Complimentary Story
What is all encompassing, records conversations and other things for future recall, has amazing oversight of content and holds accountable all movements and words? The answer of course is spelled: ‘G-O-D,” right? Could be, I guess but no; it is spelled: “www” (World Wide Web)! First a couple definitions: I am relatively new to the amazing internet world called the Web. The World Wide Web (abbreviated as www) is a system of interlinked hypertext documents that are accessed via the Internet. With a web browser, one can view web pages that may contain text, images, videos, and other multimedia and navigate between them via hyperlinks.
Sounds confusing? The World Wide Web is a system of Internet servers that support specially formatted documents. The documents are formatted in a markup language called HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) that supports links to other documents, as well as graphics, audio, and video files.
Is your confusion cleared up yet? I didn't think so, so how is this?... Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989, about 20 years after the first connection was established over what is today known as the Internet. Since that time, the Web has changed the world. It has arguably become the most powerful communication medium the world has ever known. Only 25% of the people on the planet are currently using the Web but the Web Foundation aims to accelerate this growth substantially. The Web has changed the way we teach and learn, buy and sell, inform and are informed, agree and disagree, share and collaborate, meet and love, and tackle problems ranging from putting food on our tables to curing cancer. Most of the history of the Web is ahead of us. The Web is far from reaching its full potential as an agent of empowerment for everyone in the world. Now, I can get my brain around that description. I say, an amazing way to get almost any information and be able to virtually send and receive most forms of information at the press of a couple buttons! You can even get an Apple “watch” device that rivals Dick Tracy’s “Communicator” and is literally the web on your wrist, yet it still tells you the time.
God is a bit harder to define, depending on the source. God is the perfect and all-powerful Spirit or being that is worshiped as the one who created and rules the universe. A spirit or being that has great power, strength, knowledge, etc., and can affect nature and the lives of people: one of various spirits or beings worshiped in some religions. Almighty God is Spirit and, in His usual glorified state, is invisible to the human eye (Colossians 1:15; 1 Timothy 1:17; Hebrews 11:27). That partly explains why John said, "No one has seen God at any time" (John 1:18)4.
In Christianity, God is the eternal being who created and preserves the world. Christians believe God to be both transcendent (wholly independent of, and removed from, the material universe) and immanent (involved in the world). Early Christian views of God were expressed in the Pauline Epistles and the early creeds, which proclaimed one God and the divinity of Jesus, almost in the same breath as in 1 Corinthians (8:5-6): “For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.”
My definition is much simpler: God (in the person of Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit) is my all powerful, all knowing and loving friend who saved me and walks with me throughout my daily life and furthermore I will live with Him throughout eternity.
The Web is amazing in many respects but compared to God’s abilities to communicate, interface with life and alter future life events, WWW is insignificant! What are some differences and similarities?
1). God is literally all knowing but www only knows what is uploaded whether truthful or not therefore leaving it open to distortions and non-factual data. God actively seeks and saves the lost while www is entirely neutral. It seeks no one, favors no one and is without moral conscience or compass.
2). God loves and forgives until the last moment possible but WWW is totally unforgiving once information is inputted. John 3:16-17 declares God’s love to all and God’s intent not to condemn mankind though many volunteer to reject His love at their own peril!
3). Once posted, www has no “delete button” because all information is “permanently in the cloud somewhere.” However God forgives to the uttermost as declared in Psalms 103:12 “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from you.” 1 John 1: 9 declares, “If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. Yet He remembers all positive acts as indicated in Matt. 10:42 “And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”
4). We can access and reflect either God’s or the web’s impact on our lives. As God’s disciple, we can choose to love, forgive and seek out others for His kingdom.
5). A similarity is we can receive input from God’s Word or www whenever we wish and apply it accordingly.
6). Like www, we can remember offenses, be unforgiving, or just remain neutral thereby withholding encouragement and emphasize only what we want or we can reflect God's characteristics in our life.
WWW is man’s greatest social experiment and may be a great positive tool for good or may be the instrument for some of man's worst behaviors and actions. Unlike www, a life in Christ has no down side therefore the big difference is easy to recognize. Once recognized, there is only one reasonable choice which is to believe in Christ and daily live for Him!
MEMORY HOOK EDUCATION uses everyday items as well as awesome ventriloquist puppetry and mind boggling interactive sleight of hand magic to share biblical and life skill lessons. Due to space limitations, check out MandMTeam.com and MemoryHookEducation.com web sites for more information on this and other trainings. Your comments, added illustrations and applications would be appreciated as well!
