How are you doing

The other morning at my workplace someone asked one of the men, "How are you doing?" He responded: "I'm alive, awake and God loves me, you can't do better than that!" I loved how he responded! I just wish I could claim to have said it first. What a positive attitude that man had. Does that mean he doesn't have any problem? No, of course not, but he is keeping them in perspective. 

Right this minute how would you respond to a question like that? Be honest, can you be as positive and upbeat as that all of the time; honestly, not many of us can be. Don't you wish you could be like the apostle Paul and say, "I've learned to be content what ever situation I get into." Again, honestly, I have had limited success in doing that. Limited how? Limited in my mind because I always expect more of myself, I am my own worst critic. Limited sometimes, because I just flat mess up even when I'm trying to do my best.

Do you know what that makes me? Human! You may not appreciate that fact and others may not appreciate that fact, but the best we can be is flawed human beings. We mess up! We sin! And if you don't think so, then you don't understand who we are.

I met a man one time that told me, "I never sin." "Since I became a Christian it's not possible for me to sin." I asked him to turn in his bible to 1 John1:8-10 and read it with me. It reads, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."

I asked him what those verses meant, he responded: "I don't know, but they don't mean what they say." He didn't have much to say about Romans 3:23 either, which read, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."

So, knowing that we all sin and struggle with problem of this world, how can we possibly remain upbeat and positive? We do it because we know, as the man said, "I'm alive, awake and God loves me." Paul also said in " Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

 So how are you doing? Could it be time to put a little more trust, a little more faith in what our God can do for you, in you and through you? Think about it, you will never find perfection in yourself, but only through your relationship to God.

--Russ Lawson