Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As it is written:
“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” 
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. (Rom 8: 33-35)

Do you know what it is to be a hypernikao?

Hypernikao is the Greek word translated as “more than a conqueror.” This passage from Romans is familiar to all of us, so much so that, if you’re like me, you pass over the full significance of the term “more than a conqueror” when you read it now. I would say that I read the words with my human mind and think ”Yes, Jesus has the victory, there’s nothing to worry about, God will look after me if things go pear-shaped…” etc. It’s all true, but I would say that they are my thoughts, not God’s. And if they are my thoughts, they won’t stir real faith,  “the faith of God.” (Mark 11:22) They are no more than intellectual assent to my Christian set of beliefs, as opposed to the “substance of things hoped for” that is the definition of true faith (Hebrews 11:1). In fact they are quite likely to melt away in the face of tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword. Although God in His mercy will bring deliverance, because He is our loving Father and He is our shield, is that His best for us? Wouldn’t we rather have the faith that sees mountains move, that will “run  against a troop,” (Psalm 18:19) or “put a thousand to flight” (Joshua 23:10)? Because this is the purpose that we are called to.

The sense of hypernikao is not just more than a conqueror in the human sense of, say, twenty being more than ten, or even an Olympic athlete being more of a sprinter than me. The impact of a sledgehammer cracking a nut is nearer the truth. A different order of reality is coming into play. “The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.” (Rom 8:11). Hypernikao is a whole lot “more. ” Death was the nut; the Holy Spirit was the sledgehammer, and He is the One giving life to our mortal bodies. These are God’s thoughts on our status as more than conquerors.

The world is already moving into the time of separation. Deep darkness is moving across the nations, and our light has come. It is time to arise. (Isaiah 60) If we are going to arise as opposed to just being rescued we will need our light to push back the darkness, so that those in the darkness can see hypernikao in action. That is when “The Gentiles shall come to (our) light, and kings to the brightness of (our) rising.” (Isaiah 60:3). We need to wake up, trim our wicks, and fill our lamps with oil, looking forward to the return of the King instead of looking back to the relative stability of the Western world as it was before Covid broke us free from the security of our moorings and sent us rocking into the waves of an uncharted sea. Those moorings have gone; we won’t be going back there. To use the words God spoke to Jeremiah, we’ve reached the floodplains of the Jordan; it’s time to start running against the horses. (Jeremiah 12:5)

Persecution, famine, sword and the rest  are actually what is coming. They may be tough nuts to crack, but we have the sledgehammer.