"Good Word" for March 13th, Recap Women's Sweet Night, New Music and Free Scripture Wallpaper

Welcome all!  Thank you for visiting our Women's blog, our online place where we can meet even if we have not had a chance to gather at church this week.  For those of you who do not live here in beautiful Osoyoos BC we hope what we've recapped here for you is of value.  There is lots of new ground to cover this week so please, draw up a cup of tea or coffee and enjoy! 

New entries for this week include:  (look under the various tabs, top of your screen!)

•  Pastor Joseph's "Good Word"  on this current page
• Julie shares her thoughts on "Praising the Lord" which she shared on our Women's Sweet Night in the "From the Heart" tab
• new FREE scripture wallpaper for your computer desktop in "The Gallery" tab
• 3 audio editions under the "Music" tab - the song "Believe" sung by Pheonix, Guest Speaker Bart from Park Drive church delivers his message, a few words of encouragement from Pastor Joseph
• a few photos from our Women's Sweet Night

Preview of this week's FREE scripture wallpaper:



Just a note - this coming week is Spring Break from school and so we are going to observe the break by skipping one week of posting to the blog here.  We look forward to returning to our normal update on March the 30th!

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As always, we welcome your thougths and feedback on this content - you can "comment" at the bottom of this post or you may email us at occwomenonline@gmail.com

God Can Transform Your Life - Pastor Joseph Fernandes

There are times in our lives when we look in the mirror and aren’t too impressed by what is staring back at us. Have you ever had this experience – it seems as if maybe you’ve exhausted God’s grace or simply can’t ask for forgiveness yet again. In that moment helplessness it is so easy to think that nothing good will come of your life. As we continue to look at our series in the first Book of Samuel – I believe what we see is hope – hope for a better day; we also see that God can bring about a transformation.

Now I want to identify two things before we proceed here,

1.  I recognize that I’ve stepped out our series order as we will be looking in chapter two at this time and last week we were in chapter three;
2.  as we look at this chapter I’ll just be providing you with my take on things based on a cursory look.

I am hoping however that you will be blessed by these simple observations.

In I Samuel 2:12-17 we read the story of Eli’s wicked sons – if you haven’t read it you should. One of the things that we see in this passage is that both of these individuals were very self-serving when it came to Lord’s offering. In so doing they engaged in practices that ought not to have occurred. One of the things that we see in verse 16 is that their servant would actually employ violent means to take what did not belong to them – see further in the Book of Leviticus.  What’s interesting is that in chapter 2:14 is says there, “So they did in Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there.”

Here’s the thing that I would like to bring to your attention, it is simply that, because of the sinful practices of Eli’s sons–God’s priests–Shiloh had a bad reputation. It was a reputation that was not flattering at all. It had an unflattering reputation because of wicked and self-serving priests. It had a reputation where individuals were mistreated and exploited. It had a reputation where simply anything went. Having this reputation was incredibly unfortunate given that this was meant to be a sacred place before God, as sacred place where individuals brought their offerings to be presented to him.

This is my take on the situation, but I believe that the actions of these two priests did not represent anything positive and may well have further contributed to the already practiced norm of “everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” I wonder if there were those who prayed that it would return to a place of true worship—a true place of sacrifice as it once had been.  I wonder if there were those who cried out to God, praying that his place of sacrifice would be all that it was meant to be. Maybe however, there were those who were very critical of Shiloh because of its bad reputation. These

individuals likely would have snickered or sneered at it with contempt. They may have even pointed to the hypocrisy of the priests whose lives were in complete contradiction given the office that they held. These individuals would likely have concluded that no good would every come from Shiloh, and for all intents and purposes they may have been right, however, it does not end there.

The story of Shiloh does end in chapter two but it continues and we see a completely different picture in chapter three – I Samuel 3:21 “Then the Lord appeared again in Shiloh.  For the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord.” Did you see that!!! God comes on to the scene and Shiloh’s reputation is changed!!  Where it was once known as a place where wicked and self-serving men who did as they pleased, it is now know as a place where God reveals himself. I think that this is absolutely amazing and it serves as a reminder to me that when we let God into our situation that his presence can bring about a significant change. Allow God into your place today, whatever this place may be: discouragement, disappointment, failure, helplessness, etc… let him in and allow him to bring about a reversal in your situation. You only need to invite him in because God can transform your life!

Today your life may represent a Shiloh of sorts. You’ve made mistakes and felt that your life was in a complete mess.  Maybe you have created a negative reputation for yourself and feel that it will never leave you. You may have even called out to God to change your situation, change your reputation because you truly want a change. Of course there are those who criticize you because of your mistakes. Their cruel hurtful words try to reinforce the concept that your life is never going to change. What do you do? Allow the words of God’s love, grace and mercy to enter into your life – your Shiloh – and begin to experience the transformation that only he can bring.

Blessings,
Joseph



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Prayer at Kaye's Every Tuesday - 10:00 a.m.
7806 Gravenstein

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Osoyoos Christian Centre
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For more info: 250-495-2550

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