The Covenant of Total Mastership
"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." — Romans 12:1
Where Most Christians Stop
Most believers stop at the covenant of salvation. That is not the desire of God's heart.
We are enormously privileged. God has a specific plan for each of our lives and a specific work for each of us to do. If we were only willing to let Him have His way, He would speak to us again and again through the Holy Spirit, letting us know that He desires to covenant with us as He did with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Joshua.
But there is a second covenant that must come first, and almost everything else waits behind it.
The second covenant is making Jesus Christ the total Master of your life.
Savior and Master are not the same office. Many have taken Him as the first and never the second.
What Total Actually Means
Consider what it looked like for one young medical student who came to this point.
Unable to bear the pressure any longer, she spent an entire night before an examination pacing the floor in tears instead of studying. At dawn she took a sheet of paper and wrote down every area of her life — her career, her family and loved ones, where she would live, where she would work, whether she would have any friends at all, her physical body, her reputation, and hardest of all, whether she would ever marry.
She committed every one of them to the Lord. Then she signed the paper and dated it.
That is what total means. Not a general willingness. A written, itemized, signed handing over of the specific things you were holding.
Why We Hesitate
It was the total part that made her hesitate, and she found it frightening. So will you.
We hesitate because we suspect — correctly — that God may actually take us up on it. We are not afraid He will ignore the offer. We are afraid He will accept it.
And underneath that is a question about His character: if I give Him everything, will He deal well with me?
Scripture answers plainly:
"He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32)
The God who did not withhold His own Son is not a God who needs to be protected against.
Why It Is Not Optional
"And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." (Luke 9:23)
"So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:33)
"Ye are not your own. For ye are bought with a price." (1 Corinthians 6:19–20)
This is not advanced discipleship for the unusually devout. It is the ordinary terms of following Christ, and no one goes deeper with God without it.
Point to Ponder
We are not afraid God will ignore the offer. We are afraid He will accept it.
Verse to Remember
"Ye are not your own. For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." — 1 Corinthians 6:19–20
Question to Consider
Is Jesus Christ my Savior only, or is He actually my Master?
Today's Practice
Do exactly what she did, and do not shortcut it.
Take a sheet of paper. Write out every area of your life, one per line, as specifically as you can name it:
My career. My finances. My home and where I live. My reputation. My family. My marriage — or whether I will ever have one. My children. My physical body and health. My friendships. My plans. My retirement. My time. My future.
Be concrete. Not "my career" but the actual job, the actual ambition, the actual thing you are protecting.
Then commit each one, out loud, by name, to the Lord Jesus Christ as Master.
Then sign it and date it.
Keep the page. You will come back to it — sometimes to remember, sometimes because you took something back and need to be reminded that you gave it away.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, You are my Savior. I settled that. But I have kept the running of my life firmly in my own hands, and I have called You Lord without meaning it.
Today I am handing it over — not in general, but item by item, in writing, with my name on it.
I am afraid of some of these lines. I am afraid You will actually take me up on them. So let me say plainly what I know to be true: You did not spare Your own Son for me. You are not a God I need to protect myself against.
Take the whole of it. Be the Master of my career, my money, my home, my reputation, my family, my body, and my future. I am not my own. I was bought with a price.
Do with me what You will. In Your name. Amen.
Savior and Master are two different offices. Most believers have only ever filled the first.