What if God ran Google…

The other day I was messing around in Google analytics marveling at the statistics it provides. It shows me where people who visit this site come from, how they found it, how long they stayed etc. I wish it told me your names so I could thank you for reading this work, but it does not.

What I have learned is that most people who visit do so organically. A googleized term meaning you typed in a search word and clicked onto the site. No big deal right? It is actually. 80% of the people who find the site do so through organic google searches.

You see I did not set out to build a popular site, frankly I am happier to be in obscurity since I am being uncomfortably transparent here. So if you don’t tell your friends about the site, fine, really! I set out to honor God. I set out to document my own faith journey and in doing so hoped that it might touch some person who might find God themselves in part from reading my story. That is it the only goal.

Funny thing happened in Google analytics when I realized the significance of an 80% organic score with a healthy growing reader base. I was hitting near the top of search phrases in google! That is the only way people who do not know me were finding the site.

I am humbled to discover that for certain search phrases I was coming up on the second and even first page of google results. This stunned me. Imagine being in the top twenty results of hundreds of thousands of hits even in tens of millions. For those of you who may not know it is commonly believed that if you do not show up on the first three pages of google people will not find you since they either refine their search or stop looking further. So here I am on page one and two. What keywords were amplifying my search results?

how do I know if I am saved

This question when entered into google spits one of my blog posts out at # 17 of 12,900,000 results!

When I saw this and realized the post actually was not even intended to answer this question directly I was shaken. You see google has a complicated algorithm it uses to rank the importance of web articles and returns them accordingly. It returned my post in the top 0.000013% of all results.

I do not believe this is accidental, a coincidence, even a fancy algorithm, I believe this is God at work using this post to reach out to those curious about what it means to be saved.

So then I started to get creative…

What if God ran Google

• It would not be spiders crawling web sites it would be saints
  
  
• It would no longer be pay per click, but kneel per click
  
  
• Safe search really would be
  
  
• Search result 12,900,000 would of course be shown first and mine would be ranked 12,899,983’rd
  
  
• Never again would you skip past a seemingly unrelated result but stop and wonder “What is he trying to tell me here???”
  
  
• Somehow the words Prayer, Worship, Faith Hope and Love would mysteriously appear in every search. Love would of course be first and in bold font.
  
  
• No matter how hard they try to remove his name, God would appear in the text of every search
  
  
• You could conduct the same keyword search day after day and get completely different and richer meaning from the results
  
  
• The poor of spirit would always get the quickest response times and best search results
  
  
• Somehow the rich guy, he just couldn’t get the search button to actually work and return any results
  
  
• All the old school web experts would be offended and refuse to consider what their search results meant
  
  
• And when the final search was hit it would return a simple message that every knee should bow and every tongue confess the name of Jesus.

Do you have any others? I would love to hear them. Post a comment.

Father I thank you for all you do to draw us near

I praise you for the creative spirit you have blessed us with

I praise you for keen intellects

Father I pray that you continue to shower us with your blessings

That we continue to seek you in all our actions in all our heart

I thank you for our salvation and hope in your son

Our savior

Jesus Christ

Amen

What is your story?

So what is your story of salvation? Do you know it? Are you saved? Is your eternal future secure?

Heady questions aren’t they. These are the things of spiritual giants; those fearless souls who, to quote Bill Hybels, will walk across the room and ask you. Imagine.

How do you gain that level of conviction in your heart? How do you overcome your fears of the flesh to live out real time the great commission? I really do not know.

However there has been a convergence in my heart of late of a number of spiritual truths that seem to be ready to reveal the answer to me. Over the next few days I would like to share with you what they are and how they have profoundly impacted my life. For today we discuss points 6 and 5. I am not one for conforming so we start at the end and work backward ;-) What are these truths?

1. It is better to be judged a fool by men than a fool by God
2. Loving God means worshiping him with abandon
3. Loving God’s people means serving them with a servants heart
4. The Holy spirit is a real being part of the triune God we serve
5. Trusting God is hard at first but obedience and discipline are paid in joy
6. We must always be on guard for the evil one, he will attack through your weakness

All of these truths can be traced back to a specific chapter and verse in the Bible. I cannot recall the exact location of each but I know them to be consistent with the word.

