Motivated By Pride

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.” 1 Chronicles 21:1-2

IT’S NOT IMMEDIATELY CLEAR what the problem was with the census David instructed his officers to take. But clearly if Satan rose up and was the driving force behind David’s decision, we know it couldn’t be good. Even Joab, who was not exactly a bastion of godliness, begged David not to do it, saying, “Why must you cause Israel to sin?” (verse 3). But David was not deterred. In fact, over the following nine months, he never pulled back but kept pushing ahead.

We get a sense of what was in David’s heart when the tally was reported: “There were 1,100,000 warriors in all Israel who could handle a sword, and 470,000 in Judah” (verse 5). Of course, God had promised to preserve David’s kingdom. It was never about the size of his army but about the faithfulness of his God, so David had no need to be concerned about the number of swords he could send onto the battlefield. Evidently David wanted the census so he could exult in the size of his army. He just wanted the count to puff himself up.

Taking a census wasn’t a sin in itself. There were provisions for it in God’s law. The problem was the motivation. David was driven by pride, which is number one on the list of the sins that God hates (Proverbs 6:16-19). Pride is such a sneaky sin, especially when it is at the heart of our motivation for doing something that isn’t necessarily a sin. How we need, and how our children need, to examine what is driving us —especially when we want to count the “likes” on our social media post, the wins or records set in athletics, or the number of As on our children’s report cards. What we need is for God to do whatever it takes to humble us so that we will not be seduced by the sin of pride.

Lord, we find ourselves so easily justifying actions that are motivated by pride. And because we live in a world filled with prideful chest-thumping over what we accomplish, it seems normal, not sinful. So give us eyes to see our pride, lips willing to confess it, and hearts that are changed and made clean by the sacrifice of your Son.