The Thursday Update

JANUARY 26, 2023

Lakeshore Friends—

When I saw the headline, I thought it was clickbait or simply a quote taken out of context.  But it was neither.  I don’t want to single out the individual, so let me just say that a fairly well-known personality died recently.  And just one day before he died, he sent out a Tweet in reference to heaven that said, “I heard the place is overrated…”

Hmmm.

If he really meant that, and assuming his life meshed with that attitude, I guess he will be second-guessing that line for all of eternity.  How tragic!

That Tweet made me think that there are so many people who have such a cavalier attitude about the afterlife, about heaven, about hell, and about the reality of the judgment that awaits all people when they die (Hebrews 9:27).  There’s only two eternal realities on the other side, and yet so many people operate with either a smug arrogance that they know for certain that neither place exists (perhaps based on a few selective Google searches or whatever convenient reasons they may have) or, perhaps more insidiously, they reimagine some fanciful concept of each that differs markedly from what the Bible says each is like, along with what the Bible says is required for entrance into the more desirable one of the two (to be perfectly clear, that would be heaven).

And with every passing day, more and more people embrace this horrifying view.  They think heaven is overrated.

We have two choices.  We can talk about how awful this is.  And it is absolutely awful that people think this way, but that is a non-productive response.  The other choice is that we can help people discover the truth of heaven and help them seek and find it through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.

"...THE REALITY IS THAT JUST ONE SECOND IN HEAVEN WILL REMIND EVERYONE JUST HOW UNDERRATED HEAVEN REALLY IS."

That’s what Lakeshore is all about.  We try to focus more on shining the light of Jesus’ love onto the lives of others instead of simply cursing the darkness and remaining in some cloistered holy huddle of avoidance.  We can be in the world, and yet remain unlike the prevailing views of the world at the same time (1 John 2:15-17).

So let’s all show the love of Jesus to others and invite them to church and to faith in Jesus.  Because the reality is that just one second in heaven will remind everyone just how underrated heaven really is.

Warmly,
Vince

JANUARY 19, 2023

Lakeshore Friends—

If you fail to plan, you know what happens: you plan to fail.

You may be able to make things work for a while when you fly by the seat of your pants.  But in time, it always catches up with you. And you usually see failure occur in times of crisis when there is little margin for error.  Then the chaos begins.

This truth applies to our finances as well.  There is nothing that predicts financial stability quite like the presence of a solid financial plan in our lives. 

Over the next two weeks in our current series, The Economy Is Bad, But God Is Good, we’ll look at the practice that helps us plan well, and the threat that keeps us from planning well.

My hope for these next two weeks (and through the series as a whole) is to help you be prepared for as many financial challenges as possible.  These are difficult times and the financial headwinds we are facing may last longer than we think and be more significant than we realize.  But the more prepared we are with a plan, the less likely it is that we’ll fail.

Warmly,
Vince

JANUARY 12, 2023

Lakeshore Friends—

Recent financial numbers don’t lie.  We’ve just come off a year with cost of living increases surging, and annualized inflation at around 8%, levels we haven’t seen in over 40 years.  It’s impacting the cost of virtually everything we buy.  We’ve also seen interest rates climb to over double what they were just a year ago, impacting the cost of purchases that require financing.  

We’ve seen stock market investments end the year with double-digit losses (the benchmark S&P 500 fell by a whopping -19.4% in 2022!), impacting the money we have available for our present and future retirement needs. 

And on top of all this, the outlook isn’t expected to improve any time soon.  Taken all together, these are difficult times for our financial security.

Despite all of this, I am 100 percent confident in this truth: even when the economy is bad, God is always good!  And His goodness extends to giving us amazing financial principles that can help us navigate virtually any and every bad economy we face.  After all, God does own it all (see Exodus 19:5, Psalm 24:1), so that means He can distribute it any way He wishes to.  And He tells us how to use money in ways that please Him and lead to optimal financial success.

On Sunday, we’re beginning a new series to help provide four important biblical strategies that can help you in these financially tough times.  No matter how bad or how good your financial situation is, I think you will find plenty of help over these next four weeks.

That’s because even when the economy is bad, God is always good!

Warmly,
Vince