Once again, my nephew CJ enlightened me about living as a "child" of God.

He could scarecely control himself as we got into the truck and headed towards our house. He was staying the night with us and talked at a breakneck speed about all of the things we could do during his visit. It went something like this...

"We can play basketball, Uncle Jimmy," he said with enthusiasm. "And you can watch 'Casper' with me. And we can play video games. And we've got to throw the football. Do you still have that cat? And we can look at your baseball cards."

He paused long enough to take a breath, then continued...

..."And I'll show you my new Pokemon that I got at Burger King. Guess what, my dad and I are going to start a garage when I grow up and we're going to fix cars and I'm going to buy a motorcycle and..."

He was like the Energizer bunny...he just went on and on and on!

We arrived home about forty five minutes after picking him up...

...still going!

"And we can eat corn dogs and get some ice cream. And tomorrow..."

CJ was just excited. Excited about the things he would get to do, excited about being a kid, excited about growing up. He was excited about everything from playing games, to eating, to working on the computer. Life just seemed to spring out from every ounce of him...

...and it was contagious! Soon I found myself psyched up for some fun!

Kids are excited, they're enthusiastic and full of seemingly endless energy. And it's not just those things that they enjoy doing, sometimes they are even excited about the things they don't like doing...

CJ hates school, but nonetheless, he was excited about it..."Uncle Jimmy, mom says if I do good on my work, that you'll take me to the zoo. Can we go see the monkeys and the lions and..."

It was like a shot in the arm with the little guy. He breathed new life into me.

That's what God wants us to be like in our lives. Excited! The Lord longs for us to have that same fervor, that same zest and desire in our lives. The Bible says in Colossians 3:23 , "whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as unto the Lord, not as to men."

I like that word "heartily." That's CJ in a nutshell. In the original Greek the word translated as heartily means literally "out of" or "from" the "soul or spirit". We might translate it as "put your whole heart into it." Put all of yourself into it.

What was Paul writing in Colossians 3:23? Here's my paraphrase, "Whatever you do, put everything you've got into it as if you were doing it for Jesus."

Practice that and it will change your life...you'll never be the same again. Think about it, go to work tomorrow and "put everything you've got into it as if you were doing it for Jesus" and see how things are different. Clean out that garage as if you were doing it for the Lord, cook dinner as if Christ were your guest, study that Bible and pray, "with everything you've got in it" and see what happens in your life!

Soon, you'll be bouncing around with a new lease on life. Why? Because, life in Christ is EXCITING. It's WONDERFUL, it's something to be ENTHUSIASTIC about! It's only when we let the world drag us down that we lose our enthusiasm and our zeal and we slip into a rut of discouragement.

Today is a day filled with exciting things. We can praise the Lord, we can study His Word, we can fellowship with other Christians, we can play basketball and eat lunch and watch a football game and share the Gospel and buy a new shirt and lend a helping hand.

That's exciting! Show some enthusiasm for the Lord! Get fired up for Jesus! Lift up your voice in song to the King of Kings!

Put your whole heart into what you do today...

...and you'll breathe new life into someone, maybe even yourself!

Have a "Wonderful DAY in Christ,"
Jimmy D. Brown
\o/ Praise Jesus!