Are You Secretly Stalking the World?

We’ve all heard about stalkers—and it gives us the creeps just thinking about it. A stalker goes beyond being merely curious about someone or even inquisitively nosy. Stalkers have deeper, more sinister desires that influence them, being secretly in love with, obsessed with, or at the very least, envious of the object of their heart’s attention. Motivations may vary, but one thing all stalkers have in common is secrecy. Stalkers hide their furtive fascinations away from the comments and censure of others, so no one can interfere or intervene in their surreptitious delights. Deep down the stalker knows their obsession is sinful and unhealthy, operating outside the realm of normal, acceptable behavior, yet because they don’t want to stop, they don’t reveal their actions to the light of day.

What a disturbing and unsettling subject! Here it is Christmas time, and everyone else is writing about some wonderful aspect of Christ’s advent, while I’m here thinking about stalkers. Let me explain why. It all started a couple days ago. I was immersed in Philippians Chapter 1 where Paul prayed for the Philippians’ love to grow in real knowledge and all discernment to enable them to approve the things that are excellent so that holiness would grow in their lives (Philippians 1:9-11). The phrase, “approve the things that are excellent,” caught my attention, so that I pondered it further. God desires that I approve of, that I test or distinguish between things to determine what is excellent and what is not. And as I do approve or disapprove of things in my life, guided by God’s Word, I will grow increasingly more “sincere and blameless” in this life, until the day I am completely transformed by Jesus.

Oh, how I long to be more sincere, more blameless now! The word sincere literally means “without wax.” It means that there’s nothing hidden, basically, what you see is what you get. Blameless means there’s no basis for accusation, no skeletons in the closet, nothing to bring shame if someone takes a look. So, if I want to grow increasingly more sincere and blameless then I want to be in the habit of testing my thoughts, motives, and actions to see if they line up with and give glory to the Lord.

And somehow in my jumbled thoughts, I leapt from approving the things that are excellent to thinking about the things my heart approves of that I would be embarrassed to admit to others. The secret stuff. Hidden and tucked away mental delights can lead me too close to the edge of the cliff, so that I fall from what is “excellent” into what is not excellent.

Thomas Brooks observed, “Satan designs to keep souls from holy duties. His first device is to present the world in such a dress as to ensnare the soul and win the affections. He represents the world in its beauty, and no sooner casts out his golden bait but we are ready to play with it, and to nibble at it.” [Thomas Brooks, editor Richard Rushing, Voices from the Past, Volume 2 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2016), 344]. Satan is good at his job. He’s been ensnaring and captivating hearts with wickedness and sin since creation. He knows what he’s doing—and how to entice our hearts so we slowly become captivated by the world’s glitter and glam. And if he is successful, we will grow increasingly more entranced with the not so excellent things.

Dear believer, you may not be a friend of the world (James 4:4; 1 John 2:15), but is it possible that you stalk it? Are you secretly enamored by its allurements? Do you find your thoughts more focused on its ways than God’s? Believers who are world stalkers are secretive about their fascination with the world and its ways, often unwilling to admit how besotted they have become with the world. Of course, that could never be any one of us reading here, could it? Paul said, “Take heed if you think you stand, lest you fall” in 1 Corinthians 10:12. Never say never, for as Thomas Brooks put it, “the great things of the world are a danger to the corruptions in the hearts of men [Ibid.].”

“But, I’m not a stalker,” you might say. “That’s too harsh, too strong of a term to describe my mental forays into the world. I’m merely curious about what’s going on in the world around me. After all, we’re told not to love the world or the things of the world and that those who are friends of the world are enemies of God (James 4:4; 1 John 2:15). As a believer, I would never engage in such deceitfully sinful behavior as stalking.”

We wouldn’t stalk the world, or would we? Though we have been rescued from sin, death, Satan’s rule, and have been given a completely new identity in Christ, a new heart, new motivations and new allegiances, sometimes, we can still find the world all too enticing. Why would a believer engage in bit of world stalking? Why furtively ogle the world’s fashion, its fantasies, and even its fun? Why envy the wicked, who are Christ’s enemies, who worship at the altar of their appetites, who glory in their shameless and shameful activities, and set their minds on earthly things (Philippians 3:18-19)?

Why indeed? We know the world is passing away and also its lusts (1 John 2:17). We know that the world’s best treasures cannot satisfy hearts that were made to be fulfilled only in God (Ephesians 3:19). We know Satan is a liar and his promises are empty, yet still that “golden bait” glitters and draws us in.

Could it be that we forget that we are citizens of heaven, who wait eagerly for our Lord Jesus, who will transform us in holiness like His own (Philippians 3:20-21)? Could it be that we forget the better home, better treasures, better delights waiting for us in heaven (Hebrews 11:16)? Could it be that we forget we are called to holiness, to walk in holiness, just as Jesus did (1 Peter 1:14-16)? Could it be that we forget that the promises and blessings of God are more than enough to fill our souls (2 Peter 1:2-4)? Could it be that we forget the abyss and how perilously easy it is for anyone to fall into and become entangled in sin (1 Corinthians 10:12-13)?

Growing more excellent in our thoughts means we first go to the Lord in very much the same way the psalmist did in Psalm 139:23-24. “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.” As we bring the inner workings of thoughts, motivations, and desires into the Lord’s presence, we will grow in holiness and spiritual strength to flee our infatuations with the world and its ways. Jude 24-25 encourages us that the Lord alone is able to keep us from stumbling into sin and to make us “stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy.”