Do you get caught up in obsessively checking the number of likes, followers and shares you get on social media?
Join us as we talk about how these numbers can feed our pride and how it can affect us spiritually.
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David’s Census and Pride in Numbers
CJ: Hey gang, CJ Hitz here along with my wife Shelley, and we’re happy to be with you for another Weekly Godly Gain Segment.
SHELLEY: Hey!
CJ: This week I’ve been thinking a lot about this whole topic of numbers and social media, and I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get caught up in constantly checking Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, how many likes did I get?
SHELLEY: I think we’re all guilty on that.
CJ: How many followers do I have? How many total do I have all together on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram? We just get caught up in these numbers and it puffs us up with pride. That’s the topic that we want to look at in this nugget here today.
One of the things that came across my mind as I was reading scripture this week is the whole story about David and his disobedience in actually taking a census.
I don’t know if you remember, there were two instances—it’s actually the same instances but two portions of scripture—that describe him taking this census. One of them is 1 Chronicles 21, and the other one is 2 Samuel 24.
We’re going to look at one of those little passages here today. I’m going to read a few verses from the instance in 1 Chronicles 21. Listen to this, and then we’ll pull out a couple little things here.
David takes a census, and it says:
Satan rose up against Israel and caused David to take a census of the people of Israel. So David said to Joab and the commanders of the army, “Take a census of all the people of Israel—from Beersheba in the south to Dan in the north—and bring me a report so I may know how many there are.” But Joab replied, “May the Lord increase the number of his people a hundred times over! But why, my lord the king, do you want to do this? Are they not all your servants? Why must you cause Israel to sin?” But the king insisted that they take the census, so Joab traveled throughout all Israel to count the people.
And it was really quite a job, I didn’t realize this, but it took Joab and all of his assistants nine months to go around all the area throughout Israel. It says:
Then he returned to Jerusalem and reported the number of people to David. There were 1,100,000 warriors in all Israel who could handle a sword, and 470,000 in Judah. But Joab did not include the tribes of Levi and Benjamin in the census because he was so distressed at what the king had made him do.
Just a little background information. If you actually take a look at Exodus 30:12, here’s what the Lord told Moses regarding censuses:
“Whenever you take a census of the people of Israel, each man who is counted must pay a ransom for himself to the Lord. Then no plague will strike the people as you count them.”
So it’s interesting that David would ask Joab to go and take this census when God actually owned Israel. Israel belonged to God, so God was the one who was to order censuses. Actually, each man and woman in Israel could only count what their property was.
So David was essentially saying, “Hey, I’m the King, and as far as I’m concerned Israel is mine. A lot of great things are happening, we’re running over people in battle, God is handing over our enemies to us, and blah, blah, blah.”
When you go down the list, you’ll see there are a lot of things that could puff up David’s pride. When he told Joab to actually go out and count he was essentially flattering himself.
He was saying, “I just have this hankering, this craving, to know how many there are. I just have to know again how many people there are in my command; how many warriors, how many swords throughout Israel and Judah.
If you read the rest of the story it didn’t end well, because the Lord actually confronted David and said, “why have you sinned against me in this way? As a result all of Israel is going to pay for your sin.”
It could very well be that when Joab went around and took that census that ransom that was supposed to be paid by each family, each person was just overlooked. God had specifically said back in Exodus, that half a shekel had to be paid in order to avoid a plague that would hit the people. This was probably overlooked; once again a proof that people are destroyed for lack of knowledge as Hosea 4:6 says.
So, it made me think about how much we count our numbers. Not that we’re going to experience the same consequences that Israel experienced due to David’s pride and flattery, but on a personal level how many of us want to constantly add up our numbers, or were actually envious?
I actually found myself envious of a couple of people that I look up to in ministry this last week. I was looking at their Facebook pages and I was like, “wow, they have this huge following!”
We just kind of think to ourselves, “Man, I just have this meager following.”
SHELLEY: As an author, how can we apply this to our lives? This is what CJ is talking about now. Sometimes we do need to look at our numbers, and it gives us insight and wisdom about what is working and not working. But, there are times that the numbers can be an idol, and that’s kind of where you were going.
CJ: Yeah.
SHELLEY. It’s a heart issue.
CJ: It’s a hard balance and I don’t have an easy answer. I actually thought about this topic because perhaps some of you can share some ideas about how you deal with this. But, I found myself having some things rise up in my heart that I don’t want to be there.
I don’t want to be envious or jealous of somebody else’s successes. We’re actually told in scripture not to envy, not to covet, not to be jealous, but to rejoice and be happy for our brothers and sisters who are enjoying success.
Perhaps they are seeing their social media numbers increase every week in droves because they are offering some incredible stuff and people want to jump on board, and that’s awesome. To be able to keep track of that can be important.
While we do that, how do we prevent pride and arrogance, and sort of this flattering ourselves like, “oh, look at my numbers grow.” How do we prevent this so that we don’t have this personal thing going on? This war within us?
SHELLEY: I think, you and I were talking about it maybe this week or last week but it goes back to how we see our money. Are we the owners of our money, or are we the managers of it?
It’s when we have the feeling or the thought that, “I’m an owner, this is mine,” versus, “I’m just managing what God has given me.
