Life Lifters | Lakeshore Community Church

Oct 25 8:27 AM

Finding the Missing Peace

Oct 25 8:27 AM

Monday, October 25, 2021

So today, I want to talk to you about finding your missing peace. Peace never comes from being in the right environment alone. Peace never comes through you trying to manufacture it.

Monday, October 25, 2021

Galatians 5:22c

We have been talking about how to live with an attitude, a biblical attitude. The way you live with a biblical attitude is you live with nine different attitudes which are expressed in the nine fruit of the Holy Spirit, provided for us in Galatians 5:22-23. Living with an attitude is choosing to live for the Holy Spirit, not for your old person. That's the nuclear war that we face every day of our lives - are we going to live for our new life in the Holy Spirit? Or are we going to live our whole life for ourself? The way we know that is when we live out the nine fruit of the Spirit.

So far, we talked about the first two fruit of the Spirit, love and joy. Today, I want to talk to you about the third fruit of the Spirit, and that's found in Galatians 5:22c, "The fruit of the Spirit is... peace." So today, I want to talk to you about finding your missing peace. Peace never comes from being in the right environment alone. Peace never comes through you trying to manufacture it. Peace never comes from anybody but God. In fact, when the Bible says a church has unity, the Bible never says the church should make unity. The Bible says the church should keep unity. It says in Ephesians 4:3, "Keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace." The bond of peace is also from God. Peace is a gift of God. Jesus said in John 14:27, "I am leaving you with a gift - peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give isn't fragile, like the world gives. So don't be troubled or afraid." The world's peace is, "Yes, congratulations! These two nations at war have signed a peace treaty!" And how long does that last? Not very long. God's peace isn't like that. He gives you the peace that will protect your life. One of the classic passages is in Philippians 4:6-7 where the Apostle Paul says, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, through prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, give your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus." You'll never understand the peace of God, and you don't have to. It will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus, it will protect you. That's the kind of peace God gives.

A lot of people are looking for peace in so many ways. They're looking for peace in yoga, getting in touch with their inner chi, and all this stuff. I know some people who do yoga, and I just humbly suggest to you that if you're doing the exercise part, okay, but anything beyond that is Eastern religion. Be very, very careful. You're never going to find peace in that, you're not going to find peace in a pill, you're not going to find peace in a relationship. That is, unless that relationship is with God through Jesus Christ. You'll never find your missing peace until it's in Jesus Christ. Have you ever put together a puzzle. And you're saying, "Where's this last piece? Where did it go?" And then you find it. "There it is! It was in the couch. The dog put it in the couch, it's in the cushion. Or, there it is, it's in the box. Or, there it is under the tablecloth, etc." So, you find that missing piece. It feels so good, doesn't it, to have put that whole thing together? Jesus Christ is your missing peace. If you can't find peace in your life, then you need to find Jesus Christ because he is, as the Bible calls him, the Prince of Peace. What does that mean? He is the peace-iest, peace provider you've ever heard of. Jesus Christ offers you a peace that you'll never find anywhere else.

So if you're a Christian, turn to Jesus Christ and pray through Philippians 4:6-7. I cited that earlier. Read it, read it to God, read it phrase by phrase and offer a prayer to God, saying, "give me this piece." If you've never committed your life to Jesus Christ, say, "Jesus Christ, I need you in my life. You're God, I'm a sinner. You died on the cross, you rose again. I believe that and I receive it by faith alone in my life." Then, you'll experience that peace. Father, I pray for all the people listening. I'm not sure what trouble or things are going on in their life, but I pray that you will give them a piece that only you can provide. Fill their heart with the missing peace they long for. But only do it through your Son, Jesus Christ, because he's the only one who can provide it. Help us all live not only with a peace inside, but live at peace with other people as far as it depends on us. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.

By Pastor Vince DiPaola

Jan 22 11:50 PM

Finding Hope in a Chaotic World | Part 5 | Finding God's Peace in Prayer

Jan 22 11:50 PM

Friday, January 22, 2021

Good morning, everybody. It's Friday, the end of the week and this is our final Life Lifter for this week. We hope you guys are enjoying these videos and continue to get a lift in your day and a start off on the right foot.

