TODAY’S DEVOTION (WEDNESDAY 6TH May 2026)
“So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.
Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you.” Deuteronomy 8:3-5 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 126TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF STRATEGIC VICTORY.
Glory be to God for His mercies for our lives. Today is another day He has given us the chance to be alive and do His blessed will. In the Light of our Devotional text, it is also a day to eat a word from God’s throne. A major line teaches us not to live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.”
The match towards God’s glorious plans for our lives is not possible without a daily intake of solid spiritual food from God’s heart. We will not end up gloriously, if we do not feed on God’s word on daily bases. There is so much that is against man that if our souls are not fed with solid spiritual food from God’s heart on daily bases, we will end up in hell fire!! But God forbids.
Feeding our souls with solid spiritual food from God’s heart on daily bases will help us to easily overcome the practice of sin, the dominion of the flesh, the power of the evil one, the spirit of this world, the forces of temptation, the confusion of the age, the trials of the faith, the spiritual pollution or pressure of the perilous times we live in, etc.
The Bible says Jesus was tempted in all points yet without sin. The reason was because of what He fed His soul with on daily bases, the word of the LORD. You can see that in the mountain of temptation. He responded to each temptation with a word from the scriptures. It is what you feed on that comes out of you when you are tempted or when you come under pressure.
If you feed on the secular, the sinful and the ungodly, the secular, the sinful or the ungodly will come out of you in the day of pressure, especially the pressure of temptation, and you will fall instead of overcoming like Jesus did. The godly and holy will never come out of you in the day of temptation until your soul has fed on it before the temptation came.
Let me share my little experience with this truth, maybe it will help us.
When I consciously gave my life to Christ between 1987 to 88, I spent those years with the word and prayer until my soul was built on the foundation of sound doctrine. The result was holy living that did not even know it was possible to fall into sin. I never despised those who fell, I only saw them as people who had not fed their souls with what will not make them fall.
MY SOUL HAD THE HOLY WORD OF THE LORD LYING IN ITS SUBCONSCIOUSNESS, AND NOTHING ELSE.
In fact, I never knew I could fall into sin until 2002. Look at those years, from 1987 to 2002 (15 Years), the word gave me such an internal energy that we had so many beautiful women around us in school, and in ministry places, but we were never drawn to sleep with any. There were those who slept even in our arms after seasons of intense prayer where the power of God fell and slay them. But our thoughts were not carnal towards them.
All we thought when we met any lady, especially the promiscuous ones, was how to get them soaked with the Holy Ghost and no thought arose in our hearts on sleeping with anyone. At one time my unbelief friends were calling me eunuch. I laughed because I never even knew in full what that word meant until much later.
The secret of this kind of life was not just prayer, fasting, or any other thing, but what we have fed our souls with over the years. Your life is shaped by what lies in your soul, in your subconsciousness and nothing else.
We do not suddenly fall into sin. You hear people who come to confess sins saying, “I did not know what happened, before I knew it, I was doing this and that.” I think I was under attack. Friend, it was not an attack, but a manifestation of what lives in your soul. You have fed your soul with that thing without even knowing it, now it has manifested itself in form of sin.
No one can ever fall into sin practically, until some thoughts that will make that happen live in their souls. If a thought that will make us fall into sin with anyone, does not live in our souls, nothing will make us fall even if they stand naked before us. We will just take a cloth and cover their nakedness or feel disgusted. That was what I experienced in those precious years.
We were not even doing what I call Pentecostal Flirting which many do in church today, then later marry the people or sleep with them and move on.
Pentecostal flirting is enjoying the company of the opposite sex and always seeking to be with or talk to them on phone, not because of any righteous thing, but because your heart has been drawn towards them sexually. However, your mind is yet to be drawn to it, or come to terms with it, hence even thinking God is moving you to talk with them or be their friend.
What will make it look fine is, when you meet them, you just discuss scriptures, sermons, and other religious things, but what lies in your heart, without your soul knowing it, is sexual or romantic.
That is when you find your heart, if you are single, telling you they are your wife or husband. But before GOD they are not. A lot of believers are involved in Pentecostal flirting, Even the married ones.
So, we were not involved in that. Our souls had the holy words of God in them, from books, conferences, tapes, video messages and all that, living within.
I WAS CHASTE NOT BY CHANCE, BUT BY WHAT LIVED IN MY SOUL.
