Keeping Your Spiritual Immune System Healthy

God has given us an amazing immune system. That’s true for protecting our spiritual lives as well!

Both of my parents have been sick recently, and I’ve had to fight to stay well for exam week! I’ve been a little ridiculous about it maybe—washing my hands constantly and ducking and covering when anyone coughs.

Ironically, I was also spending some time studying the immune system for my AP Biology test. Can you imagine what life would be like without an immune system? Every day we are bombarded with pathogens in the form of toxins, pollutants, allergens, viruses and the illnesses of others.

A special cell and how it can become an enemy

One of the most interesting cells in the immune system is the helper T cell. These cells, unlike most of the other immune system participants, don’t have the power to chemically destroy or engulf invaders. Instead, they communicate with other immune cells to direct the immune response. An antigen-presenting cell ingests pathogens and displays their identifiers on its cell surface, which the helper T cells recognize. The helper T cells then secrete proteins that activate T or B cells to specialize for the pathogen’s destruction.

It wasn’t fully realized how important these cells were until AIDS became an international concern. The invading virus, HIV, infects helper T cells and inserts its genetic material into the cells, making them into virus factories. Newly created viruses emerge from the cell and infect more and more helper T cells, initiating a cellular civil war!

As more and more helper T cells are infected and destroyed, the diseased person is eventually said to have AIDS. Without the helper T cells to give instructions, the immune system falls apart and cancer, bacteria and other viruses can easily find refuge in the infected person’s body.

Our spiritual defense

God gives us an important part of our spiritual immune system at baptism. Jesus promised His disciples that if they kept His commandments, He would give them aid from within. “I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that [it] may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, … [which] dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17).

The Greek word translated “Helper,” parakletos, literally means “called to one’s aid.” The Holy Spirit is a source of help for us, aiding us in removing spiritual toxins from our lives.

On our own, there is no way we can purge all sinful attitudes, words and actions from our lives. We need our Helper to help us discern and target the parts of ourselves that should not be there. In the book of Galatians, right before he lists the well-known fruit of the Spirit, Paul also catalogs the “works of the flesh,” things such as idolatry, hatred, jealousy, drunkenness and selfishness (Galatians 5:19-21).

Without the Holy Spirit, our ungodly attitudes produce these fruits in our actions, like the identifiers on the antigen-presenting cell. With the Spirit, we can stop the wickedness at its source: human nature and Satan’s infectious influence.

“Take up the whole armor of God,” Paul urges us and gives several important attributes of a Christian soldier, including “taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:13, 16-18).

Our spiritual helper gives us the faith we need to completely destroy the negative thoughts and desires with which Satan and our own human nature contaminate us.

Spiritual AIDS

We are warned, however, that it is possible for our immune system to become impaired if we compromise God’s commands. Like the viral RNA becoming incorporated with the helper T cell’s DNA, if we let any amount of sinful reasoning creep in, altering even slightly what we know is right, we open the door for Satan! We must be very careful not to “quench the Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:19), thus allowing our spiritual immune system fall apart.

God’s Spirit and the “carnal mind” are literal enemies (Romans 7:21-8:13), and God wants us to win the war as we “stir up” the Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 1:6) through communication with God by prayer and fasting. We mustn’t become subject to Satan’s diseases of fear, apathy, doubt, discouragement and ungodly desires, which only bring death (James 1:14-15). Instead, we must “overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21).

There is no known cure for AIDS, only prevention. However, because we are natural human beings with natural human nature, we are all infected with spiritual HIV.

Paul, a man with incredible faith and obedience to God, wrote this about his struggle—and the solution: “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25).

There is hope for a cure for this deadly disease! God will help us overcome the spiritual virus if we only ask Him.

Erica Bennett is graduating from high school this week and plans to attend the University of Cincinnati in the fall. She is a member of the Cincinnati/Dayton, Ohio, congregation of the Church of God, a Worldwide Association.