Friday, January 22, 2021

Philippians 4:4-7

Well, this whole week we've been talking about the fruit of the Spirit and staying grounded in our faith during difficult times. Today, I think one of the most comforting parts of that fruit of the Spirit is when we have the peace of God in our lives. There's nothing else like having God's peace. It's indescribable and there's a section of scripture in Philippians 4, starting with verse four, where the apostle Paul wrote this: "Rejoice in the Lord, always. I will say it again, rejoice." He repeats it for emphasis, the importance of rejoicing in the Lord. He said, "Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything".

Anxious is another word for fear and for stress. Don't be stressed out, don't be fearful, right? We know that fear is not from God. 2 Timothy 1:7 tells us that God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. So if God didn't give us a spirit of fear, who did? Well, our enemy Satan did. So Paul is telling us here, do not be anxious about anything. Don't be fearful about anything. But in everything, by prayer, and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Paul is telling us when we're feeling anxious, we should pray. I heard a great phrase a few weeks back, it said anxiety is your body's way of telling you it's time to pray. That's exactly what Paul is telling us here. We need to bring our requests before God. He uses the word petition. I think of petition like a list of items. God wants to hear your prayers. He wants to hear what's on your mind. He wants to hear the things that are concerning to you and that are causing you to be anxious. Bring them before God with thanksgiving in your heart. That's what God wants us to do.

Paul then he goes on to say, "and the peace of God." So when you do all this, when you're anxious, and you come to God in prayer, and you come to him with a heart filled with thanksgiving, this is what the result is going to be... "and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding." I don't care how smart you are, the peace of God goes beyond our finite minds. It is indescribable. That peace will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. Let that sink in—the peace of God will guard your heart. It'll guard your mind. It'll guard your passions and the things that you love. It will guide you in life. It will allow you to think clearly because it covers your mind. When you're anxious and stressed out and you can't think straight, the peace of God will allow you to think clearly. The Bible says we can have the mind of Christ and I believe that's what happens when we let the peace of God guard our hearts and our minds. S

So maybe you're feeling anxious with what's going on in our world today, or maybe you've lost hope. Maybe you're just tired or you feel like you're in a drought. It's been a season of just bad news and more bad news piled on top of that. And it's been a drought where there's no good news. I want you to come before God. I want you to present your anxious feelings to him and let his peace operate in your life. There is no better feeling than to be in the peace of God. Thanks for joining us today Life Lifters. We hope these videos were helpful for you this week. Be sure to join us again next week and don't forget to like and share these videos. Have a great day go and make a great day.

By Frank De Luccio

Jan 21 2:38 PM

Finding Hope in a Chaotic World | Part 4 | Seeking God's Truth

Jan 21 2:38 PM

Thursday, January 21, 2021

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By Frank De Luccio

Jan 20 2:29 PM

Finding Hope in a Chaotic World | Part 3 | Not of this World

Jan 20 2:29 PM

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

Welcome back to Life Lifters! We've been talking about some of the chaos and difficulties in our world and I just want to give us a little perspective today. So, I live in the town of...

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

Philippians 3:20; John 14:1-6

Welcome back to Life Lifters! We've been talking about some of the chaos and difficulties in our world and I just want to give us a little perspective today. So, I live in the town of Greece, so I am a citizen of the town of Greece. Greece is in the county of Monroe, so you could say that I am a citizen of Monroe County. We could take that further and say Monroe County is one of many counties in New York State and, therefore, I am a citizen of New York State. Even further, New York is one of 50 states in the United States so, therefore, I am a citizen of the United States. But if I stopped there by saying I'm a citizen of the United States, I would really be selling myself short because there is an even grander vision than that; I could say that I am a citizen of Heaven. If you are a follower of Jesus, you can say the same thing! So, the encouragement I want to give you today is that we are not merely of this world, but we are in this world. The bigger picture is that our ultimate citizenship is in Heaven. The things that we do here on Earth should be the things that prepare us to be in our final home, which is in Heaven.

