{Godly Gain} Feeding our pride with numbers

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message, create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

Hey, gang. CJ Hitz here, along with my wife, Shelly. And we're happy to be with you for another weekly Godly Gain segment. And 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, you know, how many likes did I get?

Yeah, I think we're all guilty on that.

How many new followers do I have? How many total do I have? You know, all together, and Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, and we just kind of get caught up in these numbers, you know, and it. It sort of puffs us up with pride. And that's really kind of the topic of what we want to look at in this nugget here today. And one of the things that came across my mind as I. As I was reading scripture this week is just 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 instance, but two portions of Scripture that describe him taking this census. And one of them is 1st Chronicles chapter 21, and the other 1/2 Samuel 24. And we're just going to look at one of those little passages here today. And specifically, I'm going to just read a few verses from the instance in 1st Chronicles 21. So listen to this, and then we'll kind of just pull out a couple little things here. So again, 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 and commanders nine months to actually go around to 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.

And just a little background information. If you actually take. Take a look at Exodus 30:12, listen to this.

The Lord actually told Moses regarding censuses.

He said, 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. And so it's interesting that David would ask Joab to go and take this census when specifically, if you know the background.

God actually owned Israel. Israel belonged to God. And so God was the one that was to order censuses.

Actually, each man and woman in Israel could only count what was their property. And so what David was essentially saying was, hey, I'm the king, and as far as I'm concerned, Israel's mine. And a lot of great things are happening. We're running over people in battle, and God's handing our enemies over to us, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They just kind of go down the list. And there are a lot of things that could puff up David's pride. And when he told Joab to actually go out and count, he was essentially flattering himself. He was essentially saying, you know, I just have this hankering, this craving to know how many there are. You know, I just have to know again how many people there are at my command, how many warriors, how many swords throughout Israel and Judah. And 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 actually going to pay for your sin. And it could very well be that when Joab went around and took that census, that that ransom that was supposed to be paid by each family, each person, was just overlooked. And God had specifically said back in Exodus, remember, that a shekel had to be paid or half a shekel had to be paid in order to avoid a plague that would hit the people. And this was probably just overlooked. Once again, proof that people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge, as Hosea says. And so it made me think about just 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 his flattery, but in a personal level, how Many of us want to constantly add up our numbers or we're actually envious. I actually found myself this last week envious. A couple people that I look up to in ministry, I was looking at their Facebook pages, and I was just like, wow, man, they just have this huge following. And we just kind of think to ourselves, man, I just kind of have this meager following.

But as an author, how can we apply this to our lives? I mean, this is what CJ's talking about now. Sometimes we do need to look at our numbers, and it gives us insight, it gives us wisdom. What's working, what's not working. But there are times that the numbers can be an idol.

Yeah.

And that's kind of what you were going. It's a heart issue.

It's a hard balance. And I don't necessarily have an easy answer. I sort of actually even thought of 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. You know, I don't want to envy or be jealous of somebody else's successes. And 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. And perhaps they are just seeing their social media numbers increase every week in droves because they're just offering some incredible stuff and people want to jump on board, and that's awesome. And to be able to keep track of that can be important. But I guess while we do that, how do we prevent pride and arrogance and sort of this flattering ourselves like, oh, well, look at my numbers grow, you know, how do we prevent this so that we don't sort of have this. This personal thing going on, this war within us?

Well, I think you and I were talking about it maybe this week or last week, but I think it also goes back to how we see our money. Are we the owners of it? Are we the managers of it? Like when we have the. The feeling or the. The thought that I'm an owner, this is mine versus I'm just managing what God has given me. You know, and it can be the same way with social media or our author platforms or our book sales. Like, that is just something we are privileged to manage. You know, God has given this to us. He has given us a platform. He's given us, whether it's 10 people or 10,000 people. We are managers of what he's given us. And I think when we flip that switch, the pressure's off of us. The pressure. It's not about our efforts and who we are and what we're doing. It's about glorifying God. It's about keeping our eyes on him. It's about doing the most we can with what he's given us, like the parable of the talents versus, you know, hiding it and, or, you know, trying to make it all about us. And so I think that's part of it too. I know I've gotten obsessed with numbers before and I've just got obsessed with it where I'm checking it like sometimes on an hourly basis, my book rankings or my sales or my social media numbers or things like that. And it can be obsessive. And yet we want to be able to have, you know, we call this a 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, him at the center.

Yeah. And you know, what you said is so key, is 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 to even all of our social media following, you know, as I use that example of numbers, God owns it all. He's really entrusting us as stewards and we're to manage what he's given us, but to always realize it's all his and he can take it. He can take and he can give and he can add. And I guess it sort of goes along with the title of our show, you know, which is godly gain. You know, we want to have godly gain. Not personal, selfish, self sufficient gain that really just leads to earthly accomplishments. But we want something that lasts into eternity. And that's key right there. Just 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 crop up in my heart as I start to see what my numbers grow? A lot of success that God is adding. If we're always just mindful to say, lord, you are the one who is 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.

Yeah. Isn't it Deuteronomy somewhere it says like it's God that has given us the ability to earn money. It's God that's given Us, the ability to do what we do. And the interesting thing about the scripture you shared was it took nine months for them to do the counting. So 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. And you know, what things are you doing? Are you obsessively checking into social media, obsessively checking into your book sales and different things? And is there something that's just sucking your time? I know for me, and I've talked about this before and you guys know, if you follow me, for me, my thing is Facebook. It's really easy for me to get just my time to get sucked up on there. And yes, I'm interacting, yes, it's a relationship still, but sometimes I'm scrolling, you know, and so it's a time thing as well, I think.

And yeah, it can be a time waster. So much time just scrolling through and.

Seeing some of those, you know, at times those jealous thoughts crop up while you're doing that and wasting a lot of time.

And so I just, 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, woo, look at me. Yeah, I'm doing pretty good.

Look at me. 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, very best that we can to honor God with our gifts, our abilities. And yet it's always good to check in. It's a heart check. Only you know this. It's between you and God. Only you know where your heart is today with these numbers. And 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, you know, just pray along if you've had a heart of pride when, when it comes to your author platform or jealousy or something like that and really get caught up in the numbers. CJ's just going to pray. You can pray along with him. You can confess this to the Lord. You can start anew afresh right now and just really regain perspective. So why don't you just go ahead and pray?

You bet. 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 just touch their lives. I pray, Lord, that you would allow them to confess any pride or arrogance or envy or jealousy. And. 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. But Lord, I just pray that we would have this attitude of just 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 just pray that you would do those things, but that we would not be prideful and take any credit, but always be mindful to give you the glory and the honor and the thanks for those things. And we just thank you so much and we ask these things in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen.

Well, let me just 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. And that's, that's what we want, you know, and even if our numbers increase, may our pride and our self sufficiency continue to decrease as we just give glory to the Lord.

Yes. And 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@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're going to be housing all of the edited replays and PDFs of the transcripts for you guys. And 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. And we will see you next week. So thanks a lot.

Bye guys.

Bye bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Audience Show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the resources mentioned in today's episode. While you're there, grab Shelley's free video training on how to write and publish your book using her Six Step Ascent method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.