“Pray so that you will not fall into temptation”.(Matthew 26:41)
As long as we live on this planet, we will not be above falling sick because of the prevalence of germs and diseases.
So, then, what do doctors recommend to avoid falling sick? They often recommend the practice of exercising and boosting our immune system.
Even though our natural immune system is designed to defend us against disease causing germs they sometimes fail or get overwhelmed by these germs and hence we fall sick.
To improve our chances of not getting sick therefore we are always advised by doctors to boost our immune system by improving our diet and to take vitamins or to make other lifestyle changes in the hope of producing a near-perfect immune response in our body.
We have taken time to set up this background in order to paint a similar situation with our spirit man: that a spirit man that is not adequately boosted with the word of God, with prayers and with watching would sooner than later fall sick spiritually.
In a spiritual perspective, sin represents sickness, the sickness carrying germs represent pervading sinful practices all around us floating on the airwaves, on social media and been made contagious by friends and people around us who are already spiritually sick or dead to the things of God.
Now, the danger is that even the most “boosted” Christian is not above the daily assault of sinful germs floating all around and while his immune system is being assaulted by these germs of temptation he must learn to keep boosting his immune system on daily basis or else he would sooner than later succumb to a spiritual sickness of sin.
What does it take for us to perfect our spiritual immune system? The way to achieve this is to keep alert and pray.
Alert here means that we are constantly aware of the possibilities of temptation, sensitive to our thoughts, actions and reactions (especially, since Satan would always attack our weak points) and being avid reader of the word of God.
Prayer on the hand boosts our spiritual immune systems to to fight back when temptation strikes where we are most vulnerable.
Sometimes we can’t resist sin alone with our will power or moral uprightness ( that’s why the best of men fail in their lives sometimes) but we can triumph through the spiritual response to temptation by prayer.
Prayer generates spiritual power and sharpens our sensitivity against the germs of sins all around us, and a life that isn’t focused on deliberately building his spiritual immunity through prayer would soon become a victim to targeted temptation.
David and Peter, two great men in the Bible neglected prayer and the spiritual attack against them proved to be fatal because the attacks came at a time when they were neither watching nor praying.
We can’t resist the temptation to sin alone with our own power but only with the power of God through prayer and the word.
Like the Psalmist we are called to use the powerful weapon of prayer and the word of God to daily boost our spiritual security against sin and temptation- “have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you”. (Psalm 119:11).
Reading: Matthew 26:36-56
