God Is AbleSample

God Is Able to Lift the Fallen

“Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. And she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept.” (Mark 16:9–10)

In 1903, the blind hymn writer, Fanny Crosby, addressed a YMCA convention in Massachusetts. In her remarks, she shared the story behind the hymn “Rescue the Perishing.” Many years earlier, while speaking at a rescue mission, she felt burdened to talk with a young man who had a godly mother but had wandered far from God. After prayer, she urged him to turn to the Lord. That moment led her to write these words:

Rescue the perishing, care for the dying,
Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave;
Weep o’er the erring one, lift up the fallen,
Tell them of Jesus the mighty to save.

After Fanny’s address in Massachusetts, a man approached her and said, “Miss Crosby, I was the boy who told you more than thirty-five years ago that I had wandered from my mother’s God. The evening that you spoke at the mission, I sought and found peace, and I have tried to live a consistent Christian life ever since.”

Mary Magdalene was herself one who had been lifted from deep brokenness. Jesus had delivered her from a life of bondage and darkness. Many would have dismissed her because of her past, but Jesus did not. Instead, on the morning of His resurrection, He honored her as the first witness of His risen glory.

Like Mary Magdalene, all of us who know Christ have a past from which we have been delivered. And even as Christians, all of us stumble, fail, and fall at times. Yet the same Savior who lifted Mary from despair and bondage is still at work today. He is able to restore, forgive, and raise up those who have fallen. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:7).

Today’s Takeaway: God is able to lift the fallen, restore the broken, and use redeemed lives for His glory.