The Thursday Update

OCTOBER 23, 2025

Lakeshore Friends,

Last Sunday, we kicked off a new series, “Heaven, Hell, And Everything In Between” by looking at the invisible battle we all face. As Ephesians 6:12 tells us, our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the spiritual forces of evil. After we understand the schemes of Satan, we have to embrace God’s battle plan for victory. The only way to do that is to rely on Christ's victory on the cross and then put on the full armor of God as described in Ephesians 6:13-18. Ephesians 6:11 calls us to, “Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil.”

As promised, I want to explain the full armor of God pictured below and how we can do so by explaining each piece of the armor.

(Image courtesy of Concord Church of Christ, concordchurchofchrist.org)

Notice that the entire body of the Christian can be protected by the armor of God. It all starts at the top with the helmet of salvation. Our head is the command-and-control center of our bodies so everything must begin there. It makes sense, then, that our spiritual life begins by embracing salvation through faith alone in Jesus alone. Everything starts with the helmet of salvation.

The breast is where our vital organs reside and if they aren’t protected, we are very vulnerable to an easy attack that can lead to injury and death. When we protect it with the breastplate of righteousness, we live with a moral “rightness” that matches the fact that God declares every forgiven Christian righteous in God’s eyes. Since God declares us righteous when we become Christians, we simply live righteously in the power given to us by God’s Spirit. The degree that we do live righteously this way, we have a solid breastplate of righteousness.

The belt of truth is the foundation of our armor, the core of our being that connects our legs and our torso. It can also hold various items and weapons needed. The Bible is our source of truth and is the core of our life. To the degree that we know and live out biblical truth, we have a strong belt that holds us all together at the core.

The shield of faith is essential to defending against the flaming arrows that come at us. It can be moved around to defend against attacks from all places that come at us in all different ways. Faith is how we defeat the fiery darts and arrows of doubt, diversions, deception and discouragement that Satan fires at us all the time.

The feet fitted with shoes are needed to move in battle. They help us go where we can to avoid trouble and attack. The gospel is the protection we need to stand against the attacks we face. When we embrace the gospel (which means Good News) and live out the gospel in our lives, we can move through life safe and secure. After all, Romans 1:16-17 says that the gospel is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe.

All of these pieces of the armor of God are defensive. The final piece is the only offensive piece of equipment, the sword of the Spirit. Here we use the Bible to slay our enemies. How? Well, consider Jesus and how He responded to Satan’s three temptations in Matthew 4. Every time, the first words He spoke in response to Satan’s temptations were, “It is written” followed by the right quotation of Scripture for the situation. We need to do the same. Tempted? Remember that God does not tempt any person but provides a way of escape (1 Corinthians 10:13). Tired? Remember to come to Jesus and find your rest (Matthew 11:28-30). Troubled? God is our refuge and a very present help in times of need (Psalm 46:1).

What about the back of the warrior? How is that protected? God always has our back!

So make sure to put on the full armor of God in your life consistently. As always, being at church will always help because we’re always better together.

Warmly,

Vince
Senior Pastor

OCTOBER 16, 2025

Lakeshore Friends,

On Monday, after more than two years of Hamas captivity, the twenty living hostages held under barbaric conditions were welcomed home by Israel. Thanks to the efforts of President Trump and others, they were turned over as part of a potential peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians. When considering the approximately 1,200 people killed by Hamas and the 251 people kidnapped (with many of them being murdered while held hostage), you would think that people everywhere would celebrate this long-awaited victory.

Sadly, you would think wrong.

It is amazing how muted the celebration was around the world. Protestors still protested, “From the river to the sea” which is their expressed desire to see Israel wiped off the face of the earth. Way too many news agencies gave such passing and faint praise for it all as well. Many politicians on the left said very little about how great this day was. The world seemed to accept it with a collective yawn.

What is clear to me in all of this is that there is a lot of hate in our world that comes from more than just those who are terrorists. According to The New York Times polling, shortly after the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, 47% of Americans sided with Israel while 20% sided with Hamas. That in and of itself makes no sense to me, but it only gets worse. Today, 34% side with Israel and 35% side with Hamas, with 31% being unsure. Slightly more people in our nation back a group recognized world-wide as a terrorist group that had just killed nearly 1,400 innocent people over a nation that defended itself like America did after 9/11. And the numbers are stronger in support of Hamas among younger Americans thanks to so much cultural indoctrination. This is both sad and baffling.

