Daily Devotional | Bolster Your Immunity

Science has found many ways to boost our immune systems. One method? We can eat more jalapeño peppers. If that sounds too spicy, other options include apples, cranberries, garlic, and chicken soup. My favorite choice is music. Studies have found that both performing and listening to music can positively impact our immunity.

Spiritually, we also need healthy “immune systems” to guard against temptation. First Corinthians 7 gives a specific example of the principle we learned yesterday—we must be on guard against Satan. The context here is marriage. A husband and wife by mutual consent might set aside the gift of sex in order to devote themselves to prayer. This is well and good, but if overdone, warned Paul, it can create an opening for Satan to tempt them.

How? Through a lack of self-control (v. 5). The desire for sex, which should be fulfilled exclusively with one’s spouse (vv. 2–4), might in this situation of temporary abstinence lead to a desire for adultery, pornography, or another form of sexual immorality. This temptation includes sin in both thought and deed. As Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount: “I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:28).

The background principle here focuses on mutual submission and obligation (v. 3). In marriage, the husband’s body belongs to the wife and vice versa (v. 4). This is not an excuse for selfish demands by either spouse, but rather a recognition that sex within marriage is an exclusive, mutual right and a God-given protection against lust, immorality, and sexual impurity. Such things were apparently common in Corinth (v. 2), as they are in our own culture. Husbands and wives need to take care that good actions with good intentions don’t create gaps in their spiritual “immune systems.”