Qualities of a Dedicated Person

Hello friends and welcome back to dedicate. Today we look at the signs of a dedicated person. For demonstration purposes I'm going to give you a hypothetical. (Keep in mind that we are also looking for key words, which I will put in bold text as I go; these will come in handy later on.)

Now, imagine you are an employer and you need a dedicated person to fulfill a very important task. So important, in fact, that you have decided to do a trial run with potential employees. Think for a moment what qualities you would look for when hiring the right person for the job.

Maybe you thought of qualities like:

• Focused

• Diligent

• Intentional

• Positive attitude

• High work ethic

• Enthusiasm

• Persistent

• Determined

• Faithful

Now thank goodness God doesn't do trial runs with us like this to see who would be saved - who would become His children. We, as sinners, would all fail at several (if not all) bullet points. But now we have an idea of the qualities we need in order to be dedicated. Let's go over our list of qualities with their definitions, while we point all of these back to Christ.

• Focused: directing a great deal of attention, interest, or activity towards a particular aim.

Are we focused on God? Are we directing activity (or in other words - rising up) to pursue His aim?

• Diligent: having or showing care and conscientiousness for one's work or duties.

Our duty on this earth is to love our neighbors, bring people to Christ, and to bring glory to God. Are we showing care for our duty?

• Intentional: done on purpose; deliberate.

Are we intentional with reading His word and praying?

• Positive attitude: optimistic about situations.

The Bible says that He will not withhold one good thing from those who love Him. If that is true and we believe it, are we optimistic when bad things happen?

• High work ethic: performing your job to the best of your ability.

God knows we are not perfect and that we will falter. He is not asking for perfection, He is just asking us to do our best.

• Enthusiasm: intense and eager enjoyment, interest, or approval.

We are meant to be excited and on fire for God. Do we find joy in Him?

• Persistent: continuing firmly or obstinately in an opinion or course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition.

This reminds me of perseverance which means to continue in a course of action without regard to discouragement, opposition, or previous failure. Are we easily discouraged?

• Determined: having made a firm decision and being resolved not to change it.

When we become believers, our minds should be made up about God. As said above, we are not perfect and we aren't meant to be, we will have doubt, but as long as we are determined in our belief (as long as we maintain that little mustard seed of faith) that's all it takes.

I mentioned in my last blog the 3 D's of success, which are dedication, determination, and discipline. These three are, what are believed to be, what makes us succeed and I can't argue with it when you put it in a spiritual sense. If we dedicate our lives to God, are determined (a.k.a. maintaining that mustard seed of faith), and are disciplined to obey God - if we do these things, we will succeed and produce fruit on our walk with Christ.

• Faithful: remaining loyal and steadfast.

I think I explained this one in 'determined' just above, but having faithful as a bullet point on our 'qualities of a dedicated person' ties our word dedicate to the nine fruits of the Spirit, which we will go over in another blog.

This was a long blog, but we covered a lot. So far in this series, I think we have grasped what it means to dedicate and the qualities we need in order to dedicate. In the next blog we will go over why it is important to dedicate. Have I said dedicate enough? Dedicate... dedicate... dedicate...

My friends, I have to say how glad I am that we aren't expected to be perfect. That it was love that saved us and not our own doing. I hope that you find joy in that today.