Hyper-Niked

37No, in all these things (circumstances) we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Sports fans here will resonate with the Greek word here for conquerors, literally hyper-nike. The shoe company Nike picked this root Greek word. It means, victor or victory. Here is added a prefix, hyper or super. We are not merely victors; we don’t just win. This is describing a total domination win. The St. Louis Rams won the Super Bowl in 1999 but just barely. The Titans receiver was tackled on the last play on the two yard line. Really close.

I didn’t grow up here. Have the Bears ever won a Super Bowl? What year was that? Who did they play? The Patriots. Was it like the Rams game, close? No. What was the score? 46-10. The Rams NIKED the Titans. The Bears HYPERNIKED the Patriots. They didn’t just win; they crushed them.

Here’s what this means: WE HYPERNIKE EVERTYTHING. Could have just said, we win, but the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to say, in all these things, even the hardest, the most painful, the most seemingly hopeless, we hypernike. We conquer.

How? Notice how we overcome. Through Him who loved us. This is kind of like the Bears fans who talk about the year we won the Super Bowl. Whose we? You didn’t play. In fact, you didn’t do anything. The actions of others gave you the sense of victory.

Our victory spiritually over the array of discouraging and overwhelming circumstances has nothing really to do with us. Our victory comes from someone else. Who? Him. How? His love.

This is what we celebrate this All About Him weekend: Christ’s love never fails. It never gets tired. It never is overwhelmed by external forces. As long as we have His love, we have Him, and as we long as we have Him, we have the victory. Since we cannot be separated from His love, we will always have Him, and since we always have Him, we will always supernike. We are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

© 2010 Steve DeWitt. You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author, (2) any modifications are clearly marked, (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, (4) you include Bethel’s web site address (http://www.bethelweb.org/) on the copied resource.