GBC Community Update: What does it mean to abide?

Good morning. I hope you’re making this a great week!  Looks like the heat is here. What a great way to start June with warmth and sunshine.
 
 
Our Youth-Seniors lunch returns!
As a reminder, our youth and seniors June lunch returns this year and will be held on Sunday June 11.  After our main service, our youth will host the GBC seniors for a lunch that will provide an opportunity to share a meal and build relationship together.
I hope you can make it out.
If you're interested in coming, please RSVP to me so we can ensure food and setup.
I'm really excited about the opportunity to do this again.  I hope you can make it out!
 
 
Join us on Sunday in-person or on our livestream as we continue our series, “Firm Foundations”-a study of the book of Romans
The foundation of a building is critically important for the stability of the structure that sits on it. In many ways our faith and relationship with God needs the same thing.  How is your foundation? We continue to look at this idea as we study the book of Romans, perhaps the best book of the New Testament for this kind of thing. 
This Sunday Pastor Dan will be concluding Romans 12 and the idea of what a transformed life looks like.
Want to prepare? Read the text for Sunday ahead of time: Romans 12:9-21.
If you can’t make it you can connect through our website:  
www.guelphbiblechapel.ca  our YouTube channel as well as Facebook LIVE.
 
 
 
Thought for the Day: What is the fruitful Christian life?  Fruitful living by abiding
If we read the entire passage in John 15 where Jesus called His followers to be fruitful, He specifically said that the only way they could carry out this task was for them to abide in him.  What did he mean by this?
 
Abide means to endure or to wait patiently.  The fact that the word “abide” is mentioned eight times in seven verses in John 15 strongly points out how the branch cannot produce its own life, or fruit; it must draw that life from the vine. In other words, it is crucial to abide in Jesus if we are to live a fruitful Christian life.
 
One note, if you’re reading from the NIV or NLT version of the Bible, the word “remain” is used instead of “abide”.  It has the same meaning- stick with it.  Remain is mentioned eleven times in the NIV in John 15. Do we get the point Jesus is trying to make?
 
After Jesus announced to His disciples that He would be leaving them soon and promising the Holy Spirit to abide with them forever, we now come to the seventh and last of the “I am” statements” “I am the vine”.  As Jesus spoke to His disciples in the upper room, preparing to leave for the cross, He uses the imagery of a vine to describe the new relationship which His disciples were about to enjoy with Him and with the Father. For those of us in Jesus, we experience the same thing today. Our Lord is the vine; the believers are the branches, and the Father is the vinedresser (gardener) who tends the vine, removing dead branches and pruning them so that they will become even more fruitful.  I’d encourage you to read John 15 today and reflect on this.  We live a fruitful Christian life by remaining in Jesus and staying connected to the source of life. Do that and watch your fruit grow!
 
In His grip,
Pastor Chris