no apologies to my hyper-Calvinist buddies, I also like John Wesley.

    Except for Jesus, I don't know anybody who's got Him completely/categorically correct.

    Besides, he's on His/our side.

    Enough.

    Wesley: "I want to know one thing: the way to heaven.  God Himself has condescended to teach me the way.  He has written it down in a book.  Oh, give me that book!  At any price, give me the book of God!  I have it!  Here is knowledge enough for me!  Let me be homo unius libri!

    I've cleaned out my library.

    I'm cleaning out my head.

    Until I'm filled with Him by the book, I'm staying away from books about the book.

    Life is confusing enough without...

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Blessings and Love!