The Thursday Update

JUNE 6, 2024

Lakeshore Friends—

Have you discovered that there will always be too much to do?  Too much for you to do no matter what you do or how hard you try to change it.  The requests will keep coming and so will things that you  are told you “must” do… immediately!  With some occasional fluctuations in intensity, it will never change!

So what do you do to avoid this “I’m just too busy” life?  If you can’t change your circumstances (and most of the time, you can’t), you can still change one thing to avoid getting crazy busy: your priorities!

When you live a prioritized life, you simply spend your time on the most important things first until your day ends.  When your day ends, you pick up again on the most important things first until your day ends.  You repeat this every day until you die.  Simple isn’t it?

What about if you don’t get to other things?  Well, if you prioritized right, then it simply means they weren’t that important and/or someone else should be doing them.

When I think of the book of the Bible that talks about priorities in an impactful way, I think of the Old Testament book of Haggai (pronounced “Hag-eye”).  This is not an eye disease that an ophthalmologist can treat, but the name of an Old Testament Prophet who was called by God to help the post-exile people of Israel rebuild the temple of God.  God shares how to prioritize life through Him and we’ll look at these principles on Sunday.

Do you know how to prioritize life’s demands?

Do you live by priorities?

Do you know your priorities?

If you want to learn the power of priorities, be here on Sunday!

Warmly,
Vince

P.S.,  Wow, what an amazing service last Sunday!  The eight baptisms were incredible along with our incredible music and creative team.

MAY 30, 2024

Lakeshore Friends—

Can you imagine having God ask you to do something that you could do and is reasonable and then responding to Him, “I’m sorry God, I’m just too busy.”?  It would be hard to say that to God, if we had a conversation with him.  Just the thought of saying “no” to God for a request like this would be unthinkable.  It would seem so wrong for many reasons, like:

1. Well, because He is God!

2. Imagine if God were too busy for us?

3. Our belief that God is good leads us to the conclusion that all He asks of us is good, for Him and for us too.

4. Maybe, it would reveal that our fellowship with God is not that strong.  Or worse, that we really do not have a relationship with God that is genuine.  Yikes!

I think you can see that for these reasons and more, it would be wrong to say no to God.  Even if we are busy… really, really, really busy!

Yet, this is what people do all the time to God.  They say “no” to Him at various times and in various ways.  And when you boil it all down, when we say no to God we are saying we know what’s best for our lives more than He does.  Double yikes!

Being busy is never an excuse not to do what God wants.  Being tired isn’t either.  Neither are the cares of this life.

As crazy busy as life gets sometimes, learn to say “yes” to God every time if you want to live a life worthy of His calling of you.  On Sunday, along with 8 exciting baptisms and testimonies of people who said “yes” to Jesus and baptism, I’ll share a story Jesus told about the importance of saying “yes” to God, and the danger of saying “no” to His commands.  As challenging as saying “yes” can sometimes be, it beats losing out by saying “no” to the God who always says “yes” and “amen” to us through His unbreakable promises (2 Corinthians 1:20).

I hope you’ll say “yes” to being here on Sunday.

Warmly,
Vince

MAY 23, 2024

Lakeshore Friends—

This weekend is what many call the unofficial start of Summer.  Right on cue, the weather has finally started warming up and we just broke 80 degrees for the first time this year (yeah, late May is waaaaaay toooooo late for that to occur in my opinion).  We all look forward to this because, well, we live in Rochester and warm weather isn’t something we get a lot of.  So I am encouraged by thoughts of summer!

With all of that said, this weekend is more important for something we should never take for granted.  It’s Memorial Day weekend, a time we set aside as a national holiday to remember and honor those who have died while serving in the United States Armed Forces.  This holiday has been a part of our national calendar since 1868, around the time of the Civil War, though its original name was Decoration Day.

I hope that you’ll remember those who have given their lives for their country this weekend.  After Jesus, no one has given up more for our freedom than those who died to preserve it.  So make sure you thank God for our brave servicemen and women who make our land the land of the free.  We can never be sure how long we will have this freedom.

This Sunday, we’ll remember those who died in service to our country as part of our services, as we continue “I’m Just Too Busy."

And remember that while some people rarely attend church during the summer (something known as the “summer slump” in church lingo), church attendance is something mature Christians who love Jesus always pursue first above everything else.  I hope that will describe you this summer!

“Thank you, Lord, for giving us a great nation filled with heroes willing to sacrifice for all of us in the United States.”

Warmly,
Vince