Through my prayer time, my service time, my worship time and my learning time each of these statements have been slowly revealed to me.

Ephesians: Point 6

I have learned to put on the full armor of God each day (Ephesians 6). This is kind of fun. On the top front edge of my sock drawer you will find the word peace, on another drawer the word righteousness stands proudly. On the inside of my belt you would find, Truth. On the back of my hair brush, salvation. I pray as I dress each morning that I be firm and steadfast in the Lord and that my armor protect me. I finish the prayer by taking up the shield of faith and the sword. That is another story…(point 4 that is)

Psalms: Point 5

Eight days ago I was offered a promotion in my work life I had not thought possible. You see I live my values. I have not walked a politically correct line at work; I have walked a Godly line. These two lines often clash. For this I will not apologize, my faith is vastly more important than my job. That said I have challenged people, stated my opinion (in love) that is not always welcomed and walked to the beat of a different drummer. At the same time, the Lord has blessed me with the gift of leadership. As Jeremiah put it, leadership is like a fire pent up in my bones. I cannot not lead when it is needed. So I move naturally into leadership spaces to ensure the success of my worksite. All the while I did not expect to be promoted.

In the past three months I have prayed a dangerous prayer. I want the Lord to reveal his will in my life. You name it, I will do it. I don’t care what it is I trust you, use me. I have prayed this consistently for three months. Well that was until last Monday when the Lord answered. Praise God!

I celebrated this promotion with the Lord in worship (psalm 37:4) high on a mountain range in the setting sun, Jeremy Camp leading the private worship band (ipod). Powerful stuff, not even a flat tire half way through the trip could rain on this worship. Nothing could spoil this time with the Lord.

So now I oversee a manufacturing plant with 162 employees. Heady responsibility, so many families to lead, to ensure our shared future is secure.

But then this is a Godly appointment. He is in control; I am the co pilot on this flight. I expect turbulence, I expect adversity, I expect changed lives and God to be glorified.

This is going to be fun!

I will wrap up here and continue on later with points 4 and 3. These 6 points are creating a revolution of transformation inside of me. I cannot wait to see what the Lord has in mind for his story through me.

God bless you all

Ron

If I am saved by grace, why do I still sin?

Sin

If I am saved by grace, why do I still sin?

Father, forgive me for I have sinned…

As a child I must have started this prayer of contrition a thousand times, usually with a Priest on the other side of a veiled confessional. I grew up this way, telling a Priest what I had done wrong, receiving prayers and acts of penance. Each time, while I felt intellectually freer, I never felt clean never felt washed in Christ’s gift of grace.

Why was that?

I think at the root of the problem is the conflict of my carnal and spiritual natures. In my heart and soul I hate sin. Yet as a human I seem to be unable to escape my carnal nature. Each time I sin I beg forgiveness I claim my inheritance in Christ, his grace and resolve to turn away to repent from those acts which separate me from him.

Create in me a clean heart Oh God and renew my spirit

Deep within me I know that Christ is doing a work in me. He is transforming me. One day I hope to be changed enough that I will begin to reflect his glory and not my small self. I see my heart and it is stained black with sin, but through the cross these stains are being moved toward the edges dissipating, lessening. One day the darkness of the edges will be all that is left, another day I will have a clean heart, a heart totally committed and devoted to God. The darkness inside will be brought to the light. While the darkness tries to hide, it will fail. All will be made light. God please speed up your work on my heart I am so tired of failing.

I find some solace in the book of Romans, particularly the end of chapter 7 and the start of 8. I know deep in my soul that the answers to my struggles lie in these verses.

Romans 7: 15-25 8: 1-3
15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

8:1Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.

I see in Paul’s words that I am not alone in this battle. Most importantly my stumbles are not fatal. As I have my hope and salvation in Christ Jesus my savior, I cannot be condemned. My salvation is a gift of grace through the resurrection of Christ. Here in lies my theology, I am not worthy of it, I cannot earn it, it was freely given to me out of a sacrifice of love.

Father deliver me
Wash me clean
Only your grace and love can cleanse me
I need you today more than ever
The battle rages but my hope is in you
That you will deliver me from this hell
That you will carry me through this
Father deliver me
I am before you in the dust
I am not worthy father
Heal me
Deliver me

In your sons victorious name I call on you to deliver me

Amen