Dedication

Friday we took an amazing group of teenagers to a youth rally, and God showed up. He is faithful.

During worship I was trying to engage, but I was having a difficult time and really struggling to stay focused. I remember thinking "Lord, you're gonna have to do something in me because I simply don't have it together." And as I spoke a gentle voice wispered, "stop cheating on me."
I'm not going to hype it up and use explosive language that moves you and gives you goose-bumps. I'm just going to tell it like it is.

To many times, myself for sure included, we claim to be a follower of Christ yet we fail to surrender every fiber of our being, in which He made btw, to his submission. I have been calling myself a christian for a very long time, and as I look back at my thought life I wonder what right do I have to confess to have the God of all creation DWELLING in my being when I have these awful thoughts floating in my brain. When my actions may be good, but definately not set apart from the world.

As God and I continued to have a conversation during the service, no hype, no tears and flooding of emotions, I made the whole-hearted decision that it's time to live. It's time to claim the victory over strongholds, to throw off everything that hinders me and fully step into His presence and allow Him to radically consume my life.

I'm not sure about an outward change being visible, but I can feel it inwardly. I can sense it in my spirit, I can notice it in my thoughts... in the last 24 hours I have not been the same as before.
And now I PRESS ON toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Phil. 3:14


I know a lot of people use to term "redidicate" but let's examine what the defintion of dedicate is:
1. to set apart and consecrate to a deity or to a sacred purpose:
2. to devote wholly and earnestly, as to some person or purpose:
3. to set aside for or assign to a specific function, task, or purpose:
I'm not sure I can ever say I was wholly and earnestly devoted. I failed to let go of many areas of control in my life and because of that have wrestled with insecurities, frustrations, shame, guilt, and many other negative emotions as I struggled to conquer my problems on my own: The entire time He waited saying "Amanda, stop cheating on me. Stop using your own strength and depend on me. You are right, you are not strong enough.. I AM."

Dedication: Nothing More. Nothing Less.