I am being bombarded on every side with sickness. I have three boys that have been sick and then I go to work and there have been two guys that have been sick. One yesterday came to work so sick that I could feel it. After about an hour I started getting a headache that lasted all day and still is hanging on. It can feel so frustrating and it makes you want to crawl in the corner somewhere until this all blows over.
Then I was realizing something very important. Is it really because of someone else that a person gets sick? That is usually what people say. “Yeah, I got this cold from Mary.” Really, is that how it works? The truth of the matter is that no one else is the blame when we get sick. We get sick because our bodies are set up for it. If our immune system is in the condition it should be in, we won’t get sick. We need to take responsibility for our own immune system. If we give our bodies what they need and eliminate those things that destroy our immune systems we won’t be getting sick. We can resist.
This made me think of our Christian lives. We are bombarded everyday with “sickness” (sin).
It is all around us. It can seem frustrating at times. You get bombarded at work, at school, in the stores, or driving down the road, it is everywhere. You cannot totally avoid it. You can’t control the work or school environment. You can’t control what the stores sell or what they are playing. You can’t control the billboards. So the question is can we blame these things if we get “sick”? The answer is no. We need to take responsibility for our spiritual immune system. We need to give our spiritual “body” (lives) what it needs and eliminate those things that destroy our spiritual immune systems.
First, we need to eliminate the bad that we can. Just because we have billboards all around doesn’t mean we should purposely put those things before our eyes, like TV advertisements. I don’t even know what the advertisements are today because I don’t have regular TV but someone recently told me the commercials are really bad and they were going to not have regular TV anymore. We need to eliminate all those things that we have control over.
Secondly, we need to build our spiritual immune system. If we are not making sure our spiritual immune system is strong we will get “sick”. So how do we do this?
- Spend time in God’s Word each day. Just like we need to take in good nutritious food for our physical bodies to stay healthy we need to take in spiritual food. If we are not taking in good nutrition we will get sick, whether physical or spiritual.
- Memorize Scripture. We need to fortify ourselves with Scripture so that when we are surrounded with “sickness” (temptations) we can combat it. Just like when physical sickness is around us we take extra precautions and take things to keep our immune system up, we can do the same with the memorized Scripture, it helps keep the spiritual immune system protected.
- Prayer. Prayer is another key factor. We need to ask God for physical as well as spiritual protection. As long as we are following God’s physical and spiritual laws He can work and answer those prayers for us.
I do have to say some of us have to work harder at this than others. When it comes to physical sickness I have to work harder in staying well and combating illness because I have had my immune system compromised with a major illness that has damaged my immunity. There are others that don’t struggle as much because they have great immune systems.
I was very sheltered from the world growing up so I don’t have to struggle as hard as others that were very steeped in the world with my spiritual immune system, for which I am grateful. For some every time they go into a store and hear some music it is a struggle, when for me I don’t even notice it is there.
We are all on this journey and the answers are the same but to what intensity we need to implement is individual.
Dear Father,
Thank You for Your protection. Help us to stay so in tuned with You that we recognize the temptations and that we will be fortified with Your Word so that we can withstand.
In Jesus Name,
Amen
Let’s be prepared physically and spiritually every day so that our immune systems are not taken down.
Love you all.
What do you do to help keep your physical and spiritual immune systems healthy? I would love to hear your ideas.