Why is that the case? I think there are two main reasons.

The first reason is the legacy media has clearly provided slanted coverage in favor of Hamas over Israel. They accepted the narrative and number of casualties that Hamas provided them, despite it being virtually impossible to be as high as they reported per experts in this field. They rarely, if ever, reported that Hamas used civilians as human shields for their terrorism plots. They rarely, if ever, reported how they blocked the aid sent into Gaza by Isarel and other nations, in effect starving their own people. The New York Times even erroneously posted a picture of a child who was barely skin and bones claiming that he was in this condition because of the starvation and food not entering Gaza, when in reality it was a rare medical condition. The lies were so frequent that it’s hard for any reasonably minded person to not think this was intentional and by design due to their biased reporting.

But the second reason is even more significant: The rise of antisemitism. People have an unexplainable hatred for Jews and Israel. It’s prevalent on college campuses, in politics, and around the world. Even though Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, it is the country so many people love to hate. In fact, the Arab and Muslim nations surrounding Israel are 643 times the size of tiny Israel. But just like the little child who only wants to play with the one toy it cannot have, people do not even want Israel to have their present land, the land that was given to them by God in the covenant promised to Abraham (Genesis 12, 15), by military victories through King David, and by the British and post-World War II mandates in May 1948.

Where does antisemitism come from? Ultimately, it comes from the evil one. Satan hates God and hates His covenant people. We have seen this throughout world history, at the birth of Jesus, during World War II, and we see it in Revelation 12 when Satan will take one last stab at wiping Israel off the face of the earth. This is ultimately a spiritual battle above anything else.

I hope you will do what the Bible says to do with respect to Israel in Psalm 122:6-9:

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! “May they be secure who love you! Peace be within your walls and security within your towers!” For my brothers and companions' sake I will say, “Peace be within you!” For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.

And I hope you will be here on Sunday when we kick off a new series called, “Heaven, Hell, And Everything In Between” and look at how the “Invisible Battle” that we all face works.

Vince
Senior Pastor

OCTOBER 9, 2025

Lakeshore Friends,

The Bible is often quoted and used as an expression by people in our culture. Many times they have no idea that it comes from the Bible, but use it anyways. One of them is this one: “The truth will set you free.”

This phrase came from Jesus in John 8:32. The words Jesus spoke right before this statement are super important to understand its full meaning in context. In John 8:31-32, Jesus said: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

So before the truth sets us free, we have to know the truth. And it’s only when we hold to Jesus’s teaching that we can know the truth. Then, after knowing the truth and holding on to it as we live our daily lives, we can then be set free…. truly free!

So many people in our world know so little truth because they know so little about the Bible. That is frightening, but it’s no big surprise that our world is in such a moral mess. Isaiah the prophet’s words are being fulfilled right before our eyes: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.” (Isaiah 5:20-21, NIV). Since I believe we’re living in the last days, this is what we should expect because the world is on a steep decline in the ability to discern truth from error.

What concerns me more deeply is that people who profess to be Christians know so little truth because they know so little about the Bible. It’s no wonder that they are struggling so much and not living the “set free” life.

If you doubt that, consider these two statistics:

1. 51% of church attenders do not believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven (despite what Jesus claimed in John 14:6).

2. 65% of church attenders believe that Satan is not a literal person (and that’s just how he prefers it, 2 Corinthians 11:14).

Wow!!!

Lakeshore exists to help people know God’s truth, hold on to it, and then be set free by it. Set free from all kinds of bondage, all kinds of addictions, all kinds of depression, all kinds of discouragement, all kinds of unforgiveness, all kinds of meaninglessness, all kinds of lies, and all kinds sin. But to be set free by the truth, we have to know the truth.

Midweek Bible Study is for anyone who wants to know the truth and better understand it in the Bible, God’s only objective source of truth. It kicks off today, October 9, with a series called, What They Really Believe: Understanding Cults And World Religions. We’ll study what these groups believe and then see what God’s truth in the Bible says about them. In the process, we’ll all go deeper in our theology and grow deeper in our faith and then know the truth that sets us free.

Regardless, I hope that you will be someone who studies the Bible to learn God’s truth, and not just someone who reads it. As always, we’re here to help you do it better.

Vince
Senior Pastor