It Starts With a Thought…
Picture this with me.
You are a university student, walking back from the Kenneth Dike Library. The day is normal, maybe even a bit hot. You are thinking of the assignment you need to submit, when suddenly your eyes land on a girl.
Not just any girl, the girl. The definition of beauty, grace, charm. Something in you pauses. You think, “Hmn… I like that girl. She seems like someone I could marry.”
But immediately, you tell yourself, “I’m too young to get married. Maybe after school.” So you tuck that thought away, carefully, like a folded note in the pocket of your heart.
A few years pass. You’re doing well. Business is thriving. You step out of Oriental Hotel after a meeting, looking sharp, and who walks in through the entrance?
Her. The same lady from campus!
Your heart skips a beat. The same emotions you once put aside suddenly come flooding back, uninvited but undeniably alive. You glance quickly at her left hand. No ring. To be doubly sure, as you exchange pleasantries, you ask politely, “Are you married?”
She smiles and says, “No.”
Niceeeee…
You don’t waste time. You invite her for lunch. Lunch leads to more conversations. Eventually, the conversations lead to courtship. And soon, you’re walking down the aisle.
You are married and you live happily ever after
Sounds like the perfect love story, right?…
Come back😃
Now, stay with me. Let’s rewind.
Two Men. One Moment. Two Outcomes.
Let’s say another man steps out of that same Oriental Hotel that same day and sees the same woman. She walks past him, and he says a casual “hi” and keeps walking. It’s just another face in the crowd.
Or perhaps, in another version of the story, you never even met her in university. She’s simply a stranger walking past. No spark, no emotion, no memory stirred.
What made the difference is conception.
For one man, something had already been conceived emotionally. He had seen her before. He had desired her before. Even though it was buried for a time, the seed had already taken root. So when opportunity came, it wasn’t random. It was revival, a harvest in fact…
That tells us we don’t just act randomly. We act based on what we have conceived in our emotions or imaginations.
You Can’t Give Birth to What You Didn’t First Conceive
“If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.” (Hebrews 11:15)
This scripture tells us that they could not return to Egypt because they were not thinking about it. Temptation needs mindfulness. It needs attention before it can offer you the opportunity. If you are not mindful about a thing, you can’t be tempted with that thing.
The same principle that births marriage also births sin. You don’t just fall into sin. You conceive it. You may not realize it, but you are constantly conceiving something. Your soul is fertile ground. Something is always growing.
You see. You listen. You think. You imagine.
Even if you push it aside and say, “I’m not ready for this now,” you have already allowed a seed to be planted.
That seed doesn’t die on its own. Unless it is deliberately uprooted, it waits for the right condition, the right moment, the right opportunity. Then you act. You deliver what you once merely entertained.
For example, a person doesn’t commit adultery without first indulging the imagination.
You don’t slap someone unless you have first slapped them in your heart. It all starts with what you allow yourself to feel. You can’t walk physically where you haven’t already gone emotionally.
That’s where many of us miss it. We think if we haven’t done the act, then we’re fine, but the womb is already carrying something.
Jesus said, “Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28) He didn’t say you might. He said you already have. Emotional conception precedes physical delivery.
Just like a pregnancy doesn’t show immediately, sinful desires don’t always manifest instantly.
However, give them time. Nurture them. Stroke them. Refuse to kill them, and before long, you will act them out.
This is why James 1:14–15 says, “Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”
It doesn’t say another person’s lust. It says your own. That means what tempts me may not tempt you. What ignites you may bore someone else.
Just like that man remembered a woman years later because he had already seen and conceived the possibility of marriage, so also do we give birth to sin because we once conceived the possibility of disobedience.
How to Uproot Sinful Conceptions Before They Grow
If you are not planning to give birth to that hatred, that jealousy, that lust, then you must abort it. Kill it before it grows. Starve it before it speaks. Don’t carry an emotional pregnancy you don’t want to live with. Expose it to the light of God’s Word. Talk to God about it before it takes root.
Confess it. Renounce it. Replace it.
If you don’t want to deliver it later, then don’t conceive it now. If you’ve already conceived it, it’s not too late. Take it before the Lord in repentance. Abort it through prayer, scripture, and discipline.
Romans 8:13 says, “If you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.”
You can’t cuddle sin and pray it away at the same time. You have to cut the umbilical cord, the source of life.
Guard Your Eyes. Guard Your Heart.
If you’re constantly watching content that celebrates something sinful, don’t be shocked when your mind and body starts agreeing. You are conceiving through what you consume.
Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Entertainment is not neutral. Music is not just “vibes.” Conversations aren’t harmless if they keep sowing flesh.
What Are You Pregnant With?
What are you carrying emotionally right now? If we followed you into the womb of your soul, what would we find baking in there, quietly growing, kicking, developing?
You will birth what you carry. If you don’t kill it, it will grow up and demand a name. It will want a space in your life.
You can’t always stop what you see, but you can stop what you carry.
Choose Life
The good news is that God gives both mercy and grace to help us take captive every thought that exalts itself above Him and His Word. He empowers us to pull down every high thing that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.
As we receive His mercy and grace, we must also respond with a resolve to choose life, to choose God, and to choose His Word daily. Galatians 5:16 says“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”
Choose life. Choose God.
