I’m Joseph Z. I want to talk to you very quickly about how to get back on track. Let me explain. Many times people are going through life and something sudden happens to them. Whether it’s discouragement, somebody maybe said something terrible to you. Maybe you lost a job, maybe a loved one has left, maybe someone has died. Challenges come to us through sickness, through economic issues, through many different means. We can deal with things that are very challenging, and what it can do is cause us to get off track.
Now, everybody gets off track at some point in their life, or you get distracted. Maybe you start at a workout routine, something as simple as that, and you couldn’t keep up with it and you’re down on yourself and think, “I’ll never get back on track.” Well, let me help you with a thought today. Let’s go here if we could to the book of Proverbs. Proverbs chapter 24. I want to give you a very good scripture today. Proverbs 24:16. Please pay very close attention to what I’m about to tell you. It says in verse 16, “For a righteous man, (that would be you or woman), may fall seven times and rise again.” It goes on to say, “But the wicked shall fall by calamity.” Let me say something about this. I’ve heard this preached for years, that if you’re righteous and you wipe out, or rather when people wipe out or they fall, they make a mistake, they stumble, you know what? They may fall, but it just means that they failed and they just gotta repent and get back up and do this.
That’s not what the scripture’s saying here, though. Notice it says a righteous person falls seven times. If a righteous person is falling, it could mean that they were stretching in faith. They were taking a step of faith. Because, it says a righteous person. It doesn’t say an ungodly person. It’s saying a righteous person is stepping. Okay? They may fall, but if they fall, it’s because they’re reaching. They’re probably in faith reaching for something, and they fall short.
Listen, if you fell short or you’re falling short with something, you’re righteous, what you must do is apply this scripture. It says, if a righteous person who stretches out, you’re reaching for a goal and you just fall short. Don’t quit today. Quit tomorrow, but don’t quit today. How many of you know it’s always today and it’s never tomorrow, so just quit tomorrow, but don’t quit right now. What happens is, is you stretch out. It says you fall, but it says a righteous person will rise again. You may fall seven times, but you rise again.
Now, let me give you a word of encouragement with that. Something I’ve practiced for years on how to get back into a routine when you’ve been knocked out of the saddle in any area of your life, whatever’s come against you. Here’s how you get back. The most effort you can bring, or the most challenging part of getting back in the saddle, is the first step you take. You gotta start with that first step. Now, whether it’s a workout routine, or overcoming a loss of a loved one, or overcoming sickness, or whatever the tragedy or turmoil might be, you must respond with every bit of your faculty, every bit of your ability to rise up in faith and take proper, positive action. If you can do it once, you now have done something: you’ve broken through.
Ladies and gentlemen, it might take all your effort to do it one time, but if you can do it once, you can muster all that strength, all your faculties, and do it a second time. Now, if you can do it a second time, you can then muster all your faculties and everything you have and you can break through again a third time. Now, something powerful happens when you break through or you overcome or you do something for the third time. If you can do something with positive change three times in a row, now you have momentum. And nothing motivates like results. And momentum is results in action. I encourage you to break through three times, and that fourth time you’re going out with momentum and now you’re encouraged. I really believe that this helped you today. I hope it did. Jesus is Lord. I’m Joseph Z, and I really look forward to seeing you again very soon.
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