We would all like to be Superman when faced with the pressures that threaten to crush us, but we are more like the mild-mannered Clark Kent. If only we could be stronger on the inside!
The Good News is that Superman dwells in our hearts by faith and wants to reveal himself by the Spirit of God. “But you are of God little children, and have overcome them, for greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.” (1 John 4:4)
By “them” the Apostle John refers to the Gnostics, who taught a mystical Jesus and a “higher” form of ethereal knowledge. The Apostle John states that the Spirit of Christ in the believer is greater than the spirit of deception in the “antichrists”: substitutes for the genuine Christ. “Greater” contrasts with “lesser.” We sometimes use the expression: “to a greater or lesser degree.” On the spiritual scale, the Spirit of truth in Christians is far greater than the spirit of error in antichrists.
Opposition brings with it contests between external and internal forces. I remember watching a four-gallon drum crumple, as our science teacher extracted the air from it, leaving a vacuum. The outside air pressure was greater than the pressure inside the drum because of the decreasing pressure inside it. “Nature abhors a vacuum.”
People are like that: when the external pressure of adversity becomes greater than their spiritual ability to handle it internally, they buckle. There’s an inner spiritual vacuum, and when tragedy strikes, they crumple. This happens because what’s in them is not equal to the pressures around them.
In a world of opposing forces, we need to ensure that we have enough inner strength to withstand external pressures that are applied to us. Thankfully, we are filled with the Spirit of God, who withstands all external pressures.
A vacuum is created in us when internal spirituality is extracted by the business of life – P & C committees, social engagements, business pressures, family commitments, and the like. Such external forces eventually become unbearable, as we begin to fold and begin to buckle under pressure.
In psychological terms, the things that others do to us are not the issue but rather how we react to what they do to us. How often have you wished that you could relive that embarrassing moment when you had no answer to a disparaging remark? Sure, you thought of plenty of things that you’d say next time – but there never was a next time. In your mind, you may still be crushed.
The truth is that people can’t defeat us – we allow ourselves to be defeated by being internally crushed by the pressures of external forces. Do you know that others can’t make you inferior unless you accept their negative judgement of you? If you know that God has made you equal to everyone around you, you’ll not crumple under condemnation, you’ll not buckle under belligerence, and you’ll not fold when faced with things that others fear.
We need to be “strengthened mightily by God’s Spirit in the inner self” (Ephesians 3:16). The outer self is subject to various kinds of pressures: age, work, family, peer groups, and so on. However, the strengthened inner self can withstand such pressures, because the Spirit of Christ within us enables us to cope with them. Time in prayer and contemplation opens the door of our hearts to the greatest power in this and any other universe. The secret is Christ within us.
A major law of physics states, “For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction.” Push against an immovable wall, and you will be met with an opposite and equal force. Likewise, the Spirit of God within us makes us equal to any external opposition. I call this The Invincible Principle because it is a spiritual counterpart– and it works!