Some days it feels like you’re living in a loop: you try, you stumble, you promise you’ll do better, and then you’re on the floor again. Proverbs 24:16 doesn’t pretend the righteous never fall—it shows the difference between a life that keeps returning to God and a life that finally collapses when trouble comes.

Seven Times and Still Standing

“For though a righteous man may fall seven times, he still gets up; but the wicked stumble in bad times.” (Proverbs 24:16) That “seven times” isn’t giving you permission to be careless—it’s giving you hope when you’re ashamed. God is realistic about the battle with weakness, temptation, discouragement, and weariness. Falling can be part of the story; staying down doesn’t have to be.

And notice where the strength comes from. “The steps of a man are ordered by the LORD who takes delight in his journey. Though he falls, he will not be overwhelmed, for the LORD is holding his hand.” (Psalm 37:23–24) You get up because God is not disgusted with you—He’s holding you. The righteous aren’t defined by flawless performance but by a faithful Lord and a returning heart.

Getting Up the Gospel Way

Getting up isn’t just clenching your jaw and trying again; it’s coming back into the light. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) Confession isn’t groveling—it’s agreeing with God so you can be washed, restored, and redirected. Grace doesn’t excuse sin; grace breaks sin’s claim that one fall has to become your identity.

And when you feel like you’ve used up your chances, remember you’re invited to come, not hide. “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16) The throne you fear is the throne where help is promised. Don’t just get up away from God—get up toward Him.

Turning Setbacks into Worshipful Steps

Some falls are public, some are private, and some are in your own thoughts where nobody sees—but God can turn every one into stubborn hope. “Do not gloat over me, O my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light.” (Micah 7:8) That’s not bravado; that’s worship: refusing to let darkness be the final word because the Lord is your light.

So keep moving forward, even if it’s limping forward. “We are hard pressed on all sides, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8–9) And fix your eyes where strength is found: “Let us run with endurance the race set out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…” (Hebrews 12:1–2) The goal today isn’t to prove you’re unbreakable; it’s to prove His grace keeps you getting back up.

Father, thank You for Your mercy and steady hand; help me confess quickly, rise again, and walk in obedience with my eyes fixed on Jesus today. Amen.

There are a certain number of persons that cannot rest until they are making a great noise and stirring up a world of dust. Their temperament demands that they be always burnt up about something. Their type of mind forbids that they let their friends and neighbors alone until they have come over on their side and gotten behind some sure-fire movement to save the world. They are perpetually dashing from door to door collecting signatures demanding the abolishment of this or the establishment of that. One such dear, tender-hearted little lady, deeply in love with the birds, appeared for years every time our state legislators met in Springfield and fervently pressed for a bill to muzzle all cats in the state! So zealous was she that the weary lawmakers finally surrendered to her pressure and passed the bill. (It was later vetoed by the then governor, Adlai Stevenson.)

The truth is that though all godly persons are zealous, not all zealous people are godly. The zeal that accompanies sanctity is rarely boisterous and noisy. So great was the zeal of our Lord that it was said to have eaten Him up, yet Isaiah said of Him: He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. And it was He who excoriated the zealots who compassed sea and land to find one convert, only to make him more evil than he was before.

If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold they are become new. - 2 Corinthians 5:17

Jesus Christ gave the Apostle, whom He called to Himself in the early days, a new name, in order to prophesy the change which, by the discipline of sorrow and the communication of the grace of God, should pass over Simon Barjona, making him into a Peter, the Man of Rock. With characteristic independence, Saul chooses for himself a new name, which shall express the change that he feels has passed over his inmost being. True, he does not assume it at his conversion, but that is no reason why we should not believe that he assumes it because he is beginning to understand what it is that has happened to him at his conversion.

The central heart of Christianity is the possession of a new life, communicated to us through faith in that Son of God who is the Lord of the Spirit. Wheresoever there is a true faith, there is a new nature.

Opinions may play upon the surface of a man’s soul, like the moonbeams on the silver sea, without raising its temperature one degree or sending a single beam into its dark caverns. And that is the sort of Christianity that satisfies a great many of you - a Christianity of opinion, a Christianity of surface creed, a Christianity which at the best slightly modifies some of your outward actions, but leaves the whole inner man unchanged.

Paul’s Christianity meant a radical change in his whole nature. He went out of Jerusalem a persecutor; he came into Damascus a Christian. He rode out of Jerusalem hating, loathing, despising Jesus Christ; he groped his way into Damascus broken, bruised, clinging contrite to His feet, and clasping His Cross as his only hope. He went out proud, self-reliant, pluming himself upon his many prerogatives, his blue blood, his pure descent, his Rabbinical knowledge, his Pharisaical training, his externally religious earnestness, his pure morality; he rode into Damascus blind in the eyes, but seeing in the soul, and discerning that all these things were, as he says in his strong vehement way, " but dung " in comparison with his winning Christ. And his theory of conversion, which he preaches in all his epistles, is but the generalization of his own personal experience, which suddenly, and in a moment, smote his old self to shivers, and raised up a new life, with new tastes, views, tendencies, aspirations, with new allegiance to a new King. Such changes, so sudden, so revolutionary, cannot be expected often to take place amongst people who, like us, have been listening to Christian teaching all our lives. But unless there be this infusion of a new life into men’s spirits which shall make them love and long and aspire after new things that once they did not care for, I know not why we should speak of them as being Christians at all. The transition is described by Paul as "passing from death unto life." That cannot be a surface thing. A change which needs a new name must be a profound change. Has our Christianity revolutionized our nature in any such fashion? It is easy to be a Christian after the superficial fashion which passes muster with so many of us. A verbal acknowledgment of belief in truths which we never think about, a purely external performance of acts of worship, a subscription or two winged by no sympathy, and a fairly respectable life between the cloak of which all evil may burrow undetected - make the Christianity of thousands. Paul’s Christianity transformed him; does yours transform you? If it does not, are you quite sure that it is Christianity at all?