Then came the year 2002, when I began to think about marriage. A pastor I served had planted that word in my ears in 1997, but I never knew it was a seed that was living in me. He had said, “if they put you in one room with a woman, bla bla bla…” We were having pastors meeting when he said those words. I never knew a pastor should not talk like that. I just laughed. I laughed without knowing a word seed had been planted.
It germinated in 2002 in form of the thought to get married. I did not know how dangerous the thought was until what happened took place. That is what I warn my generation about today. The thought came in, and I began to feed my soul with it, the feeding continued for over one year, polluting the holy words that were in my subconsciousness or eliminating them.
Then for the first time in my life, I began to helplessly desire sex with the opposite sex. It was not too long; I fell into sin. I learned that believers do not just fall into sin, thoughts that will make them fall will live in them for years, and if they do not consciously realize that and uproot them, it will manifest one day, leading them to sin.
The sin continued in my thoughts for months, defiling all my sanctuaries. The rest as they say is history. I learned in a very had way that Satan can use what looks like a good thought to open your life to other thoughts that are not so good, until you begin to feed your soul with what will make you desire the pleasure of sin.
I grew up to understand that it is what we have been feeding our souls with that has been controlling us, not a demon out there, a witch out there or anything else we blame for our actions. What we have been feeding our soul with has been determining our actions, our reactions, our perception, our view of things, our everything.
I have heard church people use the ‘f’ word under provocation and wondered why. I have heard youths use terrible words that believers do not use and wondered why. I have seen church people say things even to me and wondered if they have met Christ at all.
I have seen Christian women pursue me hotly for sex and wondered why. Then it dawn on me it is what they have been feeding their souls with all their lives that have shaped them more than their time in church.
If what lies in your soul is stronger that what lies in the Bible, you will never behave like a Christian when you come under pressure.
You will behave like an unbeliever because that is what lies in your soul. In other words, your soul has not fed on the word of God enough to be transformed. It is still operating in conformity with this world, despite you either preaching on the streets, going about as a Christian, fasting and praying, dancing in church and falling under the anointing, and doing all we do in church on Sunday.
WHEN WE ARE CHRISTIANS IN CHURCH BUT UNCHRISTIAN AT HOME, IT IS BECAUSE OF WHAT OUR SOULS HAVE FED ON OVER TIME.
The eternal danger of this is written in what Jesus said. He said,
“why do you call me LORD, LORD, but do not do what I say.” In other words, why do you say you are born again but do not live like someone who is? He further showed us where we will end in the afterlife with that kind of life when He said:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ Matthew 7:21-23 NIV
This scripture is to believers not unbelievers. It is to Christians with souls with no holy and righteous truths living in them, people who are not transformed but still conformed to this world, doing one kind of sinful thing or another with their bodies. It is a scripture that contains the eternal danger of living sinful lives after salvation.
It says we will not make Heaven with such lives, a life of calling Him LORD but not living the life. The eternal danger of ungodly thoughts in the soul of a believer is now in plain sight.
The question now is, will we allow such thoughts to be living in our souls and putting our eternal life in danger or we will seek to replace them with holy thoughts, from the Bible, conferences, teachings, godly songs, movies, and all that we can find? This is the time for self-examination. No one will go to heaven as a preacher.
We will all make Heaven as Holy and Righteous men and women.
Yes, I have done things in my Christian life that I am not proud of. They have made me wonder why I did them. Then it dawned on me that though I am a preacher, there were times I allowed what is carnal and ungodly to feed my soul and did not make any effort to bring it under subjection, to the obedience of Christ.
If I do not take time to deal with the thoughts that live in my soul that make me do those things, it will be dangerous.
There are times I have been angry at what people do or say to me, only to discover that I should not have been, that the crucified life does not permit such reactions. Then I wondered why I reacted that way, then realized I have not fed my soul with what will make me not to react that way. Until I do that, I will keep reacting that way.
The message from the LORD this morning is simple. Control what your soul is fed with. Control what you feed it with. Sometimes we feed our souls with things, other times the soul is fed with things. But we must control what enters our souls or take time to uproot the wrong thing that has entered it by making sure only holy and righteous thought enter it from today.
We must not forget that what lives in our souls remains the ultimate determinant of our eternal life. That is the message!!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY;
How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word. I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Psalm 119:9-11 NIV
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:1-2 NIV