The apostle Paul tells us in Philippians 3:20, "our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies, so that they will be like his glorious body." You see, we are citizens of Heaven because we are Christians. As followers of Jesus, we've been adopted into the family of God, therefore, we are heirs and our citizenship is not merely here in Greece, or Monroe County, or New York or the United States; our citizenship is in Heaven.

Jesus encouraged us with His words in John 14: "Do not let your heart be troubled." Let's stop there. All the stuff that's going on in our world, "do not let your heart be troubled." This is not our final place. Yes, we must live here. Yes, we're here today. Let's make the most and the best of today, but Jesus is telling us "do not let your heart be troubled", and here's why. He goes on to say, "trust in God, trust also in me. In my father's house are many rooms. If it were not so I would have told you, I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me. That you also may be where I am." Think about that. Jesus left Earth, He died on the cross for our sins, rose from the dead 3 days later, was on earth for a little while, and then he went back to the Father in Heaven to prepare a place for you!

I take great comfort in that. Jesus has been with the Father for about 2000 years. Can you imagine what kind of place He is preparing for you? The Bible gives us a glimpse into Heaven, but it is going to be so much more than words can describe. So when we think about what's going on in our world, I want you to remember you are not just merely a citizen here of this world. You are a citizen of Heaven.

There comes a time when God is going to come for you and bring you to Heaven where there's no more tears, no more crying, no more pain or sorrows or death. But it's a place that has been described as paradise, a place where we will be with the Lord forever, for eternity. I hope you find great comfort in that today. See you tomorrow.

By Frank De Luccio

Jan 19 2:11 PM

Finding Hope in a Chaotic World | Part 2 | Our Response to Sorrow

Jan 19 2:11 PM

Tuesday, January 19, 2021

Lamentations 3:21-24; Jeremiah 17:7-8

Welcome back to Life Lifters! Yesterday we were talking about the chaos and the turmoil that's been happening in our country and around the world. So let me ask you a question... are you getting tired of this? Are you getting weary? Are you beginning to lose hope with the constant barrage of bad news that we face? Well, if the answer is yes, you are not alone. A lot of people are feeling the same way. Even I have gotten tired of this new way of living. But we have to carry on and we have to find hope.

In the Bible there is an Old Testament prophet named Jeremiah. His nickname was the 'weeping prophet' because Jeremiah was living in the city of Jerusalem in a time when God was about to do something to the nation of Israel because of their their poor behavior and sinful ways. God was about to have the nation of Babylon attack Jerusalem and take the people of Jerusalem into captivity and exile back in Babylon and destroy the city of Jerusalem. God was speaking to Jeremiah, telling him to have the people repent and turn their ways back to God. It was not a popular message. Jeremiah caught a lot of flack from people for this. He was afflicted, abused and persecuted.

In all of this, we see Jeremiah write a book called Lamentations. If you think about the word 'lament', it means sorrows. So this is a book that God gave us, called sorrows. A book of sorrows. God understands that we are going through a period of sorrows ourselves right now. In Lamentations 3:18, Jeremiah says this: "So I say, my splendor is gone, and all that I had hoped from the Lord, I remember my affliction, and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall, I will remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this, I call to mind, and therefore, I have hope. Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed. For his compassions never fail. They are new, every morning. Great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, the Lord is my portion. Therefore, I will wait for him. The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to those who seek Him."

We see from Jeremiah, even through all his problems and afflictions, that he recognizes it's a bitter time and that he's wandered from God. He knows he should be close to God, but he's wandered from Him. When we wander from God, that's when we lose our perspective. That's when we begin to lose hope. Jeremiah tells us it's like bitterness. It's like gall, the bile that our liver produces—doesn't that just sound disgusting?

Maybe you're feeling the same way today. Jeremiah goes on to say that even though his soul is downcast and even though he's sorrowful, he calls to mind the Lord and the hope that he has in the Him. Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed. We are not going to be destroyed by this. God is going to see us through this and He's going to preserve us. His mercies are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness God! That's where we get the the great hymn from, "Great is Thy Faithfulness", right from this passage right here. I want to encourage you today to put your hope in God. Put your hope in Him and seek your hope through God alone.

