The Thursday Update

OCTOBER 24, 2024

Lakeshore Friends—

Many years ago, I heard a quote from a great Christian Pastor of yester-year and it so moved me that I remembered it all these years later.  The man was A.W. Tozer and he said this: Preach to the brokenhearted and you’ll never lack for an audience. How true that is, especially today!

Everyone knows what it feels like to be discouraged.  People walk around with a heavy load of discouragement on their shoulders and wonder what to do about it.  So what do you do when you’re discouraged?  When you’re feeling discouraged by others?  Or discouraged by your own failings?  Or even disappointed with God? 

For the next four weeks, I want to “preach to the brokenhearted” with encouraging words in a new four week series, “Defeating Discouragement.”  In this series, we will survey select Psalms in the Old Testament to find answers to provide deep encouragement in our times of personal discouragement. 

Need some encouragement?  Know anyone who does?  Be sure to be here with friends, family, coworkers, and neighbors to find practical principles to overcome discouragement from the Psalmists who will show us how it worked for them in the Psalms.

Warmly,
Vince

OCTOBER 17, 2024

Lakeshore Friends—

What do you think about when I mention an event in the Bible called the Rapture of the church?  Based on my many years of experience, many people either don’t know about it or know so little about it that they lack any sense of appreciation for what it is.  And that includes so many Christians.

I think many people know more about Taylor Swift’s current concert schedule than God’s end-time prophetic schedule, which begins with the Rapture of the church.

How could it be that this incredible event—this absolutely world transforming event—is treated with such indifference?  I think there are many reasons:

1. Many churches don’t believe in it.  They have some vague concept that Jesus may come back and leave it at that.  The Rapture is too detailed and controversial to them.

2. Many churches are more focused on social justice issues and trying to change the planet.  In their efforts to focus on these temporal issues, they fail to realize that the only change that will make a difference is when individual lives are changed by Jesus.

3. Many Christians don’t know much about it.  In fact, they know so little about God’s plan for the future and that is sad because one-fourth of the Bible is spent on detailing the future.

4. Many people are living for this life and don’t concern themselves with the afterlife.  What makes this so sad is that compared to this life, the afterlife is infinitely longer.

Despite these facts, we’re out to change this by teaching you all about the Rapture of the church on Sunday.  It’s so important that it's called the "blessed hope" in Titus 2:14.  It is the event that is so consequential that it will rescue every true Christian from the seven-year tribulation period that ends the world as we know it, and will leave behind everyone who is not a Christian to try and endure this time of great trouble.  Those left behind after the Rapture of the church will endure a time of trouble that is so severe that an entire book of the Bible (Revelation) is dedicated to explaining it in painstaking detail.

How could this incredible event be seen with such indifference?

I hope you’ll be here on Sunday.  I hope you’ll invite as many people as are open to it to join you.  I’ll break it down in an easy-to-understand way and answer all of the big questions that you have about it.

Warmly,
Vince

OCTOBER 10, 2024

Hey Lakeshore—

Times have been tough for so many people in so many ways, to say the least.  As I am writing this, Hurricane Milton is making landfall in Florida.  My heart goes out to all the families who are facing this storm and myself and everyone here at Lakeshore are praying for God’s hand of protection upon them.   The same holds true for the people who are trying to put things back together in the wake of Hurricane Helene.  It’s hard to make sense of all this at times, but there is solace in knowing that God is not absent in times like these.  He is very present. 

It’s times like these we must remember what the Psalmist wrote in chapter 46:

“God is our refuge and strength,
    an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
    and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
    and the mountains quake with their surging.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
    the holy place where the Most High dwells.
God is within her, she will not fall;
    God will help her at break of day.

 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
    he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

The Lord Almighty is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress.”

But events like these always tend to leave us asking “why?  why God?” 

This Sunday, I'm going to do my best to share that why from Scripture.  We've been in a series called “What in the World is Happening?” and this week, we are raising that very question… What is Happening in the World?  I hope to see you then.

In Him,
Pastor Brian