Week 7 - Karen White - Who God Is

Karen White, a former employee of Brindlee Mountain Fire Apparatus and the wife of a long-time employee Tim White (Chaplain at BMFA), shared a devotion about "Who God Is". She said that devotions should point you to God.

She read from Colossians 1, starting in verse 15, describing God and Christ:

• Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.

• He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation.

• Through him, God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth.

• This includes things we can see and things we cannot see, such as "thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world".

• Everything was created through him and for him.

• He holds all creation together.

• Christ is the head of the church, which is his body.

• He is supreme over all who rise from the dead, so "he is first in everything".

• God, in all his fullness, was pleased to live in Christ.

• Through Christ, God reconciled everything to himself, making peace "with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ's blood on the cross".

Karen summarized this by saying it talks about God being before and creating everything, including the listener and the speaker. She emphasized that Christ's death on the cross and subsequent resurrection made a way for people to be reconciled to God, which is the basis of faith.

She then spoke about the listeners:

• Colossians 1:21 states that "This includes you who were once far away from God" and "enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions".

• God has now reconciled them to himself through Christ's death in his physical body, bringing them "into his own presence".

• As a result, they "are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault".

• God sees them as righteous and pure, "set apart for his purposes".

• She also read Ephesians 1:7, which says that Christ and God "is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his son and forgave our sins".

She concludes by saying that the "God of the universe created you and me and then made a way for us to live with him together forever in eternity in heaven". She encouraged anyone who does not know Jesus to talk with someone, such as a coworker, someone at their church, a Christian neighbor, or to reach out to them. The video ends with a prayer.