As we wrap up here today, I want to flip back to a passage in the book of Jeremiah, chapter 17, where it says this: "but Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree that is planted by the waters, that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when the heat comes, its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought, and never fails to bear fruit."

We are in a year of drought in many ways, so I want to encourage you to send out your roots deeper into God. Draw closer to God through all of this. Don't back off. Don't retreat. Instead, draw closer to God through all of this because he is the one that is going to provide the hope and refreshment, just like the tree gets its refreshment from the river. We may be in a year of drought like Jeremiah was, but I love that last part of the verse about the tree that puts its hope God. It will never fail to bear fruit—referring to the fruit that we spoke about yesterday from Galatians 5:22, the fruit of the Spirit.

So I want to encourage you today: seek God, put your hope in Him and He will be faithful. Go ahead and share this devotional with your family or friends if it was encouraging for you today. We'll see you tomorrow.

By Frank De Luccio

Jan 18 1:48 PM

Finding Hope in a Chaotic World | Part 1 | Our Response to Chaos

Jan 18 1:48 PM

Monday, January 18, 2021

Galatians 5:22

Welcome to another week of Life Lifters. We hope this series is encouraging for you and that it really gives your day a 'lift' and a great start to the morning.

This week I want to talk to you about some of the chaos and difficulties that we've been seeing in our nation for almost a year now—the coronavirus, the shutdowns, people getting sick and losing their lives, quarantining over the summer. We really saw how divided our nation is over racial and political issues, too. We went through a difficult election cycle this year and it's still continuing with the most recent riots down in Washington, D.C.

So while there's a lot of chaos and strife going on in our nation, the truth is that so many of these things are out of our control. We can't control what happens, but there is one thing that we can control amidst the chaos, and that is how we respond to it. I want to share with you a passage that the apostle Paul wrote in the book of Galatians. He talks about something called 'the fruit of the Spirit'. If you look at Galatians 5 as a whole, the apostle Paul is comparing and contrasting a life that is living in a way that follows the Holy Spirit and one that is living after the sinful nature. When he talks about the life that lives after the Spirit, he talks about something called the fruit of the Spirit. In Galatians 5:22 it says, "but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control". These are not nine different pieces of fruit—all of these characteristics make up the fruit of the Spirit. It's one fruit, and this is the fruit that should be present in our lives when we call ourselves Christians.

If you think about how a tree works or how a plant works to produce fruit, there's typically a vine—and Jesus, in fact calls himself the vine—and then there's a branch that comes off of the vine. Jesus says that we are the branches and in order for the branches to produce fruit, they have to remain connected to the vine. That's living a life that follows after the Spirit. So Paul is telling us that when we are connected into that vine, the fruit that we're going to produce has the characteristics of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.

So let me ask you, are you seeing these things play out in your life? As you think about the chaos that's going on, are we acting in love with the people around us? People who may have different opinions than us? Is there joy in our lives, or are we miserable? Is there peace in our lives, or is it full of strife and stress? Are we patient with people, or do we just cut them off and start talking on top of them? Are we being kind? That's a tough one, especially for the people that might live in your own household... oftentimes, we're not really kind to those people.

So are we being kind? Are we being faithful to our Lord? Are we being faithful to our commitments to people? Are we acting in ways that are good? Are we exhibiting self-control in our lives? These are the things that Paul is is talking about. These are the things that Paul is saying, as Christians, we should be seeing in our lives. So I want to encourage you today to examine yourself. Look at Galatians 5:22. Are you seeing these pieces of the fruit of the Spirit play out in your life and, if you're not, let me challenge you. You need to go back to the vine and you need to go back to Jesus. Are you spending time in His Word? Are you praying? Are you worshiping? Are you taking the time to listen for the voice of God in your life to lead you and guide you?So take some time today and think about that. Pray and ask God, "where do I need to go deeper so that I can see more of this fruit in my life?"

By Frank De Luccio

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