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What to Do When You’ve Been Chasing Likes · Daily Devotions for Busy Lives

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  Track 1: You post something, then check your phone a few
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  seconds later to see who liked it. You check a minute after
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  that again, feeling a little better each time someone taps
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  the heart or the like button. Here's who understood that
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  feeling before you ever did. One of the men who built Facebook.
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  He was in the room when they decided how it would work for
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  you. The truth was that pull you feel was engineered on purpose,
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  and one of its makers was about to admit it. We'll come back to
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  what he said, but first, welcome to Daily Devotions for Business.
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  I'm Bart Leger. Okay, I'll admit it. It's about these devotions.
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  I checked the numbers, downloads, and whether one title had more
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  traction than the one before it. I know those figures probably
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  better than I need to, and here is the tension that I live with.
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  I want more people encouraged by these devotions, and that's why
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  I started, and that's why I still do it. And I want God's
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  word to impact people, but I also feel a little let down when
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  a week comes, and it comes in lower than the last one. Both
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  are true at the same time. So I guess I'm human. You probably
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  know the feeling if you're on social media, and you post
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  things that are important to you. The post that gets attention
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  gives you a lift. The one that gets ignored makes you feel a
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  little bummed out. And you can't quite argue yourself out of it
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  because the behavior looks harmless. Posting a picture of
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  your grandkids is a fine thing to do. What the constant
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  refreshing trains in you is the part to watch. John wrote about
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  men who had this appetite long before anybody had a smartphone.
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  John 12, 43. For they loved human praise more than the
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  praise of God. The verse before it says many people did believe
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  in Him, including some of the Jewish leaders. And they
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  wouldn't admit it for fear the Pharisees would expel them from
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  the synagogue. So these are believers. They were convinced
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  about Jesus, and they kept it to themselves. Then look at what
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  that expulsion meant. Getting put out of the synagogue in that
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  world cost a man his standing and his livelihood at the same
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  time. Their silence came from something other than vanity.
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  They were protecting a life they had built. Now, look at the two
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  words John picks in verse 43. Human praise and the praise of
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  God. In the Greek, it's the same word both times. Doksa, glory.
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  So the choice before these men came down to whose glory they
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  would take. And John says they took the one they could see. And
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  notice who these men were. They were leaders. What that appetite
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  does to us.
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  John put those two sentences next to each other, I believe,
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  on purpose. So here's the test. And it's about more than just
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  your posting habits. The question is whether there's a
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  place where you'd say nothing about Christ because of what
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  speaking would cost you. Maybe it's the office or the family
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  table or somebody says something that you could answer. That
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  appetite grows on 10,000 small checks to see who approved until
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  approval is a thing you reach for without deciding to. His
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  name is Sean Parker, Facebook's founding president. Years later,
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  at a public event, he explained how the thing was built. The
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  goal, he said, was to take up as much of your time and attention
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  as possible. So they gave you a little dopamine hit every time
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  someone liked or commented, which makes you want to post
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  again and again. He called it a social validation feedback loop.
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  And then he admitted what they knew.
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  if you feel that tug after you post, remember what it is. It's
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  a response to a machine that skilled people build to keep you
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  coming back. The good news is that you can see the hook now
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  and you can decide how much of it your heart gets. Think about
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  those two things together for a A man who helped build it says
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  it was made to exploit something in you. And John, 2,000 years
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  earlier, had already described what it exploits. Here's today's
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  challenge. Post less this week and pick a number before you
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  start so you have something to hold on to. Say two posts for
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  the whole week where you'd normally make a dozen. Then pay
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  attention to what comes up in you when the attention isn't
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  coming. That feeling is the information. Tell God about it
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  in your own words. And sometime this week, say something about
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  Christ in a room where it cost you a little. That's the muscle
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  those leaders in John 12 never used. One more thing. Since I
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  told you I watched the numbers, I'm about to ask you for a
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  rating. And I'm asking because it puts these emotions in front
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  of people who need them. Father, John wrote about men who
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  believed in your son and said nothing to keep what they had.
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  And you let that sentence stand in the record for us to read.
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  Thank you that your approval was never for sale and never on a
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  schedule. For everybody listening who has been living
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  off small doses of other people's attention, show them
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  what they've been reaching for. Give us the nerve to speak where
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  it cost us. In Jesus' name, amen. If daily devotions for busy
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  lives has been an encouragement to you, would you take a minute
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  and leave a rating and review? It helps more people find these
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  devotions and it only takes a moment. I'd be so grateful.
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  Thanks for joining me on daily devotions for busy lives.
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  Remember, John used the same word for both kinds of glory and
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  those men took the one they could see. Post less this week
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  and speak up once where it cost you. Come back next time for
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  more encouragement to help you live grounded in God's truth.
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  Until then, God bless and have a great day.