It can be the same way with social media, author platforms, or our book sales. That is just something that we are privileged to manage.
God has given this to us. He has given us a platform, whether it’s ten people or ten thousand people and we are just managers of what he’s given us. I think when we flip that switch, the pressure is off of us.
It’s not about our efforts and who we are, or what we’re doing. It’s about glorifying God, keeping our eyes on him, and doing the most that we can with what He’s given us. Like the parable of the talents, verses hiding it or make it all about us. I think that’s part of it too.
I know I’ve gotten obsessed with numbers before. I just got obsessed with it where I’m checking it on almost an hourly basis; my book rankings, my sales, my social media numbers, or things like that. It can be obsessive.
We call this Godly Gain Segment because we want to keep Christ at the center. Yes, we want to glorify God, we want to allow our gifts to shine, but we want to keep him at the center.
CJ: What you said is so key in; that God owns all of this. If we look at everything we have from the clothes on our back to the money in our bank account and even all of our social media following, God owns it all.
He’s really entrusted us as stewards and we’re to manage what He’s given us. But we always have to realize it’s all His. He can take it, and He can give, and He can add.
It sort of goes along with the title of our show, which is Godly Gain. We want to have Godly gain, not to personal, selfish, self-sufficient gain that really just leads to earthly accomplishments. We want something that lasts into eternity. That’s the key right there, that perspective.
It just takes a little shift from looking at ourselves to, “Lord, what do you want me to do with what you’ve given me here; and still, not have pride creep into my heart as my numbers grow, a lot of success that God is adding?”
If we’re always mindful to say, “Lord you are the one who’s actually blessing me. You are increasing my numbers, and whatever you want to do there Lord is in your hands.” I think that spirit keeps us humble.
SHELLEY: Yeah. Deuteronomy 8:18 says it is God that has given us the ability to earn money and it’s God that has given us the ability to do what we do.
The interesting thing about the scripture you shared was it took 9 months to do the counting. It wasn’t just that they were disobeying what God had told them to do, or that he was being puffed up with pride. It took their time.
What things are you doing? Are you obsessively checking into social media, obsessively checking into your book sales and other things? Is there something that is sucking your time?
I know for me, and I’ve talked about this before, that my thing is Facebook. It’s really easy for my time to get sucked up on there. Yes, I’m interacting, and yes it’s a relationship, but sometimes it’s scrolling. So, it’s a time thing as well I think.
CJ: Yeah, it could be a time waster. So much time just scrolling through and seeing those and at times, those jealous thoughts crop up while you’re doing that and wasting time.
SHELLEY: So I just encourage each one of you. Whether you struggle with this or not, pride is one of the core sins that all of us deal with, you know?
We all have moments where we can be like, “look at me! I’m doing pretty good!”
And yet we don’t want to dim our light because we’re afraid of sharing and afraid of pride. It all comes back to keeping our eyes on Christ, keeping him the center, seeing everything as belonging to him, he’s the owner, and we’re just managing it for him.
Let’s do the very best we can to honor God with our gifts, our abilities, and yet it’s always good to check in, a heart check.
Only you know this; it’s between you and God. Only you know where your heart is today with these numbers.
If you have struggled with pride all we simply need to do is ask God to forgive us and it’s gone, we’re white as snow again. He’s forgiven us.
So, CJ, why don’t you just pray a prayer? If you want to pray along, if you’ve had a heart of pride when it comes to your author platform, jealousy, or something like that, or get caught up in the numbers, CJ is just going to pray. You can pray along with him, you can confess this to the Lord, you can start afresh right now, and just really regain perspective.
CJ: Lord I just want to thank you so much for what you’ve blessed us with. Lord we know it’s all yours, we’re simply stewards. Lord I want to pray for all those who are going to be seeing this Godly Gain Segment. Lord we ask that you would touch their lives, I pray Lord that you would allow them to confess any pride, arrogance, envy, or jealousy, and I pray Lord that you would just bring a spirit of refreshment to them. Lord I pray that they would have a healthy way and outlook of looking at their numbers and just being able to see that you are the one who’s blessing them, that they can take no credit that they hoard for themselves. Lord I pray that we would have this attitude of giving it all back to you Lord and being vessels that you work through in order to bless others, and I just pray that you would bless the social media numbers and bless people financially. Lord I pray that you would do those things, but we would not be prideful and take any credit, but always be mindful to give you the glory and honor, and thanks for those things. We thank you so much, and we ask these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
SHELLEY: Amen.
CJ: Let me close with one more thought that hit my head, and that is that John the Baptist knew this well when he said, “I must decrease, He must increase [John 3:30].”
That’s what we want, you know? Even if our numbers increase, may our pride and our self-sufficiency continue to decrease as we give glory to the Lord.
SHELLEY. Thank you so much for joining us on this edition of Godly Gain. Again, if you would like to join our free Facebook group for Christian authors, speakers, and entrepreneurs who want to keep Christ at the center, you can join us at GodlyGain.com. We just want to be an encouragement to you in these segments, that’s what these Godly Gain Segments are. For Author Audience Academy Members we do have a private members area where we are going to be housing all the edited replays and PDFs of the transcripts for you guys. You asked for that, I asked you if you wanted it and you said yes, so those will be in the members area for you as well.
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