17 Bible Verses About Winning

Deuteronomy 20:4

“For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.”

Reflection: These are the words the priest is to speak to Israel’s army as it goes into battle. The chapter opens with the case of an enemy that has “horses and chariots and an army greater than yours” and tells the soldiers not to be afraid, because the Lord who brought them out of Egypt is with them. The officers then send home any man with a new house, an unenjoyed vineyard or a bride he has not married, and finally anyone who is afraid, “so that his fellow soldiers will not become disheartened too” (Deuteronomy 20:8).

Psalm 20:7

“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.”

Reflection: Psalm 20, headed as a psalm of David, is the people’s prayer for their king: “May the Lord answer you when you are in distress” (verse 1). Its last verse asks, “Lord, give victory to the king! Answer us when we call!” (verse 9). Verse 7 sets chariots and horses against the name of the Lord, then describes the outcome: “They are brought to their knees and fall, but we rise up and stand firm” (verse 8).

Proverbs 16:32

“Better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city.”

Reflection: The proverb sets two qualities beside military success: “Better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city.” It ranks patience above the warrior and self-control above the capture of a city.

John 16:33

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Reflection: Jesus says this to his disciples just after telling them, “You will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone” (John 16:32). He tells them plainly, “In this world you will have trouble,” promises them peace “in me,” and speaks of his own win over the world as already complete. The verb is nikao.

1 Corinthians 15:57

“But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Reflection: The verse comes near the end of Paul’s long chapter on the resurrection. Just before it he quotes “Death has been swallowed up in victory” and “Where, O death, is your victory?” (verses 54-55), so the victory he thanks God for is over death and over sin, which he calls death’s sting. In the next verse Paul tells his readers to stand firm and give themselves fully to the work of the Lord, “because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

Romans 8:37

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

Reflection: “All these things” are the list in verse 35: trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger and sword. Paul says believers are more than conquerors in the middle of them, and the passage opens with the question “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (verse 31). “More than conquerors” translates the single Greek verb hupernikao, to conquer overwhelmingly. The next two verses give the reason: nothing in all creation can separate believers from the love of God in Christ.

1 John 5:4

“for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.”

Reflection: John ties overcoming the world to keeping God’s commands, which he says “are not burdensome” (verse 3). The following verse names the faith he means: “Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.” The noun for victory here, nike, occurs nowhere else in the New Testament.

1 John 4:4

“You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”

Reflection: “Them” are the false prophets of verse 1, whose spirit does not acknowledge that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. John tells his readers they have already overcome those teachers, and gives God’s presence in them as the reason: the one in them is greater than the one in the world.

Revelation 12:11

“They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony…”

Reflection: A voice in heaven says this after Michael and his angels defeat the dragon, “that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan,” who is hurled to the earth. “Him” is the dragon, called “the accuser of our brothers and sisters” in verse 10. The ones who triumph do it by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony, and the verse ends: “they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.”

Revelation 21:7

“Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children.”

Reflection: The one seated on the throne speaks after announcing “I am making everything new!” and promising the thirsty water from the spring of the water of life (verses 5-6). “All this” is the new creation of the chapter. The words “those who are victorious” echo the promises “to the one who is victorious” in the letters to the churches, such as the right to eat from the tree of life (Revelation 2:7) and to sit with Christ on his throne, “just as I was victorious” (Revelation 3:21).

1 Corinthians 9:24-25

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.”

Reflection: Paul takes his picture from athletic games: every runner runs, one wins, and every competitor trains hard for a crown “that will not last.” Christians, he says, train for a crown “that will last forever.” He applies it to himself two verses later: “I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.”

Philippians 3:14

“I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Reflection: Paul has just said he has not “already arrived at my goal” (verse 12), so the verse describes a race still being run. He names one habit, “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead” (verse 13). The prize is tied to God’s call, and the call comes “in Christ Jesus.”

2 Timothy 4:7

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

Reflection: Paul writes this expecting to die: “I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near” (verse 6). He uses three pictures, a fight, a race and a trust kept. The next verse names the reward, “the crown of righteousness,” to be awarded by the Lord “on that day,” and not only to Paul “but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”

Hebrews 12:1

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

Reflection: The “cloud of witnesses” are the people Hebrews 11 lists as having lived “by faith,” from Abel onward. The race is run “with perseverance,” and the next verse says where the runner looks: “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith,” who “endured the cross.”

James 1:12

“Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.”

Reflection: James opened the letter by telling his readers to count trials as joy, “because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance” (verse 3). The crown of life goes to the one who has “stood the test,” and James says the Lord has promised it “to those who love him.”

Romans 12:21

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Reflection: The verse ends Paul’s instructions on enemies: “Do not take revenge” (verse 19), and feed an enemy who is hungry (verse 20). Thayer’s Greek lexicon, printed on the Strong’s page for nikao, explains being overcome by evil in this verse as being “disturbed by an injury and driven to avenge it.”

James 4:7

“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

Reflection: The word “then” points back to verse 6, which quotes “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” Submission to God comes first and resistance second, and the promise is that the devil will flee. The next verse adds the other half: “Come near to God and he will come near to you.”