Proverbs 24:16 “For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.”

When you are young and you fall off your bicycle, you scrape your knee. You might cry and go find your mom. You think getting a Band-Aid with your favorite cartoon character on it will make everything all right again. The next day you’re out on your street riding your bike again. If you fall off a bike when you’re an adult: You cry. Call an ambulance. Spend four hours at the ER. Rack up thousands of dollars in medical bills. You end up in physical therapy. You think “I am too old to be doing dumb stuff like that!” You never get back on a bicycle again. Just as a physical fall, falling into sin can have a different result at different ages. Not to imply that the young cannot make life altering falls in their Christian life, but it is usually harder on you when you fall as an adult or teenager than as a young child.

When we choose to sin, we forget that “falling into sin” can have lasting effects. I sprained my ankle when I was a teenager. I basically ignored it that summer. I’d elevate it when it hurt but I never let it heal properly because I stood on it constantly. That ankle ended up needing physical therapy. My right ankle is weaker than my left one even today, many years later. It will roll on me at the oddest times. I’ve sprained that ankle multiple times since that summer because it is very susceptible to sprain again-because it is weaker. After a fall in your Christian life, you have to be prepared for that weakness in your life. You have to be cognitive of the fact that you have a weakness and compensate accordingly. If I go roller skating, I will wear an ankle wrap. Not because I have a sprained ankle but because it needs extra support. It’s the same with our Christian lives. Maybe you need to type out Proverbs 15:1 and put it on your fridge if you have fallen in the area of yelling and arguing. Maybe you complain about everything. Strengthen yourself by reading Philippians 2:14-15 every day. Maybe you need a friend to hold you accountable for your social media usage. Maybe you need to drive a different way home. Maybe you need to listen to sermons online instead of the radio. Whatever your weakness is, there is a way to strengthen your life.

What new Christians do not realize is that it is not the first time you fall that it is the hardest to get back up. It is the second, third or fourth time you make that fall-that choice to sin. It is a shameful thing to have to say “Yes, I am a Christian. Yes, I know better but I did it again.” Did you notice that in Proverbs 24:16 it says that a just man falleth seven times? It is not the number that is significant. It is the fact that you will fall and you need to rise again. Is it hard to get back up after a fall? Yes! But we don’t quit things just because they are hard. The alternative consequence is too severe. “… but the wicked shall fall into mischief.”

Now it may not be everyone’s, but this is one of my favorite verses in the Bible. It offers such encouragement to me as a Christian. It is an acknowledgement that- yes, you as a Christian will fall. You are not perfect and neither is anyone else. Have you ever thought about when Christians in the Bible were used greatly? It wasn’t until after Peter denied Jesus three times that God used him to preach to thousands. It wasn’t until after Paul had held the coats during the stoning of Stephen that he was converted and turned the world upside down. The unsaved like to pounce on any discrepancies in the life of anyone who claims to be a Christian. They use these faults to try and discredit God and His Word. But the Christian understands that no person is perfect and we are all just sinners saved by grace. God can use anyone who doesn’t quit when they fall. Choose to forget your past failures. Make a plan to strengthen your life. Get up and do right from now on by the grace of God! “A just man falleth seven times and riseth up again.”