The celebrity gossip industry rakes in over $3 billion dollars a year, because we live in a world that thrives off of sensational stories of failure. The enemy wants to use your mistakes to mock you, but God can use them to make you! If you let them, the people around you will define you by your failures. Don’t be held hostage by your bad choices; your failure is not final!
Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light.
—Micah 7:8
After Simon Peter denied Christ, I’m sure the disciples wanted to toss him out of their circle and expose him as a traitor to all of Jesus’ followers. But God loved him and used him after the mess-up! It was Peter that Jesus called by name after His resurrection. It was Peter who preached on the Day of Pentecost.
God has a way of bringing things back to life. As long as you have breath, you have a chance! It may feel like the world is finished with you, but God is not. Maybe you failed, but you’re not a failure. You made a mistake, but you are not a mistake.
In the book of Acts while Paul was preaching late into the night, there sat a man in the window. He literally had one leg in the church and one leg out. Have you ever felt like that? On the verge of a good decision, but leaning in the wrong direction? Or perhaps one thing has led to another and now you’re in a cycle of bad choice after bad choice. The Bible said this man was “sinking into a deep sleep.” That’s exactly what the enemy wants you to do. Give up, roll over, surrender to the mistakes you’ve made. Just when everyone else thinks all hope is gone—God says, “No! There’s still life in you!”
And in a window sat a certain young man named Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep sleep. He was overcome by sleep; and as Paul continued speaking, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. But Paul went down, fell on him, and embracing him said, “Do not trouble yourselves, for his life is in him.
Acts 20:9-10
There is life after the fall! God’s grace extends beyond your worst decision. Down is not your destiny. God is calling you up like Jesus brought Peter to the upper room where he had his most powerful experience after his worst mistake. Let your sensational story be a comeback story!